As Riots Spread Across America, May Gun Sales Set a Huge New Record Due to COVID
Americans are in a better position to defend themselves and their families after another record month of gun sales.
The coronavirus pandemic has seen citizens line up since March, when Americans bought more than 2.5 million firearms, to exercise their Second Amendment rights in record numbers.
The trend continued in April, when an estimated 1,797,910 guns were sold in the country — an increase from 71 percent from the year prior.
Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting, which tracks gun sales and federal background check statistics, reported that another 1.7 million guns were purchased throughout the country in the month of May, which is a record during what is generally a slower month.
The numbers represent an 80 percent increase in sales from the same time last year.
SAAF reported Americans purchased 1,726,053 guns in May, with 1,052,723 of those being handguns and 535,014 of them being shotguns or rifles.
The SAAF compiles the numbers by using data collected by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
“[Y]et again, firearms sales have surged in unprecedented ways,” SAAF chief economist Jurgen Brauer said in a statement of May’s national gun sales.
Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry trade group, told the Washington Free Beacon in a statement that 40 percent of the guns sold recently were to first-time buyers. Of those new gun owners, Oliva said, 40 percent of them were women.
“Americans are being confronted with decisions regarding their personal safety and are voting with their wallets on their right to keep and bear arms,” he said.
While the coronavirus, or the government’s response to it, has likely been behind the spike in gun sales in recent months, it is noteworthy that there are roughly 6 million more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens as nightly waves of civil unrest have overtaken American cities in recent weeks.
While some people in American cities have been peacefully protesting over the treatment of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis on Memorial Day after a police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes, others have been violently attacking businesses, citizens and police officers.
As riots and looting have taken hold of major American cities, people are continuing to arm themselves.
A 26-year-old woman outside a Georgia gun store told USA Today on Monday she was buying a firearm after a portion of her Atlanta neighborhood was damaged during a riot.
“During the times we’re living in, you just never know what might happen,” Angel Rambert told the paper.
“At first, I was surprised at the number of people, but I was happy to see so many of us exercising our amendments,” she added.
Likewise, AL.com reported that multiple gun stores across central Alabama have reported a spike in gun sales since the beginning of the unrest.
Customers have been notably worried about their safety.
Randal Murphree, who owns a gun store in Blount County, Alabama, told the newspaper that first-time gun buyers are flocking to his store and that some of them reported previously not wanting to own firearms.
Murphree’s business, like many across the country, is having a difficult time keeping up with the demand.
But the demand for guns and ammunition is not isolated to the South.
TMZ reported lines of people wrapped around the blocks of Los Angeles-area gun stores on Tuesday.
According to the entertainment industry tabloid website, people in California are looking to protect themselves and their businesses by purchasing mostly shotguns and handguns.
While the nation reels from the dual crises of an overreaching government response to the coronavirus pandemic and now the uncertainty surrounding widespread civil unrest, many Americans have chosen to respond by exercising their constitutional rights.
President Donald Trump has overwhelmingly supported those rights, and citizens have made it clear that they will not be infringed.
It appears that Democrats pushing for a radical gun control agenda are fighting a losing battle, at least for now.
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