The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) claims that retail survey-based estimates show that nearly 5 million Americans purchased a firearm for the very first time in 2020.
According to a release on the NSSF survey on Monday, “NSSF tracks the background checks associated with the sale of a firearm based on the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System (NICS). NSSF-adjusted NICS checks for January through July 2020 is a record 12.1 million, which is up 71.7 percent from the 7.1 million NSSF-adjusted NICS January through July 2019. This equates to nearly 5 million first-time gun owners in the first seven months of 2020.”
'This is a tectonic shift in the firearm and ammunition industry marketplace and complete transformation of today’s gun-owning community,' said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President of General Counsel. 'These first-time buyers represent a group of people who, until now, were agnostic regarding firearm ownership. That’s rapidly changing, and these Americans are taking hold of their God-given right to keep and bear arms and protect themselves and their loved ones.'
The organization claims that retailers are seeing a 95 percent increase in sales, and that nearly 60% of firearm purchases were made by African Americans in 2020.