A COVID-19 Handgun Purchasing Boom? – By Trent Steidley

In his third and final guest post in this series (see his first and second), Trent Steidley takes up the claim that the COVID-19 gun purchasing spree of March 2020 was driven by handgun purchases (a claim I made myself, which helped begin this dialogue).

Was March 2020 the best month for handgun sales ever?

Handguns for sale at Frisco Gun Club, Texas. Photo by David Yamane

By Trent Steidley

NARRATIVE #3: March 2020 was the best month for handgun sales ever.

This is technically correct (and if you watch Futurama you know this is the best kind of correct).

By MOODMAN from giphy.com

How Unprecedented Was The Gun Buying Spree of March 2020 – By Trent Steidley

In his guest post yesterday, Trent Steidley challenged the simplistic use of data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) as a measure of “gun sales.”

Today he critically engages the second of three common narratives emerging from the great gun buying spree of March 2020: that March 2020 saw the most guns sold in a single month in the history of NICS.

Screen cap of https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/pandemic-pushes-u-s-gun-sales-all-time-high-n1176451

By Trent Steidley

NARRATIVE #2: March 2020 saw the most guns sold in a single month

This is true, at least for the numbers from NICS sales. But March 2020 is not a large increase considering the effect of population size and in relation to previous spikes.

Caution and Sense with NICS Data and Gun Sale Spikes – by Trent Steidley

My recent posts about the great COVID19 gun buying spree of March 2020 (especially handguns) elicited some helpful clarifying and corrective tweets from my colleague Trent Steidley (bio below). I don’t know any sociologist as familiar or adept with National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) data as he is.

I am grateful, therefore, that he has written up his thoughts on using caution and sense with NICS data and gun sale spikes. In three separate posts here, he offers some clarifications and alternative takes for those really trying to understand what happened last month.

Frisco Gun Club, Texas. Photo by David Yamane

By Trent Steidley

You will have heard that March 2020 was a gangbuster month for gun sales. To be sure, two things are certainly true.

One, a lot of people went to gun stores, got background checks, and likely bought guns in March 2020 (and the reason for this is certainly because of COVID19, but whether these are new gun buyers afraid of social unrest or current owners afraid of government actions will take time to tell). Two, the majority of these guns sold were handguns.

But there are some narratives in these news stories that we should be cautious about.

COVID-19 Handgun Purchasing Boom

It’s no secret that the coronavirus led to an unprecedented rise in gun background checks in March 2020. I posted about the coronavirus supplanting Barack Obama as the greatest gun salesman in US history, and reiterated this in a brief interview with Axios recently.

An interesting nuance in this overall pattern, however, is the ratio of handguns to long-guns sold. As reported by Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (H/T The Trace!), “The ratio of handguns to long-guns sold now stands at a record 1.84, the highest ratio since the introduction of the NICS checks in late 1998.”

Source: http://smallarmsanalytics.com/v1/pr/2020-04-01.pdf

Coronavirus Supplants Barack Obama as Greatest Gun Salesman in American History

Barack Obama has apparently met his match as the “greatest gun salesman in American history.” On Sunday, an acquaintance from my years wandering around American gun culture messaged me to say that he had not seen a gun buying response like this one in some 15 years in the industry.

I asked him what in particular was different and he said that it was not a fear of being unable to get a particular gun (as under Obama), but a legitimate fear of not being able to defend themselves or their loved ones.

So, under Barack Obama, especially after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there was a fear that certain guns would be banned. The current pandemic buying spree appears to be driven more by a felt need to have a gun right now, especially among new gun owners who, according to my contact, were numerous.

Photo of outdoor supply store from May 2013