By now you’ve probably heard that according to the FBI, which is responsible for maintaining and running the National Instant [Criminal Background] Check System (NICS), Black Friday 2016 broke the all-time single-day NICS check record. With 185,713 background checks processed, the previous record — set on Black Friday 2015 — was surpassed by a whopping 368 checks.
Tribunist points out that, if a single gun was sold for each of these NICS checks, it would be more than “enough firearms to arm each of the 182,000 active duty members of the United States Marine Corps.”
Of course, as they also accurately pointed out, one check doesn’t always equal one gun sold. Multiple firearms can be purchased on a single NICS check — I think my transfer record on one NICS is like…six guns? — and 20 states don’t require this Federal check if the purchaser has a valid concealed carry permit in that state. States like Texas.
And yes, it’s also true that a NICS check doesn’t commit the prospective purchaser to buying and that some checks result in denials, but both of those scenarios are very few and far between. In nearly every case the check is only run after the customer has fully made their decision to purchase.
The historical denials rate is only about 0.05% (it was 0.046% in 2015). Applying that denial rate to this year’s Black Friday number, that’s 855 no-go decisions. I think it’s more than safe to say that enough guns were indeed sold on November 25th to fully equip the Leathernecks. Semper fi.
