U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- April 2021 numbers for the National Instant background Check System (NICS) set another record. The previous record for April, in 2020, was 2,911,128. In 2021, the April NICS were 3,514,070.
Actual firearm sale are different. Over half of NICS checks are done for carry permits or carry permit rechecks. Illinois had nearly 890,000 rechecks alone in April of 2021.
Using our formula, the estimate for 2020 was 1,648,688 1.649 million firearms sold. The same formula, applied to 2021, gives us 1.665 million firearms sold. The increase is only 1%, but it breaks the record.
It appears the United States has reached a new normal. Guns and ammunition are being produced as fast as they can be. Demand is almost being met. Some guns are becoming available again. Some common shotgun ammunition is available in the stores.
Most common pistols, pump shotguns, and semi-automatic rifles are seldom found on dealers’ shelves. They tend to be purchased before they arrive and leave the store shortly after they get there.
The country is deeply divided between those who believe the old, Progressive media, social media, and the Tech Oligarchs and those who do not.
The unrest and violent riots common in many cities where leftist power is dominant have convinced many of the desirability of personal weapons, especially with the bizarre demands to defund the police and release thousands of criminals into the streets.
If the Biden administration’s extreme spending plans and attempts to render the Republic into a Leftist oligarchy fail, it is likely to demand will drop, the noted capitalist capability to produce things people desire, for-profit, will succeed in doing so, and prices will start to fall.
The specter of inflation from all the covid crazy spending may, or may not keep prices high.
The number of privately held firearms in the United States, with an increase of 1.67 more last month, is about 471 million. The estimate is made using the method pioneered by Newton and Zimring, and extended by Gary Kleck in “Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America”.
The United States manufactures and imports about 9.1 billion rounds of ammunition a year. That is about 20 rounds of ammunition per firearm in the United States.
Most people have not been keeping a hundred rounds of ammunition per firearm. Many people now think that is the bare minimum. The increase in demand is showing up as bare shelves at the gun shops. It is possible the lack of ammunition is serving as a check on the demand for gun sales.
The United States has more firearms per person than any other nation on earth. It also has more ammunition. Modern ammunition lasts a very long time, at a minimum of several decades. The key to long-term storage of ammunition is cool to moderate temperatures, keeping it dry, and away from contamination by oils.
Given those conditions, much hundred-year-old ammunition has been happily fired at the range.
Guns take a long time to wear out, with just a minimum of care; ammunition lasts for several generations. The societal effects of an armed America will be felt for many decades to come.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
