The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) processed more than 4,317,000 background check requests for firearm purchases in January of this year, a record high for a single month in history since November 1998, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Also according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), as many as 8.5 million people purchased their first gun in the year just past 2020.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives Americans the fundamental right to legally own a gun. And the U.S. system of background checks for gun buyers is considered largely sound. Every eligible person must provide personal information, fill out federal documents truthfully, and undergo a rigorous NICS background check in order to legally purchase a gun. Only if the background check is passed will a gun dealer sell a gun to a buyer.
Each month, the FBI publishes a list of data showing the number of background checks processed by NICS for gun purchases in the past month. Except for some special reasons such as having a criminal record, most applicants who enter the system and undergo a background check will be eligible to buy a firearm.
From 1998 to the present, NICS has processed over 300 million background checks for gun purchases, and only about 1.5 million have been rejected. Therefore the database, is also considered a reliable reference basis for the current trend of gun sales across the United States.
According to the latest data from this database, the number of gun purchase background checks processed by NICS surged to over 4,317,000 in January this year. Ten of those states had numbers that exceeded 100,000 each. The highest number was in Illinois, with more than 1 million copies.
In February, NICS processed more than 3,442,000 background checks across the U.S., with seven states exceeding 100,000. The combined total for January and February this year is already approaching the number for an entire year around the year 2000.
Some analysis points out that the proportion of background check requests entering the NICS system dropped slightly in February, mainly because of the huge demand for firearms in the market in January, resulting in lower inventory related.
In contrast, NICS processed nearly 40 million background checks for gun purchases in the year 2020, an increase of about 40 percent compared to 2019, reaching an all-Time annual high. The U.S. Concealed Carry Association (UCCA) notes that 2020, amid the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots and the Chinese Communist virus (Wuhan virus, New Crown virus) pandemic, has prompted a large number of Americans to purchase firearms to protect themselves and safety of their loved ones.
People are buying guns legally for their own protection
FBI data also shows that the trend of background checks for gun purchases, which had slowed slightly after the U.S. election last November, has rebounded, with the number approaching four million in December, with California accounting for more than 135,000 of them.
Most Californians who managed to buy their first gun last year or early this year believe that the left has been trying to control or even ban guns, and that President Joe Biden, during his campaign, said he might want gun control. Once in office, he put forward proposals for gun restrictions, which prompted more people to accelerate their gun purchases.
A 60-year-old Mr. Xiao, who lived in a communist country, said, “I went to buy a gun in June last year, but I couldn’t get one at that time, and I waited for a long time before I finally got my first gun. Before that, in a communist country, we had no right to freedom and no freedom of speech, much less the possibility of buying a gun. If the people had guns, the government would be scared to death. Now you see what is left of the right to freedom for Americans? If even the right to buy a gun is gone, this doesn’t seem much different from a communist country.”
Susan, a South Canadian who just legally bought her first gun in February, said, “No one likes violence, but now it’s leftist policies that are violent against us, and we need to be able to defend ourselves. Like we buy guns legally, we buy guns that won’t hurt others, just to protect ourselves and our families. That is our constitutional right, we can choose to buy a gun legally or we can choose not to buy a gun. But the choice should be ours and must not be taken away and swayed by the left.”
She added, “I have many friends around me who never thought about buying a gun until last year’s Epidemic, but then, as the left’s policies became more and more outrageous, all protecting prisoners, people got upset and started buying guns to protect themselves.”
Last year, California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, released more than 10,000 prisoners, including felons, on the grounds of the epidemic. In addition, California has seen a spike in crime due to increasingly lax prison policies, various bills on felony leniency and cuts in police funding. In the first week of 2021 alone, 47 people were shot and killed in the city of Los Angeles.
Donald Wagner, a county commissioner in Orange County, California, said there is no excuse for people to legally carry guns and protect their safety and that of their families. Gun control or gun bans will not solve the problem of gun violence. Because criminals who do not obey the law and violently shoot people will not obey any law. And law-abiding people will store and use guns responsibly.
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