From Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting
Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF) estimates July 2020 U.S. firearms unit sales at 2.0 million units, a year-over-year increase of 134.6% from July 2019. Likely single handgun sales (1.2 million) increased year-over-year by 152.0% whereas single long-gun sales (0.6 million) increased year-over-year by 108.2%. All other likely background check-related sales (0.16 million) increased year-over-year by 125.3%. This includes so-called “multiple” sales where the exact split between handguns and long-guns cannot be determined from the data record.
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SAAF’s firearms unit sales estimates are based on raw data taken from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), adjusted for checks unlikely to be related to end-user firearms sales. For example, the FBI’s raw numbers (for July, some 3,614,192) cannot be taken at face value as large numbers of background checks are unrelated to end-user sales. As a case in point, in July the state of Kentucky conducted about 260,000 so-called permit checks and rechecks alone whereas end-user unit sales at firearms retailers likely amounted to about 37,000. SAAF makes certain other adjustments to the data based on retailer reports and other information; nonetheless, the estimates still likely understate the true number of sales.
SAAF Chief Economist Jurgen Brauer comments that “…the firearms market continues at its far accelerated pace. Our estimates suggest that the market for the first seven months of 2020 now has nearly matched that of the entire year of 2019.”