Photo by Guy J. Sagi, Copyright 2021
From Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting
Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF) estimates total gun sales for 2020 came in at roughly 23 million. December 2020 U.S. firearms unit sales were 2.1 million units, a year-over-year increase of 24% from December 2019, and about half of the November year-over-year increase.
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 December, some 3,904,879) cannot be taken at face value as large numbers of background checks are unrelated to end-user sales. As a case in point, in December the state of Illinois conducted about 830,000 so-called permit checks and rechecks alone whereas end-user unit sales at firearms retailers likely amounted to about 54,000. 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 “while December 2020 continued the year’s record-breaking pace – summing to almost 23 million units – December’s 24% year-over-year increase was by far the smallest such monthly increase since March 2020.”