Gun Sales Strong in Year One of Trump Era

By Dean Weingarten, GunWatch Blog
The first year of the Trump era National Instant Check System (NICS) has ended with the second highest number of NICS background checks on record. There were 2,586,138 NICS checks in December of 2017. There were 25,235,215 NICS checks for all of 2017. At the current 56 firearms per 100 checks ratio, we can expect that over 14 million firearms have been added to the private stock in 2017*. The number of private firearms in the U.S. is now approximately 418 million.

That is a drop of 9% from 2016 to 2017, but it is 9% higher than 2015. The only year to surpass 2017 was 2016, with 27,538,673, when Hillary Clinton was widely considered a shoo-in to be the next president. The next highest year was 2015, with 23,141,970. December 2017’s numbers alone were the fourth highest December on record, behind 2012, 2015, and 2016.

Prices Drop for Guns and Ammo
The reduction from the overheated firearms market that existed in 2016 is significant. NICS checks dropped by 9 percent. With that drop, prices of guns and ammunition have also dropped. And supply has increased — .22 LR ammunition is being seen on shelves where it had been mostly absent for four years. Bargain prices for modern sporting rifles such as AR-15 clones and good quality pistols have kept the overall numbers from dropping further.

It is a buyer’s market now for Guns and Ammo. Vendors are offering big discounts on Black Rifles such as the Savage MSR line.

© 2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.

*In a year and a month or two, we will know just how many firearms were added to the private stock in 2017. The ATF is not allowed to release the actual manufacture, import and export numbers for a year, by law. Note — there is NOT a 1:1 correspondence between NICS checks and gun sales. About 100 NICS checks are done for each 56 new firearms that are added to the private stock in the United States.