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Walmart reverses course and puts guns back on sales floor a day after it said it was removing them.
Friday, October 30, 2020
Thursday, October 29, 2020
If you have been waiting to see what will happen before you commit, time has passed to prepare.
As of noon today, Walmart – Winter Haven cleared its cabinets and shelves of ALL guns and ammunition, as per a Corporate directive.
ADDENDUM
Walmart Pulls Guns, Ammo Displays in U.S. Stores, Citing Civil Unrest
August 2020 saw more gun sales than any other August on record as Americans continue to rush to gun stores at a record pace.
The Washington Free Beacon
Stephen Gutowski – SEPTEMBER 1, 2020
August 2020 saw more gun sales than any other August on record as Americans continue to rush to gun stores at a record pace.
A Washington Free Beacon analysis of FBI data released on Tuesday found a 57 percent increase in sales compared to August 2019. There were at least 1.6 million sales in August 2020. Only two previous Augusts had broken a million sales, though limitations in FBI reporting means that not every gun sale is captured in the data. August represents the sixth month in a row to set a new sales record with March seeing the most gun sales of any month in the history of the FBI background check system.
Sales thus far in 2020 have soared past previous years. Sales through the first eight months of the year are up 43 percent over the previous record.
“In 15 years of teaching firearm safety, I have never seen a higher level of interest in guns,” Rick Ector, a Detroit-based firearms instructor, told the Washington Free Beacon. “I do not need to advertise, and my phone is constantly ringing.”
A June report from the gun industry’s trade group indicated dealers believed 40 percent of buyers since March have been first-time owners. The group pegged the total number of new owners at just under five million. If the estimated percentage of new owners holds for August, that would mean at least 640,000 Americans bought a gun for the first time in August. The surge in firearm owners could have a significant impact on gun politics and American elections for years to come.
Ector said the sales are driven by concerns over the pandemic, the economic downturn, and recent rioting in places like Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon. He expects the record sales to keep up through the end of the year, pointing to Democrat nominee Joe Biden’s strict new gun-control policies and his lead in national polling.
“Any single issue by itself would lead to an increase of people buying guns,” he said. “We have all four factors ‘in play’ and the run on guns is no surprise to me.”
The number of checks run through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System is not a one-to-one representation of total gun sales, but is widely considered the best gauge because the checks are required on all sales done through licensed dealers. The Free Beacon removed checks from the count that were coded for gun-carry permits or other non-gun sales to reach the final sales numbers.
The FBI NICS office ran 3,931,607 total background checks during the month of June, breaking the previous record by nearly two-hundred-thousand checks.
June 2020 set another all-time background check record. The FBI NICS office ran 3,931,607 total background checks last month, breaking the previous record by nearly two-hundred-thousand checks.
The number of background checks run by the FBI has surpassed 3 million in a month four times. Three of those times have been this year. There have been 38% more checks in January through June of this year than during the same time period last year, and we have already hit 67% of the total number of checks run last year.
Last year, you may recall, was the busiest year for the NICS office, for now. To break that record for checks in a year, the FBI would need to conduct about nine million more checks in the second half of 2020.
Or, about three-quarters of a million fewer checks than were run from April through June.
We have been regularly covering the monthly records set by NICS every month this year. Let’s compare June to March 2020, which was the previous record month for the highest number of background checks. March had the all-time busiest week for the NICS office and two additional top 10 highest weeks. This was driven, in part, by five individual days in March that are among the top 10 busiest days.
June 2020, the new record holder, is different. No individual day in June cracked the top 10 for highest number of background checks for a single day. Every single week in June is a top-six highest week.
This indicates a sustained level of demand for permits and firearms – this was no overnight reaction to an event or last-minute purchases before Christmas.
It was millions of Americans making the choice to keep and bear arms. The gun-owning community is growing, with millions of first-time buyers.
And just what arms are these millions of Americans choosing? Last month saw the second-most background checks related to a handgun purchase all-time (including a small number in U.S. territories) – 1,371,811 to be precise.
The annual record for handgun sales-related checks is just over 8 million. So far this year, the FBI NICS office has run just over 6 million such checks.
There were 611,997 checks for permits last month. A historical comparison is not possible due to the way some states conducted and reported permit checks in the past, but an eyeball test indicates that June is right up there among the monthly leaders. Oh, and don’t forget – there are 24 states in which a valid permit is accepted in lieu of a NICS check. Firearms sales to permit holders in such states are not included in the NICS tally.
The numbers don’t lie. This isn’t a small group of “super gun owners” buying nearly fifty thousand handguns a day. These are your loved ones, your friends, your neighbors who have decided – for one reason or another – that they must be able to rely on themselves.
The National Rifle Association of America is the organization that these gun owners can rely on to protect their rights, as we have for almost 150 years.
We will not waver.
Judging by the NICS reports for 2020, neither will law-abiding Americans.
