Can you call November a “down” month when Americans bought over 1.5 million guns? When they buy over 700,000 of them in one week? Technically yes, but the the floor has been raised so much that we’re now operating on a level not seen before.

The NSSF’s Mark Oliva had this to say about the November sales numbers . . .

These figures are reflective interest and investment by law-abiding American to exercise their Second Amendment rights. This pattern has held throughout the year. Americans continue demonstrate that personal safety and responsible firearm ownership are worth their hard-earned dollars.

Here’s the NSSF’s press release . . .

The November 2022 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 1,519,524 is a decrease of 1.5 percent compared to the November 2021 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,543,378. For comparison, the unadjusted November 2022 FBI NICS figure 2,747,862 reflects a 2.1 percent increase over the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,692,188 in November 2021.

The NSSF-adjusted NICS January – November 2022 totals 14,677,978 continuing to hold as the third strongest year-to-date on record, behind 2020 and 2021.

Please note: 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. 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.

The adjusted NICS data were derived by subtracting out NICS purpose code permit checks and permit rechecks used by states for CCW permit application checks as well as checks on active CCW permit databases. NSSF started subtracting permit rechecks in February 2016.

Though not a direct correlation to firearms sales, the NSSF-adjusted NICS data provide an additional picture of current market conditions. In addition to other purposes, NICS is used to check transactions for sales or transfers of new or used firearms. 

It should be noted that these statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS. They do not represent the number of firearms sold or sales dollars. Based on varying state laws, local market conditions and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale.