By Colby McCoy
Gun sales massively surged in January as Americans continue to feel uncertain about the Biden administration and fear violence, The Washington Post reported.
An analysis of federal gun background-check data reveals more than 2 million guns were purchased in January, which equates to a year-over-year increase of 80% and the second-highest number of gun purchases in a single month on record, the Post reported.
The January surge has reportedly kept pace with national gun-buying trends in 2020, which broke records after more than 23 million firearms were sold, a 64% increase year-over-year, the Post reported.
Fear of violent riots, police effectiveness and the Biden administration’s pro-gun-control rhetoric, has played a major role in the surge of firearm sales across the country, the Post reported.
“With the lockdown and a president who is saying things like ‘gun reform,’ there’s a fear within the gun community and people that are responsible gun owners that they’re going to be made into felons just by nature of law,” Sam, who asked to be kept anonymous, told the Post.
In particular, President Joe Biden’s cabinet appointees have expressed support for pro-gun-control legislation in the past, including Susan Rice, Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council, who has called for universal background checks and a permanent ban on assault weapons as well as high capacity magazines.
Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s freshly appointed Secretary of Transportation, has suggested the federal government implement “a nationwide licensing and registration system” for gun ownership.
Last November Biden pledged he would ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in a tweet.
“It’s long past time we take action to end the scourge of gun violence in America,” Biden tweeted.
It’s long past time we take action to end the scourge of gun violence in America.
As president, I’ll ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, implement universal background checks, and enact other common-sense reforms to end our gun violence epidemic.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 1, 2020
A more common reason for the January surge has been growing distrust over the efficacy of America’s police, the Post reported. First-time gun buyers are reportedly purchasing firearms in record numbers out of fear that the police will be unable to effectively respond to a crisis.
“The folks that said they would never become a gun owner were trusting the police to protect them, and that delusion has been dispelled,” Steven Dulan, who teaches firearms law at Western Michigan University’s Thomas M. Cooley Law School, told the Post.
The Jan. 6 Capitol riot further spurred gun purchases as increasing numbers of Americans feel unsafe about today’s political climate, the Post reported.
“People saw all of this happening at the same time, and they became very concerned for their safety,” Mark Oliva, public-affairs director for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told the Post. “Everybody in America is buying these guns. I’m a 47-year-old White guy living in the suburbs of D.C. It’s not just people like me.”
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Through 2020, Americans voted for their Second Amendment rights by purchasing guns in historically high numbers. They saw community violence, rioting and calls to “defund the police” – including by O’Rourke – and chose to exercise their inherent right to self-defense and to keep and bear arms.
In 2020, more than 21 million background checks for the sale of a firearm were run by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Checks System (NICS). That includes over 8.4 million first-time buyers. It’s not slowing down, either. More than 2 million checks were run in January of 2021.
To all the politicians who just don’t get it. You people are what’s making Americans afraid. All this talk about taking citizens guns from them are making them wonder why. There is a reason that millions of guns are being purchased every month from people of all walks of life. The problem is not law abiding citizens with guns. The problem is our “ lawmakers “ not having the stomach to go after the real problem which is your reluctance to punish criminals. I honestly believe that our country is being taken over and getting citizen firearms banned is the first step toward that end. Just about any country who was taken over by dictators and despots had citizens guns banned. Wake up America something evil is going on and if we do not recognize it soon it may be too late. Unfortunately we not only have to worry what is being hatched in Washington but our own local politicians are not protecting or representing us the way we expect them to.
Amazing reporting where the right-wing stormed our Capitol, killed a policeman, laid pipe bombs around, had firearms in their cars, and are those that champion the NRA and absolutely telling us that they need a rifle that could put 100 bullets in you in 2seconds (or something like that. And this reporter is trying to say that all those people NOW are scared of Biden? What? I am so much more scared of the right-wing nationalists that tried to overthrow our government and are pissed off that they didn’t win the election. They are the ones scrambling to get more guns. They are horribly misguided. And because they are paranoid over their election loss, they are extremely dangerous to our Republic!
WOW ! 100 bullets in two seconds. What make and model gun is that and maybe you can tell me where to get one. Dangerous to the Republic ? The founders put the 2nd Amendment in the Constitution to preserve the Republic. I’ll just let the real insurrectionists tell you.
“To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them “. George Mason
“ I ask, sir, What is the Militia ? It is the whole people except for a few public officials”. – George Mason
“Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.” – Thomas Jefferson
“When the people fear the government there is Tyranny. When the government fear the people there is Liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson
“The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms, disarms only those who are neither inclined, nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. They serve rather to encourage rather than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man maybe attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” – Thomas Jefferson -1764
“No free man shall be debarred the use of arms.” – Thomas Jefferson – 1776
“The beauty of the 2nd amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.” – Thomas Jefferson
“Without either the first or second amendment, we would have no liberty; the first allows us to find out what’s happening, the second allows us to do something about it! The second will be taken away first, followed by the first and then the rest of our freedoms.” – Andrew Ford
“There have been many loyal Americans, that have made the greatest sacrifice possible, to keep and defend our rights and freedoms. Are we now going to invalidate their heroism by the removal of these rights, the greatest in the eyes of the founding fathers was the right to keep and bear arms? Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches the jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” – Patrick Henry
“The best we can help for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.” – Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers at 184-8
“The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.” – Zachariah Johnson Elliot’s Debates, vol. 3 “The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution.”
“Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?” – Patrick Henry
“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon and citizens’ firearms are indelibly related. From the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurrences and tendencies prove that, to ensure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 and 99-100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil influence. They deserve a place of honor with all that’s good. When firearms go, all goes. We need them every hour.” – George Washington
The false assumption that removing guns from free law abiding citizens will improve public safety was well known to the founding fathers. “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms..disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one.”
Thomas Jefferson quoting Cesare Beccaria, Criminologist in 1764.
“That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms…” – Samuel Adams
“The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.” – Patrick Henry
“A government that does not trust it’s law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is itself unworthy of trust.” – James Madison
“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpation’s of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons in-trusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.”
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28
“The power of the sword, [opponents] say … is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty … Who are the militia? are they not ourselves ?” – In a Pennsylvania Gazette article published February 20, 1788, Tench Coxe addressed the right to keep and bear arms.
When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was the governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that is was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually…
George Mason
The policeman was killed by blunt trauma. The pipe bombs did not go off and they still don’t know who planted them. The only person shot was shot by capital security. Not one NRA member to my knowledge was arrested at the capitol.
Blunt trauma from a fire extinguisher. Ban fire extinguishers!
So, if you fear the crazies that have been encouraged to riot, burn neighborhoods attack police stations and federal buildings all summer and you don’t think defunding the police makes you safer, buy a gun, learn to use it defensively. The ability to terminate three or four home invaders isn’t irrational, it might save your life and is certainly a contribution to the civil order and the general welfare. You may be Hercules and feel able to take them on, but a gun equalizes the odds for little old women. Paradoxically, the anti gun cabal is constant background noise when nothing that would incite gun purchase is in the news but when something happens that raises the awareness of the population to the dangers that exist, Antifa/BLM torching another neighborhood, some lunatic shooting children at school (where it would be better for them if the teachers were armed) or a Progressive looney like Buttigieg wants all their names and addresses, that’s when the controllers start howling for gun control. Since it is patently obvious that lawbreaker and lunatics with a deluded mission DO NOT obey laws, taking them away from law abiding citizens shifts the balance of power toward the lawless and violent. Don’t you find Biden and his immediate cadre reneging on agreements, passing laws, even “agreements” (AKA treaties) by a method he has himself called tyrannical intimidating? The Progressive implemented release of violent criminals and citizens of foreign nations here illegally? The opening of the borders? The Progressives who decry gun ownership are driving the surge in gun purchases – and I cannot believe they do not know it.
All that matters is that they implement the AGENDA, the strategy of Cloward & Piven. Disarm us collapse the system and then the government they implement comes down on us and takes control. Either they are too stupid and don’t realize it or the do know it and are pushing for it.
The average person familiar with the proper use and care of firearms is mainly amused by those such as you Gary. What you believe you know is actually wrong, but you can’t be bothered to actually find the truth because it’s easier to regurgitate something you heard or read.
Step away from the X-Box and the 80 Watt Phased Plasma Pulse rifle.
Where is the proof it was right wingers who did that?
This is so rich. The left spent the summer burning and looting and taking over city centers and one day when people on the right came to the Capitol and overwhelmed the extremely poor police protection, this was the INSURRECTION of the century and the gravest threat to freedom, ever. Do you see those violent, dangerous, nasty, mean, ignorant right-wingers going around and burning things to protest the injustice of a stolen election? Me neither. Did you see them shooting up people in the Capitol? Me neither.
Why are people buying guns? Because the taking of our liberties over a relatively minor virus and the emergence of police states around the world are ominous, that’s why. Because the details of an election that many believe was illegitimate are being censored across the board. Because the left is so weak-minded that they swallow the need for a great reset to keep the planet from burning up in their minds, willing to impose tyranny on everyone because some scientists sold a bunch of junk that so happens to serve perfectly the purpose of a reset.
Some of us want nothing to do with any “new normal.”
You should adhere to the old sage advice: “Better to leave one’s mouth closed, and let people THINK you are a fool, than open it, and remove all doubt”.
There is now about 470 million guns in the United States after January 2021 sales. If the Commiecrat politicians treat us this poorly when we are armed to the teeth, well just imagine what they will be willing to force us to do once they have disarmed us. Obiden wants another so called assault weapons ban, register the ones you have. Pay $100 per gun per year and $100 per magazine per year if it will hold over ten rounds to keep them. All in violation of two Supreme Court decisions, Heller v DC 2008 and McDonald vs Chicago 2010. Good luck with that Joey B.
I WILL NOT OBEY ! I WILL NOT COMPLY !
McDonald v Chicago 2010 is a landmark Supreme Court case that is important to understand. In its most basic form, the decision dismisses the proposition that a State (e.g., NY, IL, CT) or lower government (e.g., Chicago) can supersede or ignore the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, specifically the Second Amendment.
“None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 , nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252 , refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174 , does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes.”
This ruling clarifies the principle that Americans can keep and bear arms that are equivalent to those in common use by the National Guard, which the court considers an example of a “well regulated militia.” We have a RIGHT to the SAME arms and accessories issued to the National Guard that they use in defense of the United States.
The National Guard’s rifle of issue (and rifle in common use) is the 5.56 x 45mm (.223) M16A2 a lightweight, air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed, shoulder or hip-fired weapon designed for either automatic fire (3-round bursts) or semiautomatic fire (single shot) through the use of a selector lever and has a magazine capacity of 30 rounds. Civilians can only own (except with the purchase of a special tax stamp from BATFE) the semiautomatic version called the M15 or AR15 not the M16 military rifle version.
“Defiance, not obedience, is the American’s answer to overbearing authority”. – Ayn Rand