Free Republic

Graphic by Dave Scott, Courtesy Dean Weingarten The National Instant background Check System (NICS) numbers for November of 2019 are a new record, 2,574,752. The previous record was in November 2016, at 2,556,281. The numbers for NICS in 2019, through the end of November, are 25,432,856. Those numbers, by themselves, would make 2019 the third-highest year on record. But December numbers are yet to be added to the year's total. December has the highest number of checks of any month of the year for 17 of the last 20 complete years of NICS checks.Last year, the December NICS checks were...

The numbers are in from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF as the shortened acronym.  The report is issued annually for two years back.  In 2014, there were 9,050,626 firearms manufactured; 3,625,268 firearms imported; and 420,932 firearms exported.  This includes rifles, shotguns, handguns and others, the others being mostly receivers that might become either rifles or handguns when finished.  It does not include firearms produced for the military services.The total addition to the firearms stock for 2014 was (production + imports – exports).  That total is 12,254,962 firearms in 2014, which brings the total U.S....