U.S.A. — The NICS (National Instant Background Check System) numbers for May of 2023 show the month to be a very close fourth-highest May for gun sales and the third-highest May for the NICS FBI run background checks.
The estimate for gun sales in May comes to a little over 1.13 million estimated as recorded sold through the NICS system. Last year, in May, there were a little less than 1.14 million guns estimated as being recorded as sold through the NICS system. The number of guns sold in May of 2023 is 99.6% of the number sold in May of 2022.
These are estimates because some gun sales are recorded as “multiple.” The number of guns sold as multiple on one 4473 form is estimated as 2.5 x the number of multiple sales forms recorded.
May of 2023 is the 46th consecutive month of over a million firearm (gun) sales recorded by the NICS system.
In May, where we know whether the firearm was a long gun or a handgun, 64% were handguns. 90% of gun sales are either long guns or handguns, and 10% are listed as other or multiple.
Firearm sales have topped a million firearms since August 2019. NICS went active in the last two months of 1998. Our best estimate for the number of firearms in the United States in 1998 is 256 million firearms. In the first ten years of NICS use, the number of privately owned firearms increased by 52 million to 308 million. In the next decade, the number increased by 97 million to 405 million. From the end of 2018 to the end of May 2023, the number has increased by another 91 million to 496 million firearms.
About half of the private stock of firearms in the USA will have been produced in the last 25 years.
It is almost certain the number of privately owned firearms in the United States will exceed 500 million by the end of 2023. Seven more months are available in 2023, and the number of firearms sold has been greater than a million for each of the last 46 months.
The theory of those who desire an unarmed population is: more guns equals more problems. This theory has never been validated. There is no correlation in the numbers we have to indicate more guns equals more problems. From 1945, the first year where we have reliable numbers, the per capita number of firearms has increased from roughly 0.35 firearms per capita to 1.37 firearms per capita at the end of May 2023.
Homicide rates, suicide rates, and fatal firearms accident rates all show no correlation to the number of guns per capita.
The homicide rate has varied from a minimum of about 4 per 100,000 to 10 per 100,000. The minimums occur with low per capita firearms and high per capita firearms. Suicide rates have also gone up and down and up and down as the per capita numbers of firearms continue to rise. While suicide rates have been increasing for several years, the percentage of suicides committed with firearms has dropped while the per capita number of firearms has risen. The rate of fatal firearms accidents has dropped about 94% since 1934, while the per capita number of firearms has quadrupled. With four times as many firearms per person, the fatal firearm accident rate per person has fallen by 94%!
The high percentage of voters who are gun owners is likely to have political consequences. When as many as half of voters own guns and are more familiar with them than the politicians who seek to disarm those voters, those with more knowledge will see through misleading statements and obvious inaccuracies. This makes passing legislation designed to disarm the population very difficult.
Radical Democrats in control of the White House and the Senate are using every legal and illegal stratagem in a desperate attempt to hold onto power. They are attempting to transform the United States radically. In response to domestic uncertainty and international tensions, more and more people buy firearms and ammunition for the defense of self and others.
The United States has reached a new normal where sales of less than a million firearms a month are considered an anomaly.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
