{"id":83689,"date":"2022-07-22T12:24:31","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T17:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=83689"},"modified":"2022-07-22T12:24:31","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T17:24:31","slug":"83689","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=83689","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

First Time Gun Ownership Continues To Soar<\/a>
\nWho is buying all of the guns? The answer might surprise gun control activists…<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF)<\/a>\u00a0nearly 30%, or 5.4 million of the 18.5 million firearms purchased in the United States in 2021, went to first time gun owners. This number is down slightly from 2020\u2019s record breaking gun sales numbers that saw 40%, or 8.4 million of the 21 million total firearms sold, going to first timers. Retailers report that 23% of customers who bought their first gun in 2020 returned to purchase another in 2021, and that nearly half of first time buyers inquired about professional firearms training, meaning many first time buyers quickly became enthusiasts who are serious about gun safety and self-defense.<\/p>\n

For decades, gun control groups have attempted to paint gun enthusiasts as \u201crednecks\u201d living in rural areas, but the data suggests that this is not the case. The NSSF survey found that 33% of first time gun buyers in 2021\u00a0were women<\/a>, and that the number of African Americans purchasing firearms increased by 44%. Hispanic Americans also increased their gun purchases by 40% in 2021. Mark Olivia, NSSF Director of Public Affairs, notes: \u201cGun owners no longer fit into the tiny little boxes gun control groups wish to put us in. Today\u2019s gun owner is younger, more urban, and more representative of the different demographic groups we see across America.\u201d<\/p>\n

The surge in gun sales in recent years is not confined to \u201cred states\u201d or areas with lenient gun ownership laws. Michigan and New Jersey top the list of states that saw the largest increase in firearm sales from January 2020 to January 2021 with 306% and 248% increases, respectively. Even Washington D.C, which has some of the nation\u2019s strictest\u00a0gun laws<\/a>, saw an increase in gun purchases of over 200% during\u00a0the same time period<\/a>. Year over year, blue-state Minnesota and red-state Alaska saw nearly identical increases in gun sales, over 100%.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Historically, gun sales have spiked amid times of national unrest, and during election years, especially when prominent candidates endorse increased gun control measures. 2020 fit that bill from all angles; state governments issued draconian and\u00a0constitutionally dubious<\/a>\u00a0lockdown orders, and then-candidate Joe Biden pledged to\u00a0\u201cdefeat the National Rifle Association\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and ban the sale of \u201cassault weapons and high capacity magazines,\u201d via both executive fiat and though the legislature. On the campaign trail, both President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris pledged to enact\u00a0mandatory government buybacks<\/a>\u00a0of the AR-15, the nation\u2019s most popular sporting rifle.<\/p>\n

The summer of 2020 saw unprecedented rioting across major American cities following the police killing of unarmed black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis, MN. All told, at\u00a0least 25 Americans died<\/a>, and the riots caused over two billion dollars in property damage across the country. Political unrest continued into 2021 when, on January 6th, a group of around 2,000 supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building. The incident resulted in\u00a0at least 725 arrests<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rising crime rates are another factor in the recent spike in gun sales, homicides in major American cities are up 44% from 2019 to 2021,\u00a0on average<\/a>, and carjackings in the nation\u2019s capital have skyrocketed\u00a0nearly 74%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Economic factors are in play as well. The U.S. Economy was strong going into the COVID-19 pandemic, and multiple rounds of stimulus checks from the federal government put unexpected cash in the pockets of Americans. The exorbitant government spending of the last two years, however, has increased consumer prices across the board, as inflation currently sits at\u00a0a 39 year high<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gun sales did slip slightly\u00a0in January 2022<\/a>, with an estimated 1.2 million firearms sold. While this puts the country on track for a lower annual gun sales number than the previous two years, January marked the 30th\u00a0consecutive month with over a million guns sold in the United States. Mark Olivia, speaking to Stephen Gutowski of The Reload, notes: \u201cThe firearm industry is coming off two record-setting years of firearm purchases and sustained production to meet that increased demand, while everyone is looking for what the \u2018new\u2019 normal will be coming off those outsized years of background checks for the purchase of a gun, January\u2019s figure of nearly 1.2 million shows that America\u2019s demand for lawful gun ownership continues at a healthy and sustainable pace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Time Gun Ownership Continues To Soar Who is buying all of the guns? The answer might surprise gun control activists… According to\u00a0The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF)\u00a0nearly 30%, or 5.4 million of the 18.5 million firearms purchased in the United States in 2021, went to first time gun owners. This number is down slightly … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,8,29,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gun-schtuff","category-rkba","category-safety","category-self-defense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83690,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83689\/revisions\/83690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}