Stocking Up on Firearms

Mike Allen at Axios:

It's not just toilet paper that Americans stocked up on.

In March, the FBI processed a one-month record 3.7 million gun background checks — a figure that approximates gun sales, Axios' Stef Kight reports.

• Last month included five of the top 10 days for background checks since the start of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in 1998 — 22 years ago.
• March was the second-busiest month ever for gun sales — trailing only January 2013, just after President Obama’s re-election and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the N.Y. Times reports.

Spikes in purchases of firearms and ammunition — and in first-time gun buyers — have been reported in areas hit hard by coronavirus, including Washington, California and New York.

• In a video tweeted by the NRA on March 21, an activist warns: "If you aren’t preparing to defend your property when everything goes wrong, you’re really just stockpiling for somebody else."