The year 2020 is wrought with tumultuousness amid the civil unrest in response to ongoing systemic racism, most vividly expressed through police violence, and economic instability from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's no wonder that Americans are feeling more vulnerable than ever before which explains the huge spike in gun sales over the course of this year.
According to multiple reports, nearly 40 percent of new guns purchased this year were bought by first-time gun owners. Jon Barker, CEO of Sportsman’s Warehouse Holdings, estimates nearly 5 million people bought firearms for the first time in the first seven months of 2020. The substantiate Barker's estimation, the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System said its system's activity is up 41 percent this year than during the same period in 2019. To bring these numbers in sharper relief, through September, the FBI's NICBCS screened 28.8 million people. In 2019, the system checked 28.4 million people total over the course of the year.
In 2017, the United States had 393 million guns with India ranking the second-highest with 71 million, and China rounding out the top three with 50 million - both countries have a population four times the size of the U.S. That gap has undoubtedly widened with the latest surge in gun sales here in the United States.
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