NSSF Estimates 5 Million
New Gun Owners

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) — the trade association for the firearms industry — recently estimated there are 5 million new gun owners this year. That is, people who had previously never owned a firearm and bought one in 2020.

Earlier this year, Insider Online dug into this phenomenon to learn that many of these first timers had experienced a change of heart, if not something of an epiphany, about guns. Suddenly, faced with an uncertain future, former anti-gunners were scrambling to become gun owners, learning in the process that it really isn’t so easy to buy a gun. That discovery ran contrary to everything they’ve been told by the gun prohibition lobby.

Looks like credit goes to the COVID-19 pandemic panic, followed by weeks of social unrest and rioting in the aftermath of the George Floyd incident in Minneapolis, mixed with concerns about the outcome of this year’s presidential and congressional elections and the loss of police protection resulting from the effort to defund police agencies.

According to NSSF data, it all boils down to an estimated 12.1 million background checks for gun purchases during the first seven months of this year. Trusting their numbers, let’s look closer at them:

• 40% of first-time gun buyers were women.
• 58% of firearms purchases were among African American men and women, the largest increase of any demographic group.
• Retailers say firearms sales increased 95% over the same period in 2019.
• Retailers also reported a whopping 139% increase in ammunition sales over the same period last year.
• The number of background checks from January through July this year was up 72% over the same period in 2019.

The spike began in March, the same month authorities began shutting down the country due to the Coronavirus outbreak. That month saw a record-breaking 2.3 million NICS background checks conducted for an actual firearms sale.

According to NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Larry Keane, “This is a tectonic shift in the firearm and ammunition industry marketplace and complete transformation of today’s gun-owning community. These first-time buyers represent a group of people who, until now, were agnostic regarding firearm ownership. That’s rapidly changing, and these Americans are taking hold of their God-given right to keep and bear arms and protect themselves and their loved ones.”

https://www.nssf.org/first-time-gun-buyers-grow-to-nearly-5-million-in-2020/

https://www.nssf.org/millions-of-first-time-gun-buyers-during-covid-19

It’s an Election Year

All, or at least many, of these new gun owners just might become gun voters, leading NSSF to launch its voter education outreach program dubbed “GunVote.”

According to NSSF Public Affairs Director Mark Oliva, “We are reminding everyone who cherishes their God-given rights of what’s at stake and encouraging them to get informed, get involved and get to the voting booth. We’re telling gun owners – don’t risk your rights. Get registered to vote and make your choice heard through the ballot box.”

As Insider Online has previously noted, much is at stake on Nov. 3, especially the effort to bring balance to the federal courts by filling vacancies with constitutional judges.

“The choices faced by voters when it comes to the future of Second Amendment rights couldn’t be more stark,” Oliva noted in a message to Insider Online. “The Biden/Harris ticket poses the greatest threat to the firearm industry and to gun rights as any candidacy. This is a campaign that embraced forcible confiscation of lawfully-owned firearms.”

It doesn’t get much plainer than that. Underscoring this are a couple of other figures we stumbled across in story appearing in The Hill, which has covered Capitol Hill politics for many years.

• Brady PAC had raised “nearly $100,000 for the Biden campaign” by late August, with the goal to raise $250,000.
• Giffords, the organization created by former Congresswoman Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords, had contributed $10,000 to the Biden campaign victory fund, but it is spending almost $200,000 to federal campaigns in an effort to flip the Senate to Democrats.

According to NSSF, Biden and Harris “want universal background checks, which won’t work without a national registry, which is expressly forbidden by federal law.”

Ultimately, the trade association predicted, Biden/Harris “would force states to adopt registries through licensing schemes that would create watch lists of law-abiding gun owners simply for exercising their rights.”

The only way to head that off will be for gun owners to register to vote, and then actually cast a ballot. The entire gun rights community is urging gun owners to vote.

Writing last month in Forbes, Chris Dorsey had this observation: “Democrats are giddy at the notion that the NRA — spending much of its money on mounting legal fees and under gunned for the coming political fight—might be largely irrelevant this election cycle. What they are grossly miscalculating, however, is the resolve of gun owners who comprise perhaps the nation’s largest voting bloc. Gun owners see the President as a steadfast ally. Conversely, they tend to see Democrats the way ship captains view icebergs. Senator Biden famously said, if elected, he’d turn gun confiscation duties over to Beto O’Rourke, in an exchange that did far more to motivate gun owners than anything the NRA could have concocted in their war room.”

https://action.gunvote.org/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisdorsey/2020/08/25/despite-nra-woes-gun-owner-voter-turnout-likely-to-be-massive/#466b028d3295

https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/511768-gun-control-groups-seek-convention-momentum

And That’s Not All

Entering the fray in late August was a group called Gun Owners for Trump, which is part of the president’s re-election campaign effort.

The Gun Owners for Trump advisory board includes several well-known names in the firearms community: Olympic gold medalist Kim Rhode, Barrett Firearms CEO Ronnie Barrett, Firearms Academy of Detroit CEO Rick Ector, Alexo Athletica CEO and TV host Amy Robbins, American biathlete Lanny Barnes, retired Army Sgt. Major Kyle Lamb, competitive shooter and firearms instructor Gabby Franco; Eye on the Target radio host Amanda Suffecool, author and motivational speaker Marsha Petrie Sue, and Hogue Knives Managing Owner Neil Hogue — plus Matthew Gomez, Thibault Bowman, Mia Rhode, Barbara Rumpel, Esther Schneider, Beth Walker and Linda Walker.

CCRKBA’s Alan Gottlieb noted in a prepared statement that President Trump “has fulfilled one of his most important campaign pledges to America’s 100 million gun owners. The president has been filling federal court vacancies with experienced, constitutional judges who understand the Second Amendment means what it says.”

https://gunowners.donaldjtrump.com/

https://www.ccrkba.org/alan-gottlieb-on-gun-owners-for-trump-advisory-board/

A couple of years ago, I put several rounds through a Springfield 911 in .380 ACP. I hit everything I aimed at out to 25 yards, and this is no target pistol!

People may disdain what they consider “mouse guns,” but in an emergency, these little pocket rockets can literally be lifesavers. Sometimes, they may be the only gun a person can carry discreetly and still be armed.

As noted above, over the past several months, some 5 million Americans became new gun owners. Many purchased smaller pistols; women especially like smaller handguns because they fit smaller hands, and they may be carried unnoticed in a pocket or purse.

Insider would like to hear from readers who pack pistols in pockets. Tell us about the model, caliber and why you made this choice. Autumn is just over the horizon when you’ll be able to comfortably carry a “pocket pistol” in an actual pocket.