Murthy’s Lament: Americans Bought Another 1.06 Million Guns in June

More of the same. Another 1.06 million guns sold last month, slightly down from last year’s number. This won’t be good news to the Attorney General, but we have a feeling most Americans don’t really give a flying fornication what he thinks.

The NSSF’s Mark Oliva had this to say about the June results . . .

June’s pace of background checks remained steady with another month of more than 1 million background checks for the sale of a firearm at retail. That brings the streak to 59 months of Americans, quite literally by the millions, choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights by first freely approaching the gun counter to legally purchase a firearm. That is a steady signal from America as we approach election season that the right to keep and bear arms matters to law-abiding citizens.

Here’s the NSSF’s release on the June numbers . . .

The June 2024 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 1,059,037 is a decrease of 4.7 percent compared to the June 2023 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,110,696. For comparison, the unadjusted June 2024 FBI NICS figure 1,958,447 reflects a 9.0 percent decrease from the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,152,187 in June 2023.

June marks the 59^th month in a row that has exceeded 1 million adjusted background checks in a single month.

The second quarter 2024 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 3,364,270 reflects a decrease of 7.9 percent as compared to the second quarter 2023 figure of 3,654,134.

Please note: Twenty-four states currently have at least one qualified alternative permit, which under the Brady Act allows the permit-holder, who has undergone a background check to obtain the permit, to purchase a firearm from a licensed dealer without a separate additional background check for that transfer. The number of NICS checks in these states does not include these legal transfers based on qualifying permits and NSSF does not adjust for these transfers.

The adjusted NICS data were derived by subtracting out NICS purpose code permit checks and permit rechecks used by states for CCW permit application checks as well as checks on active CCW permit databases. NSSF started subtracting permit rechecks in February 2016.

Though not a direct correlation to firearms sales, the NSSF-adjusted NICS data provide an additional picture of current market conditions. In addition to other purposes, NICS is used to check transactions for sales or transfers of new or used firearms. 

It should be noted that these statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS. They do not represent the number of firearms sold or sales dollars. Based on varying state laws, local market conditions and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale.