Gun background checks are on pace to break record in 2019
Background checks on gun purchases in the U.S. are climbing toward a record high this year, reflecting what the industry says is a rush by people to buy weapons in reaction to the Democratic presidential candidates’ calls for tighter restrictions. By the end of November, more than 25.4 million background checks — generally seen as a strong indicator of gun sales — had been conducted by the FBI, putting 2019 on pace to break the record of 27.5 million set in 2016, the last full year President Barack Obama was in the White House. On Black Friday alone, the FBI ran 202,465 checks. Some analysts question how accurately the background check figures translate into gun sales, since some states run checks on applications for concealed-carry permits, too, and some purchases involve multiple firearms. But the numbers remain the most reliable method of tracking the industry. In the years since President Donald Trump took office, the industry has struggled through what has been referred to as the Trump Slump, a falloff in sales that reflected little worry among gun owners about gun control efforts. But with the 2020 presidential election less than a year out and virtually every Democratic candidate offering proposals to restrict access to firearms, fears appear to be driving up sales again. “The Trump Slump is real, but the politics of guns has changed a little bit over the last year,” said Adam Winkler, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law and an expert on gun rights and politics. “As we’re coming up upon another presidential election, Donald Trump is vulnerable, and the Democratic presidential contenders are falling all over themselves to propose more aggressive gun reforms than their opponents.” Trump has been viewed as one of the most gun-friendly presidents in modern history and has boasted of strong support from the National Rifle Association. He has addressed every one of its annual conventions since the 2016 campaign, and the powerful gun lobby pumped about $30 million into efforts to elect him. Still, hopes of expanded gun rights under Trump’s watch haven’t materialized. Legislation that would make it easier to buy silencers stalled in Congress. In addition, Trump pushed through a ban on bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic rifles to mimic machine-gun fire. The gunman who killed 58 people in Las Vegas in 2017 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history used such a device. The industry has been going through one of its toughest periods, with some gunmakers, such as Remington Arms, filing for bankruptcy. More recently, Smith & Wesson’s parent company, American Outdoor Brands, announced plans to spin off its firearms unit, and Colt said it would suspend production of AR-15 rifles. Amid some high-profile mass shootings in recent years, especially the Parkland school attack in Florida that left 17 people dead, gun control advocates have gained some momentum. The crowded field of Democrats running for the White House has offered a variety of proposals to curtail gun rights. Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, whose state has seen repeated mass shootings this past year, went so far as to push for a mandatory buyback program for Arizona and Arkansas style rifles before dropping out of the race, stoking gun owners’ fears when he declared during a debate, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.” The gun industry says the figures from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System reflect the Second Amendment politics of the White House race. “Americans are choosing to invest their hard-earned dollars in their ability to exercise their rights and buy the firearms they want before gun control politicians attempt to regulate away that ability,” said Mark Oliva, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents the gun industry. Still, some experts took issue with the figures and said it is premature to declare the Trump Slump is over. “These numbers cannot be taken be taken at face value,” said Jurgen Brauer, a retired business professor and now chief economist at Small Arms Analytics, which consults on the firearms industry. Brauer said the numbers are increasingly skewed by states such as Kentucky that also run background checks when they issue or renew a permit to carry a concealed firearm. In October, for example, the state ran more than 280,000 checks through the NICS system for permits. “That number has been rising over time as increasingly states check with some frequency on their existing permits,” Brauer said. The NICS system was created after passage of the Brady Bill, which mandated background checks to buy a firearm. Convicted felons, domestic abusers and people who have been involuntarily committed to a mental institution are among those who cannot legally purchase a weapon. In 1999, the first full year the system was used, just over 9 million background checks were conducted. It was near the end of Democrat Bill Clinton’s second term and in the midst of a 10-year ban on assault rifles that expired in 2004. Background checks declined under President George W. Bush but picked up again in 2006 and have mostly risen since then, except for 2014 and 2017. In 2018, there were 26.18 million background checks. “Gunmakers are promoting the idea that you should buy these guns now because they may be banned in the future,” Winkler said. This story has been corrected to delete the number of seconds per background check on Black Friday. By Lisa Marie Pane Associated Press. Republished with the Permission of the Associated Press.
Tom Jackson: Jihadi wannabe shoots up Orlando; Obama blames us
Once again, a great city that rightly prides itself on multicultural tolerance has been shredded by a fanatical hater whose worldview is rooted in 7th Century mysticism and hero worship. London. Madrid. Paris. Brussels. Now, Orlando. America’s getaway destination. Home. And once again, leaders of a political party with roots that trace to the Enlightenment are blaming the tools of destruction, not the backward extremism that put those instruments to evil use. Thus, in an otherwise down market Monday morning, did gun stocks — Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger, in particular — surge. This is perfectly understandable. When certain of America’s leaders target firearms after the ideologically charged slaughter of unarmed innocents, Americans know they are not serious about eradicating the next potential triggerman’s vile inspiration. Yes, I know. Among one-point-six-billion Muslims, only a statistically tiny portion are truly bad actors. But even if it’s only one percent, that’s a whole lot of radicalism for one small planet to manage. Along those lines, it’s darn near impossible to manage that which you refuse even to identify. Alas, such is President Obama’s M.O. Once again the moment came upon him to make plain the war forced upon us, and once again he dashed to a nonsense prescription — we require more extensive regulation of inanimate objects — while aggressively ignoring the jihadi in the room. What drivel. What insidious misdirection. Yes, we had a so-called “assault weapons” ban once upon a time, and the country didn’t collapse. Should we reinstate it? Only if we think meaningless flourishes will solve the raging trouble at hand. Studies indicate the ban made virtually no difference in gun crime. Bad dudes merely switched weapons of choice. Wait. The president wasn’t finished. There was an outrage ahead. Besides guns, Obama’s blame fell on, well, us. Really. Because, after all, in the president’s assessment, we all are denizens of the swamp that produced the execrable Omar Mateen. Obama: “We need to demonstrate that we are defined more — as a country — by the way [the victims] lived their lives than by the hate of the man who took them from us.” This blame-shifting is indefensible, even monstrous. A feverish Islamist extremist inflamed by ISIS acts on orders laid out plainly in sharia law and espoused by respected Muslim holy men, and Obama tells us to check our consciences. Yes, the people who love “Will & Grace” and “Modern Family,” who at worst sighed in capitulation over the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling; and who adore Neil Patrick Harris playing heterosexual romantic leads — we are the ones who need to make plain what defines us. That’s unreservedly disgusting. We didn’t establish a pattern of sweaty bigotry for Jews, African Americans, gays and women. We weren’t interviewed three times in two years by the FBI for linking ourselves to terror organizations and having had contact with a subsequent suicide bomber. We didn’t perpetrate such violence on our spouses that they had to flee half the country away to feel safe. We didn’t make a 911 call to proclaim allegiance to ISIS before hauling a small arsenal into an Orlando nightspot and start shooting up the place. That, and more, is all on Mateen, the vermin ISIS warrior/martyr wannabe. But that’s a subject too uncomfortable for President Obama, who called out hate and terror, but, when it came to honestly identifying the animating energy, flinched. Because blaming Americans is what he does. Every time. Every damn time. ___ Recovering sports columnist and former Tampa Tribune columnist Tom Jackson argues on behalf of thoughtful conservative principles as our best path forward. Fan of the Beach Boys, pulled-pork barbecue and days misspent at golf, Tom lives in New Tampa with his wife, two children and two yappy middle-aged dogs.
