U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- NICS numbers for May broke the string of record setting National Instant background Check System (NICS) checks which started in August of 2019. The number of NICS checks broke records for each month starting August of 2019 until May of this year, 2021, for 21 months of record gun sales!
Such a string could not continue forever. There are only so many resources, so many people to buy guns and be checked for carry permits. It has been the carry permits and permit rechecks that have driven the NICS system checks so high.
In May of 2021, only 41.3 percent of background checks were for firearm sales. 58.8% of the checks were for permits and permit rechecks. Permit and permit rechecks for Illinois alone were 30.0% of the total number of NICS checks for May 2021.
When NICS was created in 1998, there was no consideration of one state submitting 30% of all NICS background checks for permit checks and rechecks.
Gun sales in Illinois, which are extraordinarily hampered by the Illinois FOID system, were less than 3% of those of the United States total.
The population of Illinois is about 4% of the population of the United States, down a bit from previous years. The total number of firearm sales done through the NICS system was about 1.32 million in May of 2021. An 18% decrease from the record set in May of 2020, is still historically high.
The panic buying with coincided with concerns about the election of President Biden, a radical left Democrat Congress (albeit by the most narrow of margins), and promises of extreme gun restrictions, has faded.
President Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Schumer, all radical opponents of the Second Amendment, have so far been unable to pass legislation to turn national elections into a national version of Tammany Hall.
Attempts to make Washington, D.C. into a state, and to pack the Supreme Court with leftist judges, have stalled.
In spite of passing enormous funding for pet Democrat constituencies, the Democrats have not been able to remove the filibuster rule in the Senate.
Senator Sinema of Arizona and Manchin of West Virginia, deserve credit for preserving the Republic, at least for now.
The Supreme Court has decided to hear another significant Second Amendment case, which may be used to restore Second Amendment freedoms eroded over a century of Progressive activism.
In the States, four states have joined the Constitutional Carry club, with Texas almost certain to join in June of 2021. Louisiana is on the edge, with the prospect of a potential veto and then possible veto override.
The Second Amendment sanctuary movement has pledges covering more than half the land area of the United States. Over 20 million people, nearly all active voters, have carry permits.
Many still believe the United States is in extraordinary peril, from both domestic and foreign enemies. The Biden administration seeks to crack down on the opposition of those who take their oaths seriously, which the administration labels as “extremists“.
With the guns sold in May, the total number of privately owned guns in the United States is now estimated to be over 472 million, using the procedure pioneered by Newton and Zimring, and perfected by Professor Gary Kleck in “Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America”. #ad
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
