Data recorded by the FBI show that shootings, gun control rhetoric and holiday shopping tied to the top days and weeks of firearms sales, as measured by their required criminal background checks.
You might ask, “Why these specific days and weeks?”
If you look at both of the lists, five of the top 10 days, and six of the top 10 weeks, came after tragic shootings.
Numbers two, five, seven and eight of the top 10 days all came approximately a week after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre occurred on December 14, 2012 in Newtown, Conn. where 27 people were murdered - and the number one week began three days after the Sandy Hook shootings.
Numbers for weeks two, three, six and eight all came within days and the immediately following weeks of the December 2, 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif. where 14 people were killed and 22 seriously injured. Day 10 of the top 10 came after the same attack.
Number nine of the top 10 weeks could be related to an issue that ultimately involved a shooting. This week corresponds with the stand-off between FBI agents and a militia that began occupying Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon on January 2 of this year. This confrontation ended with the FBI shooting of one of the leaders of the militia group, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum.
Both the Newtown and San Bernardino shootings also have something else in common: soon after the shootings, President Obama used the tragedies as political fodder to to try to drum up support for gun control.
Numbers one, three, and six of the top 10 gun background check days all fell on their respective year's "Black Friday.” Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a GLOCK hanging in your stocking.
The closest related incidents to numbers four and nine for the top 10 days was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which began on February 20, 2014. Top 10 week numbers four and five might also be attributed to the crisis in Ukraine. Perhaps, Americans from Europe and Russia grew anxious about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions to procure the Crimean Peninsula and take over Ukraine.
Rounding out the top 10 weeks list, number seven could possibly be related to a threat received from ISIS on February 9, 2016 about an attack on U.S. soil sometime this year. Also, the Number 10 week ended the day before President Obama was inaugurated for his second term in office on January 21, 2013.
So, if Obama has had an influence on gun sales, it may not have been in the way he wanted.