America’s Anti-Gun Governors Helped Increase Firearm Sales in April to Over 1.3 Million

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America’s anti-gun governors have become some of the best gun salesmen in the country. Washington, Oregon, and Illinois were big reasons for a jump in gun sales in April. The NSSF’s Mark Oliva tells us that . . .

April’s uptick of 1,369,296 FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications shows that there continues to be a steady appetite for lawful firearm ownership even as certain state governors and legislators are taking radical measures to infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens to possess firearms, especially the modern sporting rifle (MSR)

A deeper dive into the data shows that Washington state tallied 71,272 adjusted background checks in April 2023, compared to 49,641 in April 2022. That’s a 43.6 percent increase at the same time the legislature passed and Gov. Jay Inslee signed a law banning the sale or transfer of MSRs. Illinois posted a total of 39,954 adjusted background checks in April 2023, compared to 35,790 in April 2022, an 11.7 percent increase year-over-year. NSSF recently won a decision in federal court to block Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s ban on MSRs there. Oregon, a state with a legislature and governor’s office hostile to lawful firearm ownership, totaled 43,574 adjusted background checks in April 2023, compared to 27,921 a year ago, representing a 56.1 percent increase.

Notably, North Carolina’s legislature overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a bill that repealed the state’s antiquated Jim Crow-era permit-to-purchase a handgun scheme which immediately reverted the state to using the FBI NICS system to verify all handgun sales. North Carolina came in with 68,181 background checks in April 2023, compared to 18,967 in April 2022, a 238.4 percent increase.

These figures show that when Americans are concerned that government authorities will deny them the full spectrum of their Second Amendment rights, they will respond by exercising those rights. It also shows that when barriers to lawful firearm ownership are torn down, law-abiding citizens will exercise their right to lawfully purchase firearms.

Here’s the NSSF’s press release . . .

The April 2023 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 1,369,296 is an increase of 0.7 percent compared to the April 2022 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,359,908. For comparison, the unadjusted April 2023 FBI NICS figure 2,616,729 reflects a 3.3 percent increase from the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,534,057 in April 2022.

April 2023 marks the 45th month in a row that has exceeded 1 million adjusted background checks in a single month as well as the 3rd highest reported figure for April.

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.

35 COMMENTS

      • Of Course! It is our heritage and our guaranteed Rights under the Second Amendment!

        Of Course! It is our heritage and our guaranteed Rights under the Second Amendment!

        Of Course! It is our heritage and our guaranteed Rights under the Second Amendment!

        Of Course! It is our herit

        v

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    • Of Course! It is our heritage and our guaranteed Rights under the Second Amendment!

  1. Just as bad, the left is too stupid/evil/greedy/driven/ to understand the problem they’ve created. Numbers must not be science.

    • This is what occurs when people who are ruled by their emotions, rather than any possible intellect they may possess. Are allowed to be led by people who have realized for decades that it is the easiest way to lead them to their own destruction. Without them knowing it. The Left learned this from the Nazi’s. Who were quite masterful in leading the people of Germany to their destruction by playing on their emotions.

      • inthedark…You’ll have to say a lot more than your BS cut and run response to my reply to the individual who inquired about right and wrong firearm cleaning. In other words by your sorry not sorry reply to me it’s obvious you advocate and maintain your defensive firearm(s) on the same level one would expect from some armed dumbazz scumbag home invader.

      • @Darkman

        You might consider reading Berlin Diary by William Shirer. Quite revealing about how the NAZI’s manipulated their own populace and foreign heads of State.

        My biggest takeaway from the book is observing that today’s Left, in the USA, is following the same plan utilized successfully by the NAZI’s…almost step-by-step.

    • restrictions or the threat of same…often provides the motivation for someone who was vacillating about a firearms purchase…something the left just can’t seem to grasp…

    • The dumb dims sure did in ILLannoy! All my local Ill gunshops are running sales. Even close to the border Indiana shops. For now…until it all winds up in SCOTUS🙄

  2. Seems they’ve stopped claiming “nobody is coming for your guns.” That much is refreshing.

  3. Once again I must point out how biden and soros and bloomberg and miner49er and dacian our some of our best assets in this fight.

    The fact that they are too stupid to realize how helpful they are to our cause is just bloody wonderful.

    • Johnny my dad told me long ago if a government says you can’t have it get as many or as much as you can. If it says you can’t do something figure out why they don’t want you to, then do it anyway if it’s in your own best interest and they won’t know about it.
      F them they are not your friend and they don’t care about you, just your $$$$

  4. NICS checks since 4th quarter 1998 – 454,308,969 (FBI)
    Even using the NSSF formula to adjust, can we stop quoting the “400” million guns in America? Geez, with 250 years of collecting, the real number gotz to be 1B+. And I’m sure that terrifies the bageebaz out of a certain group of folks. But yes, a great big shout out to the Dems for all their efforts to increase gun sales and add new shooters to the nest.

    • I never really thought about it. But bats have balls.

      Male bats at least.

    • @possum

      I’m sure that Blue States are seriously considering (and have the proposal already written up) mandating the serialization / registration of Louisville Sluggers…cause old bats can be dangerous.

      • Hey, Old Guy, stop giving our Governor (Phil Murphy) ideas!
        He’ll not only mandate serial numbers and registration for baseball bats, but also call all unserialized, unregistered baseball bats “deadly ghost bats” and call for an end to the scourge of “ghost bat violence.”
        After all, more people are murdered each year by blunt objects such as baseball bats than by the scary-looking-because-they’re-black (TM) rifles that Governor Murphy calls “assault weapons.”

    • @possum

      My, partially, tongue-in-cheek response to you is in moderation limbo…I didn’t even use any fowl words.

  5. I’m in WA, and I can attest to this. Starting with the stockpiling of standard capacity mags two years ago and then just when you think your bank account is going to get a break, you gotta buy a bunch of lowers and uppers and an AK or two.

    And when this all gets struck down, the hilarious end result will be that there are thousands more “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines than there ever would have been in the state if they’d just left us alone.

  6. Looks like the little socialists took a cue from Obama on how to spur economic activity in the firearms trade.

  7. “North Carolina came in with 68,181 background checks in April 2023, compared to 18,967 in April 2022, a 238.4 percent increase.”

    Suck it govanna Cooper. Veto denied!

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