Gun sales are spiking in Delaware and Iowa; permit applications are up in Massachusetts and Minnesota; the number of folks exercising their Second Amendment rights are spiking in blue states and red states; and the FBI’s instant background check system may need more staffers to keep up with the demand. January was a record month for gun sales, and it seems that trend has carried over into February (via WFB):
There were 2,613,074 firearms-related background checks performed by the FBI over the 29 days in February, a record for the month. February is now the ninth month in a row that has seen a record number of checks. The month saw fewer checks than the single-month record set in December 2015, but also saw an increase in checks over last month.This February’s numbers bested the previous record, set in 2013, by more than 300,000 checks. In the first two months of 2016, there were 5,158,876 checks run through the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System. That’s more than half the 10,036,933 checks run in all of 2006, just a decade ago.
This year is a continuation of a record-setting trend, which began in 2015. February 2016 is the tenth month in a row to set a record. 2015 also holds the all-time record for background checks in a single year.