The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) numbers are in for July 2025. This is the first month in almost six years that the adjusted NICS numbers estimate less than one million firearm sales.
The adjusted figures, as computed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), are almost 22,000 sales short of one million at 978,731.
In July of 2024, the NSSF calculated adjusted gun sales of 1,064,791. These figures show an eight percent drop in gun sales from last July. The NICS checks themselves fell by only four percent, from 2,021,235 to 1,936,621. About half of NICS checks are being used for purposes other than firearm sales.
The NSSF chart comparing firearm sales over the last twelve months shows a pattern that is very similar. How is it that the numbers from a presidential election year and an off-year without midterm elections are so similar? One possibility is that President Trump dominated the news cycle during both years, both before and six months after his election as president of the United States.
It may be because the old news media have been attempting to drag down President Trump for all of the twenty-four months.
Several factors have slowly reduced the demand for firearms at this time.
President Trump is winning his legislative and court battles. This, combined with a population that contains a majority of Trump supporters, means there is less concern the country will devolve into a nationwide kleptocracy or Anarcho-Tyranny as conceptualized by Samuel Francis in 2022. Victor Davis Hanson sees the Trump administration as a historical counter-revolution. Most of the people in the United States see the United States as moving in the right direction.
The coalition of bureaucrats, college-educated single women, and some minorities, directed by woke cultural Marxists, is a minority of voters, perhaps 25-30 percent. These groups have not been large gun owners in nearly the numbers that Trump supporters have been. The Democratic Party voters’ desire to arm themselves against the false fears of a “Trump dictatorship” cannot make up for the reduction of the fears of Constitutionalists. President Trump’s supporters saw what the Democratic Party was capable of in Biden’s years. The Trump supporters do not fear the federal government as much as they did before Trump was elected President.
The potential for high gun sales remains, even if the motivation has gone down for the moment.
There are about 535 million cartridge firearms in the United States of America. There is the possibility of market saturation. There are about 268 million people over the age of 17 in the United States of America. The number is probably close to 265 million when violent felons and the dangerous mentally ill members of the population are subtracted from the figure. Those 265 million are potential legal firearms owners.
It is not hard to see potential demand for a rifle, pistol, and shotgun for each adult. Those who become firearm owners are likely to discover they want more specialized products, such as target pistols, historical rifles, or waterfowl shotguns.
Today’s private stock of 535 million has taken about 126 years to achieve. This does not take into account population increase or technological advancement. There is a lot of potential for more firearm sales.
A great deal of effort has gone into demonizing the ownership of firearms. When such demonization is countered with factual arguments, demand for firearms is likely to go up.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
