https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/us/guns-2020-election.html
While there's some expected anti drivel, it is surprising that the NYT would publish a recognition that people who have never wanted a gun are driving the sales boom.
While there's some expected anti drivel, it is surprising that the NYT would publish a recognition that people who have never wanted a gun are driving the sales boom.
Many gun buyers now are saying they are motivated by a new destabilizing sense that is pushing even people who had considered themselves anti-gun to buy weapons for the first time — and people who already have them to buy more.
The nation is on track in 2020 to stockpile at record rates, according to groups that track background checks from F.B.I. data. Across the country, Americans bought 15.1 million guns in the seven months this year from March through September, a 91 percent leap from the same period in 2019, according to seasonally adjusted firearms sales estimates from The Trace, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on gun issues. The F.B.I. has also processed more background checks for gun purchases in just the first nine months of 2020 than it has for any previous full year, F.B.I. data show.
F.B.I. data shows sales spiked earlier this year as virus fears spread. And sharp increases in sales are seemingly occurring everywhere: The states with the lowest jump in sales in September, for example, were Alaska and North Dakota, each up about one-third compared with September 2019. States with the largest gains included Michigan, up 198 percent over September 2019, and New Jersey, up 180 percent, according to estimates by The Trace.
It’s difficult to know exactly who is buying guns at any certain time in America. Gun shop owners, gun rights groups and gun lobbying groups said they were now selling more weapons than usual to Black shoppers, and to women in particular, and more weapons to first-time gun owners generally.
“The year 2020 has been just one long advertisement for why someone may want to have a firearm to defend themselves,” said Douglas Jefferson, the vice president for the National African American Gun Association, which has seen the biggest increase in membership this year since the group was formed in 2015.
But when it comes to gun ownership there’s something uniquely American that cuts across party affiliation and social boundaries — leaving liberals and conservatives jostling for ammunition because they want to brace for whatever comes next.
Other shoppers said they bought a weapon because they were scared that calls to defund the police would be heeded. Some said they were scared of the police. Some were scared that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would become president. Others were scared of four more years of President Trump.
Don Woodson was overseeing the Trojan Arms and Tactical table of dozens of 9-millimeter black, pink and Tiffany turquoise semiautomatic guns. He estimated 70 percent of his sales at the show were to new gun owners, many of whom told him that they are afraid of rioters.
“People who never ever would have had guns before,” he said. “Now, they’re looking for security.”
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