Gun Sales Background Checks Top 1.4 Million in November 2025

Looking at national background check data for November, Americans picked up well over a million firearms last month, yet again. While million-plus sales numbers have become the new normal in recent years, November’s figures reflect a nearly 7-percent decrease compared to the same time in 2024.

It’s worth keeping in mind that last November was part of a volatile election cycle with gun rights on the ballot. No doubt that drove many sales. For 2025, the NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System figure comes to a total of 1,408,230.

That’s a drop from November 2024, which saw NSSF-adjusted numbers set at 1,514,773 checks. The unadjusted numbers show an even stronger drop. Total unadjusted FBI NICS figures for November 2025 came to 2,005,667. You can compare that to the unadjusted FBI numbers for November 2024, which came to 2,509,368.

Overall, unadjusted checks reflect a 20.1-percent decrease year over year.

Still, November’s adjusted figures topped October’s numbers of 1,299,312, thanks in part to surging background checks during Black Friday week. That peak sales week saw some 530,156 checks for firearm sales, with Black Friday itself showing 165,183 checks.

Total gun sales were almost certainly higher than the NICS-marked background checks would suggest. Currently, 28 states have at least one pre-qualified permit that can serve as an alternative to background checks. Additionally, total NICS numbers cannot reflect all peer-to-peer sales, which do not require a background check in some states.

Regardless, if we hop into our time machine, it seems even this 2025 decline is still within the new normal of increased interest in gun ownership nationwide. Pre-COVID figures for November 2019, which were considered a big boom back then, came to just 1,105,335 checks.

That makes this November’s “slump” a whopping 27.4-percent increase over the old 2019 “boom.”