And people are taking that to heart, with new firearm industry data showing that since 2020, 22.3 MILLION Americans who previously did not own a gun, have since chosen to purchase one.
As reported by The Truth About Guns:
"Gun control activists are in for some bad news: Americans have rejected their anti-gun dogma in a Florida-sized way.
Firearm industry data has revealed something astounding. In a major shift since 2020, a population the size of Florida has become first-time, brand-new gun owners. That’s right – more than 22.3 million people who previously had decided firearm ownership wasn’t for them looked around, decided they didn’t like what they were seeing, jumped off the fence and lawfully purchased a gun at retail."
Chris Cheng, a gay Asian American man, and past History Channel Top Shot competitive shooting champion, explained the reasoning during a recent U.S. Senate committee hearing.
“The past year-and-a-half or so with COVID-19 has been a pressure cooker… When you couple that with calls to defund the police and taking law enforcement officers off the street… it makes citizens like me less safe,” Cheng said. “If I can’t have law enforcement there, then it is a rational conclusion that individual citizens like myself would opt to utilize my Second Amendment right to purchase a firearm and use that firearm in lawful and legal self-defense.”
The data comes from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and goes more in depth into the different factors at play, while most notably being COVID-19 lockdowns and the "Defund the Police" movement, Joe Biden's increased siren calls for gun control played a clear factor.
The Truth About Guns further explains:
"Industry data shows that since 2020, at least 22.3 million law-abiding Americans went to a licensed gun store and purchased a firearm for the first time. As mentioned – that’s approximately the population of the state of Florida, all new gun owners.
Segmented out by year, it’s unsurprising the initial shock and feelings of unease in 2020 led to the largest surge in first-time buyers. Midway through 2020, first-time gun owners accounted for approximately 40 percent of buyers, according to retailers. The “normal” is usually somewhere around 20-24 percent. All told in 2020, there were approximately 8.4 million new first-time gun owners.
In 2021, the initial surge in first-timers subsided a bit and the number totaled about 5.4 million first-time gun buyers. The percentage dropped to around 30 percent of all buyers. In 2022, totaled approximately 4.2 million and 2023 actually rose just a bit to 4.3 million, according to industry data. The 2024 figures aren’t finalized yet, but so far there have been just north of 6 million total FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications processed for the sale of a firearm. If the percentages hold to average, that could mean another million more first-time gun buyers for the year, so far.
After the May 2024 firearm sales figures were reported, and in the face of increased calls for more gun control by President Joe Biden and his gun control allies, NSSF’s Mark Oliva told media, “May showed that over 1 million Americans chose to exercise their Second Amendment rights, which starts by being able to freely approach the gun counter to make a legal firearm purchase. That streak over more than 1 million background checks has continued for 58 months, uninterrupted. Firearm ownership by law-abiding Americans is more than a luxury. It is essential to guarantee the freedoms and liberties we all enjoy.”"
So while gun grabbers continue to try to curtail gun ownership, their efforts are clearly not working.
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