Americans are increasingly buying guns in the run-up to the presidential election.
Background checks associated with gun sales were up year-over-year for the third month in a row, according to an industry analysis of FBI numbers released on Wednesday. In September, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), there were 1,156,223 sales-related checks–an increase of 1.3 percent over the previous year. August and July saw similarly modest boosts in sales checks, too.
Overall, the gun industry trade group reported there were over 3.4 million sales-related checks in the third quarter–a 4.5 percent increase over the same period in 2023.
The third quarter numbers represent a marked turnaround from the sales slump the market experienced earlier in the year. While guns have not broken through as a top issue in the 2024 presidential election, the two candidates diverge significantly on how to handle gun policy–with the Democratic ticket making a sales ban on popular guns like the AR-15 a top priority. The threat of new national gun restrictions, especially during election years like 2016 and 2020, has traditionally driven spikes in gun sales and could explain the recent uptick as well.
That’s certainly what the NSSF sees at play in the numbers, even pointing to the recent exchange on gun policy at this week’s Vice Presidential Debate.
“The vice presidential debate offered a substantive examination of why Americans – by the millions each month – continue to lawfully purchase firearms,” Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the trade group, said in a statement. “The fact is, Americans face a stark difference in the two tickets when it comes to respecting their Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms.”
Still, the growth in sales checks was modest. September 2004 was only the fourth-best September on record, down nearly 30 percent from the all-time record set in 2020. But it was also on par with records set in the pre-pandemic era and well ahead of the pre-pandemic norm.
 NSSF also noted September was the 62nd consecutive month where their analysis showed civilians bought more than a million firearms.
“America is demonstrating, month-after-month, that lawful gun ownership matters,” Oliva said.
The group uses monthly reports from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to determine how many checks are likely related to gun sales. However, because the FBI uses NICS for more than just end-sale checks, NSSF stips out any checks the FBI has coded to things like concealed carry permit applications. Most states use NICS checks on applicants, and some even run NICS checks on all permit holders every month, significantly inflating the number of NICS checks beyond those used for gun sales.
For instance, in September, the FBI reported conducting 2,072,550 NICS checks overall. But NSSF’s analysis found a significant portion of those weren’t related to gun sales.
That isn’t the only limitation in measuring gun sales using NICS data, though. Many states do not require those with valid gun-carry or other specialized permits to go through a NICS check when purchasing firearms, and more than one gun can be purchased using a single NICS check.
“Twenty-four states currently have at least one qualified alternative permit, which under the Brady Act allows the permit-holder, who has undergone a background check to obtain the permit, to purchase a firearm from a licensed dealer without a separate additional background check for that transfer,” NSSF said in its report. “The number of NICS checks in these states does not include these legal transfers based on qualifying permits and NSSF does not adjust for these transfers.”
Additionally, while federal law requires new guns to be sold through licensed dealers that have to perform NICS on customers, it does not require most used gun sales between non-dealers to go through a NICS check. Most states don’t require it either. So, those sales aren’t reflected in the data either.
