Booming gun sales appear to have remained strong this Black Friday, with more background checks processed than any Black Friday since 2019, according to new data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF).
With 192,749 background checks, this year’s Black Friday ranks third among Black Fridays dating back to at least 2000 and marks a 2.8 percent increase over last year, according to NSSF. A total of 711,372 background checks were completed in the week leading up to Black Friday.
NSSF counts the number of federal background checks conducted through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. Although a background check is not the same as a sale, the data provides the basis for an estimate of sales.
“Background checks for firearms purchases were already trending to make 2022 the third strongest year on record, following big years in 2020 and 2021,” said Joe Bartozzi, president and CEO of NSSF. “These numbers tell us that there is a strong appetite for legal firearm ownership among law-abiding Americans, and that firearms manufacturers across the country continue to offer the firearms of quality that our customers have come to expect.”
Other data recently released by NSSF showed the overall boom in gun sales that led to this year’s busy Black Friday.
October 2022 was the 39th consecutive month where more than one million guns are estimated to have been sold, based on previous data. Monthly gun sales have exceeded one million since August 2019, but since 2020, sales have sometimes exceeded 2 million.
Annual sales have remained above 13 million since 2012, which was also the first year more than 2 million guns were sold in one month, December.
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