The 2024 presidential election has yet to spark a significant jump in gun sales, according to FBI data released Friday, reversing a two-decade trend in which election years correlate strongly with firearm purchases.
The trend appears to indicate dwindling concerns among gun owners that the election will result in tougher gun laws. But the numbers also reflect the fact that gun purchasing remains at historically high levels following a pandemic gun boom that broadened the demographics of firearm ownership.
“We haven’t seen what we typically see in an election year,” Mark Oliva, the spokesperson for the National Shooting Sports Federation, the firearm industry trade group, told HuffPost. “We’ve seen more of a steady state for background checks for firearm purchases. It’s bucked the trend a little bit.”
Jumps in election-year gun purchasing historically have been driven by fears that widely publicized mass shootings or Democratic victories would prompt stricter gun laws.
But this year, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has tempered her stance on gun reforms while repeatedly highlighting that she owns a pistol she bought for personal protection. And there is no realistic chance for big-ticket gun restrictions like an assault weapons ban, universal background checks or magazine restrictions to pass Congress following an election in which Republicans will likely take control of the Senate.
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Those new political realities may help explain the absence of a surge in gun sales this election cycle.
The U.S. does not track gun sales. The closest proxy is data from the FBI background checks required to complete a commercial sale, which the NSSF adjusts by subtracting checks associated with concealed carry permits.
Every presidential election year for the last two decades has seen a major surge in background checks, indicating rising sales.
While two months remain in the year, raising the possibility that gun sales could soar before the close of 2024, an election-year rise in gun sales would typically show in the data by now.
Monthly FBI background checks for gun sales jumped 20% or more from August to October in 2000, 2004 and 2008, and by 15% in 2016, according to NSSF-adjusted figures.
Background checks for 2012 as a whole jumped by 19% compared to the already rising year before.
And 2020 was a year in which American gun sales, driven partly by the coronavirus pandemic, jumped more than any time in recorded history, with FBI background checks skyrocketing 60% over the previous year to 21.1 million. Annual background checks for gun purchases had risen by an average of 3.6% annually for the preceding two decades, the NSSF-adjusted figures show.
This year, background checks rose 7% from August to October. But October checks fell about 5% lower than the same month last year, the figures show. At the current pace, background checks for 2024 gun sales will fall roughly in line with last year’s levels.
The data still shows, however, that Americans continue to buy firearms in very high numbers.
“We’re at 63 months continuously with over 1 million background checks [each month],” Oliva told HuffPost. “This is not something we saw six years ago. It’s a new plateau.”