We already know 2020 is the unofficial National Year of Gun Sales, but it’s still awesome to see even gun-friendly states like Missouri stepping up their ballistic game. According to the Riverfront Times, Missourians have spent their COVID-19 days buying guns…lots of guns:
The FBI had already conducted more [than] 576,000 background checks [in Missouri] for gun sales by the end of October, well over the nearly 498,000 during the entire year of 2019. With two months to go before 2020 ends, the state could hit more than 690,000, which would easily be the largest number of background checks in the more than two decades the FBI has on record.
Here’s the really fun part. The reporter for the “alternative” publication admits that NICS checks don’t capture the full number of gun sales:
The number of background checks doesn’t have a perfect correlation with sales. For example, it doesn’t account for private sales, for which Missouri doesn’t require background checks.
As we’ve already seen across the country, gun sales in Missouri follow a predictable rising path in tandem with the coronavirus restrictions and related drama. In fact, when sales first began spiking there was a 48 increase in background checks run in March alone compared with the same month a year ago.
These are the kinds of trends we like to see taking place, with more than seven million new gun owners taking the plunge. One thing, though. This article mentions 690,000 as an unprecedented number for Missouri for 2020. Come on, guys, those are rookie numbers. You can surely do better. Any takers for topping one million in Missouri in 2021?