“It’s a hot summer for the gun industry,” CNN Money headlined an early July report.
Background checks for gun sales spiked 11% in June compared to last year, making it the busiest June ever in the history of the National Instant Check System (NICS), citing the FBI’s background check data.
Last month the FBI conducted nearly 1.53 million background checks, which are required for all in-store purchases, all sales at gun shows in some states, and all sales by licensed dealers at gun shows anywhere in the country.
That’s the highest volume of checks in June since 1999, the first full year the NICS system was in operation,
CNN reported that background checks have climbed annually since 2003 with the exception of just three years, one of which was 2014, indicating a clear jump in gun sales.
The report quoted Michael Bazinet, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), saying the increase is driven in part by the influx of more women and first-time gun owners into the market.
CNN also noted that mass shootings can also trigger sales spikes, because they tend to spark more talk about and fear of tighter gun controls. Background checks for gun sales jumped 40% in December 2012, the month of the Sandy Hook massacre.
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“The June 17 murder of nine black parishioners in a Charleston, S.C. church prompted President Obama to again address the need for more gun control, but experts doubt there’s any connection between that tragedy and sales, CNN said, noting “In fact, May 2015 was also a record month for background checks year-over-year.”
NSSF-adjusted NICS background check figures released in early July reported the following:
“The June 2015 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 886,825 is the highest June on record for the 17-year-old system, with an increase of 10.1 percent compared to the June 2014 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 805,571. The second quarter 2015 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 2,793,230 is the second highest second quarter on record — a 4.5 percent increase over second quarter 2014 and surpassed only by second quarter 2013.”
Speaking of NICS, the FBI CJIS Division has decided to postpone the July 14, 2015, delivery of Phase 1 of the “New NICS.”
The new delivery date should not occur during peak season because of the potential risk to FFLs, to the public, to state partners and to the NICS staff. The New NICS team is drafting a revised go-live schedule, though no updated launch date has been announced.
The FBI CJIS Division said:
“If you have any questions, please contact the NICS Liaison staff at nicsliaison@ic.fbi.gov. Also, please note that you (FFLs) will continue to receive periodical spotlight emails from the NICS Section on the New NICS as this allows us to highlight various aspects of the new system.”
Meanwhile, several New York State newspapers prominently reported that the ammunition sales background checks and ammo purchase registry mandated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act and hastily passed in January 2013 in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shootings a month earlier will not be enforced for the foreseeable future.
The Cuomo administration’s director of state operations, James Malatras, signed a memorandum of understanding with State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan to undo certain aspects of the New York SAFE Act gun control law, though the major changes affect provisions of the law that were never implemented and that pertain to ammunition sales. The MOU also ends a ban on Internet sales of ammunition.
The Buffalo News noted:
“It was telling that the changes were not announced by the Cuomo administration.” Rather, word came late on a Friday afternoon – in keeping with Albany’s tradition of dumping potentially controversial news late on a Friday during the summer. And it came via press releases from at least two upstate State Senate Republicans, including State Sens. Catharine Young and William Seward, who issued separate press releases within five minutes of each other. Both supported Long Island’s Flanagan over SAFE Act opponent and upstate Republican State Sen. John DeFrancisco in a leadership battle earlier this year.
