NICS Checks in the Trump Era Breaks May Record

The NICS checks for May, 2017 were 1,942,677.  That is a new record for May. The next highest was in 2016, 1,870,000. It is obvious from the overlap of the red bar and the blue line in the chart.

The National Instant Criminal background check System  (NICS) checks continue to confound expectations. Instead of a continual fall during the Trump administration, there was a one time drop in January of 2017 followed by a seasonally adjusted rise that has broken the record for May.

The May 2017 checks are just under 104% of the previous record, set in 2016.

The absolute number of checks for May are lower than they were last month, but expected seasonal variations make May 2017 a record breaker.

It is unclear what is fueling the record breaking NICS numbers. There are several possible causes. The increase is likely a combination of them.

The violent actions of leftist reactionaries, combined with fear that a Trump Presidency could be overthrown by a media coup, could be a motivation for higher firearm sales.

The violence on the Left, as shown in Berkley, Portland, the District of Columbia, and San Francisco, has been well covered in the alternate media. The virulent hatred toward President Trump on Establishment media, is witnessed by both President Trump supporters and President Trump’s enemies.

There are numerous stories of people on the left buying firearms for the first time.

Fear of a firearms market glut brought about a drop in firearms prices, as retailers did not want to be caught with an unsalable inventory.

Structural increases in the number of firearms owners may have increased the base level of sales.

Increasing optimism about the economy, a falling unemployment rate, and a record setting Dow Jones could be increasing sales of firearms as consumer confidence increases.

NICS checks include checks for carry permits. Carry permit numbers are at an all time high in the United States. Both new permits and renewals are increasing. This builds in an increased number of NICS checks without necessarily increasing firearms sales.  The trend in the states has been to reduce fees and impediments to both initial issuance of carry permits and their renewal.

The average ratio, over 15 years, is a little less than .6 NICS checks for each firearm added to the private stock.  10,699,334 Checks have been done in the first five months of 2017.

If that ratio holds true, about 6.4 million guns were added to the private stock in  2017 so far..

We may see another record month for Trump era NICS checks in June.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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