U.S. Gun Sales Plummeted Last Month From Record-Breaking Pandemic Levels

Topline

Nationwide gun purchases fell more than 40% in January from the same month a year ago, according to industry estimates, as a Covid-driven surge in firearm sales begins to subside — but last month still kept pace with the pre-pandemic norm.

Assorted pistols at Blue Ridge Arsenal in Chantilly, Va., on January 9, 2015.

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Key Facts

Americans purchased fewer than 1.3 million guns last month, down 42.6% from the 2.2 million sold in January 2021, according to Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF), a consultancy that uses FBI background check data to estimate monthly sales.

Similarly, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade group, estimates just under 1.2 million units were sold in January, a 42% year-over-year drop.

These numbers are still large by pre-pandemic standards: According to SAAF’s data, U.S. gun stores sold fewer than 1.3 million firearms in January 2020 and just over 1 million units in January 2019, representing a 19% increase over the last three years.

SAAF Chief Economist Jurgen Brauer told Forbes it’s not clear why sales slowed so dramatically in January, but the firearm industry expected the pandemic-era spike in demand to eventually slow down as Americans’ political and public health worries subside.

Brauer called last month’s 42.6% year-over-year drop “not unprecedented,” noting that sales also surged in January 2013 before falling dramatically the next year, a temporary blip some observers have linked to a nationwide push for tighter gun restrictions following a late 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

January’s gun sales were also off sharply from just over 1.9 million in December, SAAF estimates, a one-month drop Brauer says is not unusual because sales often spike over the holidays.

Big Number

19.9 million. That’s how many firearms were sold in the United States last year, according to SAAF estimates. It was the country’s second-busiest year for gun sales since the FBI began publishing background check data in the late 1990s, falling short of the record-breaking 22.8 million guns sold in 2020. The third-busiest year was 2016, when an estimated 16.7 million guns were purchased nationwide.

Surprising Fact

About 5.4 million Americans bought a gun for the first time last year, making up almost 30% of 2021’s firearm customers, the National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated.

Key Background

Gun sales are heavily swayed by the news, often spiking during turbulent times or when political momentum builds for stricter gun control laws. The pandemic and 2020 election helped to drive purchases to new heights. Sales began booming after Covid-19 emerged in spring 2020—reversing a slump in firearm purchases during the presidency of Donald Trump, who gave gun enthusiasts little reason to fear new regulations—and purchases remained high during the summer 2020 protests and before the election. Year-over-year purchases dropped for much of 2021, as Covid-19 fears eased and the Biden Administration made little progress on gun control legislation, but sales remained above pre-pandemic levels.

Tangent

Gun deaths have also spiked over the last two years. The United States logged 20,794 gun violence deaths in 2021, including homicides and unintentional shootings but excluding suicides, up from 19,490 deaths in 2020 and 15,474 fatalities in pre-pandemic 2019, according to the Gun Violence Archive. So far this year, there have been 1,554 gun violence deaths. Many experts have linked this trend to the economic stress and social upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, some gun control advocates fear the recent surge in purchases may have boosted the risk of gun injuries by introducing firearms to people unprepared for their inherent safety risks, though opponents of gun control say most crimes are committed using illegal or pre-owned guns instead of firearms purchased lawfully from dealers.