It isn’t clear just yet if the threat of impending nuclear war has something to do with it, but US citizens seem to continually be arming themselves. The latest figures from the NICS background check system, which was recently posted by the FBI, shows that August has set yet another record month, indicating a new norm in the firearm industry’s growth.
The numbers are in
According to official reports, a total of 1,925,146 background checks were processed in August, exceeding the previous year’s record of 1,853,815 checks during the same month. Although it has to be noted that not every check translates to an outright sale, the figures still give a rough estimate of how many firearms are being sold nationwide. Some checks also translate to multiple purchases, while others don’t result in a sale at all.
Top buyers by state
The honor of having the highest number of background checks conducted in August belongs to the state of Kentucky, which leads the rest of the states with 394,719. The state has continually had checks of more than 300,000 over the past eight months. Coming in at second place is California, which managed to get 130,901 NICS background checks. Third place goes to Illinois with 126,901 background checks.
A customer fills out his Federal background check paperwork as he purchases a handgun at the K&W Gunworks store on the day that U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, DC announced his executive action on guns on January 5, 2016, in Delray Beach, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Second highest by year
With just four months to go, 2017 is raring to become the second highest year for gun purchases. However, it hasn’t yet come close to the record number of background checks that were conducted last year, which saw a total of 27,538,673 checks. Even with the next four months getting an average of 2 million checks, it still wouldn’t come close to last year’s record.
The extremely high number of gun purchases last year may have been attributed to the neck-and-neck presidential elections and the threat of stricter gun laws. As of August, the total number of checks for 2017 stands at 16,268,794 background checks.