More than 1.7 million firearms were sold in the U.S. last month, up 80 percent compared to last May. That follows a 71 percent surge in April to just under 1.8 million sold, and just under two million guns were sold in March.
Some perspective: The all-time record, following the Sandy Hook massacre and President Obama’s address vowing to make a major push for more gun control, was two million guns sold in January 2013. This chart shows a general trend upward for years. In September 2001, gun sales were only about 750,000, and that was a month when sales surged.
So we’re looking at just a hair under record gun sales for each of the last three months, totaling about 5.5 million firearms sold in 90 days. Presumably June gun sales will also be robust.
Industry expert Timothy Lytton, a law professor at Georgia State University, told the New York Times: “People are nervous that there’s a certain amount of civil disorder that might come if huge numbers of people are sick and a huge number of institutions are not operating normally. They may have an anxiety about protecting themselves if the organs of state are starting to erode.”
That was back on April 1. Anybody feeling more confident about the strength of the organs of state now?