Ahab reports that background checks increased 5.3% in January. This happened before, in 1993.
US Firearms Production, 1985-2004 (PDF source). Note the bolded years:
|
Year
|
Handguns
|
Rifles
|
Shotguns
|
Total
|
| 1985 | 1,550,071 | 1,140,669 | 769,505 | 3,460,245 |
| 1986 | 1,427,627 | 970,541 | 641,482 | 3,039,650 |
| 1987 | 1,658,832 | 1,006,100 | 857,949 | 3,522,881 |
| 1988 | 1,745,722 | 1,144,707 | 928,070 | 3,818,499 |
| 1989 | 2,031,425 | 1,407,317 | 935,541 | 4,374,283 |
| 1990 | 1,838,895 | 1,156,213 | 848,948 | 3,844,056 |
| 1991 | 1,838,266 | 883,482 | 828,426 | 3,550,174 |
| 1992 | 1,525,218 | 676,808 | 805,761 | 3,007,787 |
| 1993 | 2,655,478 | 1,171,872 | 1,148,939 | 4,976,289 |
| 1994 | 2,581,961 | 1,324,240 | 1,254,926 | 5,161,127 |
| 1995 | 1,722,930 | 1,440,699 | 1,176,958 | 4,340,587 |
| 1996 | 1,484,477 | 1,424,319 | 926,732 | 3,835,528 |
| 1997 | 1,406,505 | 1,281,162 | 918,759 | 3,606,426 |
| 1998 | 1,284,755 | 1,345,899 | 1,036,520 | 3,667,174 |
| 1999 | 1,331,230 | 1,569,685 | 1,106,995 | 4,007,910 |
| 2000 | 1,281,861 | 1,583,042 | 898,442 | 3,763,345 |
| 2001 | 943,213 | 1,284,554 | 679,813 | 2,907,580 |
| 2002 | 1,088,584 | 1,515,286 | 741,325 | 3,345,195 |
| 2003 | 1,121,024 | 1,430,324 | 726,078 | 3,277,426 |
| 2004 | 1,022,610 | 1,325,138 | 731,769 | 3,079,517 |
Here’s a line chart of the above data, excluding totals, to emphasize the spike in sales:
So why the spike in sales in 1993? What happened in 1993?
The Brady Bill.
So here’s a cold, hard lesson for gun-grabbers. Pass gun control legislation, and we buy more guns. Watch for sales to continue going up.
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I’m a little more interested in the millennial bulge, which was where I came in. I bought my first ever guns in 1998, to beat NICS (a system I’ve never used). There’s some pre-NICS lift but most of it is later, and attributable to Y2K (my reason for starting to arm, too). Then you had the slump afterwards.
So..is the January bump because of the likelihood of electing a Demonrat, or pessimism about the Supreme Court?
[…] Instapudit readers! Interested in gun control and the Second Amendment? It’s 1993 all over again. Speaking of guns, if anybody owns one of these, I’d like to hear what you have to say about […]
[…] Right Wing Prof thinks that NICS checks are up for precisely the same reasons they went up in 1993. Honestly, I would tend to agree, inasmuch as a lot of the pro-gun public (myself included) has kind of a bad feeling about the upcoming election. He linked to the post I put up on the NICS data, which also shows that firearms sales are up in general. […]
[…] It’s 1993 all over again. […]
[…] has the data up. Looks pretty interesting. Ahab says it’s because of the election. Things were looking […]