There are a lot of people out there who think what’s popular should translate to what’s right. In their minds, so long as most people approve, everything is good to go no matter how many others disagree.

This is the theory behind gun control marketing. They often rely heavily on polling data, sometimes data that’s years out of date, to try and justify restricting our right to keep and bear arms.

Yet do you know what is really popular? Buying guns.

That doesn’t come out of nowhere, either. That’s according to the sales data released by the NSSF earlier this week.

“The June 2024 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 1,059,037 is a decrease of 4.7 percent compared to the June 2023 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,110,696. For comparison, the unadjusted June 2024 FBI NICS figure 1,958,447 reflects a 9.0 percent decrease from the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,152,187 in June 2023,” the organization said in a statement. 

Now, a 4.7 percent decrease isn’t exactly good news by any stretch of the imagination. I’m sure a lot of gun manufacturers are a little concerned. Yet there is a silver lining, one that I already alluded to, and that’s how buying guns is popular. The NSSF notes, “June marks the 59th month in a row that has exceeded 1 million adjusted background checks in a single month.”

59 months straight with over 1 million guns sold. That’s nearly five straight years, and contrary to what some might like to believe, it’s not the same handful of people buying guns each and every month. Not by a long shot.

Further, while it’s a decrease over last year, it’s still higher than gun sales prior to the spike in sales we saw in 2020.

As you can see, while it’s a decrease in gun sales over the previous year, it’s still well above what was considered normal prior to 2020. That increase in gun sales was massive, and what goes up must come down. Guns don’t exactly wear out quickly, so it’s not really a shock to see a dip over the last few years.

This trend holds true for the entire second quarter of 2024 where, according to the NSSF, the 3,364,270 firearms sold for the quarter is a 7.9 percent dip compared to the second quarter 2023, which saw 3,654,134 sold. Again, though, we can see that the sales figure exceed the sales for every year prior to 2020.

There may or may not be a continued decline in gun sales, but there’s a pretty good chance that we’re looking at a continuation of the trend of a million gun sales per month.

People like their firearms, especially when you’re talking about a period when people see crime as ridiculously high. Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant. People make their decisions based on numerous factors that are all, ultimately, based on their own perceptions of reality where they’re located. 

Unless something massive happens, I don’t see gun sales dropping that drastically moving forward and depending on what happens with the election season, we may well see a reversal of this decline. Say what you want about President Joe Biden, but he’s hell of a gun salesman.