US Gun Sales Collapsed Last Month

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 25, 10:00AM EST

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US Gun Sales Collapsed Last Month — © Spencer Platt / Getty Images News via Getty Images

Gun violence has become a regular part of the headline news the past year. Murders in American cities spiked in 2021, particularly in large cities, with guns involved in most of these. And already, there have been 6,274 gun deaths across the country so far in 2022 (as of Feb. 23), according to the Gun Violence Archive. (These are cities where the record for most murders was broken in 2021.)

Even with stricter gun ownership and purchasing laws, there is no getting around the fact that about 400 million guns are currently owned by private citizens, the police, and the military. Programs meant to give people incentives to turn in guns cannot make much of a dent in gun ownership. (These are the states with the best and worst gun laws.)

Gun sales, as estimated by background checks data from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, reached 38,876,673 last year. This was down slightly from the record set in 2020 of 39,695,315. Background checks are the best available proxy for gun sales. 24/7 Wall St. used the NICS data to find January gun sales figures (as estimated by background checks) for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

There are several theories about the sharp rise in gun sales over the past two years. Among them is the violence in American cities during protests. Another is the fear that people might have during the pandemic that they need to protect their property, even if this is absurd. (These are states with the most gun violence.)

One fact about recent gun purchases stands out. The Economist recently referred to a study by Matthew Miller of Northeastern University and his co-authors that found that of first time gun buyers between January 2019 and April 2021, “half were female, a fifth black and a fifth Hispanic.”

Inexplicably, gun sales collapsed in January 2022, compared to January last year. There were 2,591,588 background checks in January, 60% of last year’s figure of 4,317,804. The recent figure was the lowest January total since 2019, though the number remained high in some states. They were particularly large in Illinois at 473,953, or 18% of the NICS total background checks that month.

Click here to see which US gun sales collapsed last month

Alabama
> January gun sales: 62,764

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Alaska
> January gun sales: 4,986

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Arizona
> January gun sales: 34,855

Arkansas
> January gun sales: 17,487

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California
> January gun sales: 104,282

Colorado
> January gun sales: 40,897

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Connecticut
> January gun sales: 18,473

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Delaware
> January gun sales: 4,596

District of Columbia
> January gun sales: 1,418

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Florida
> January gun sales: 112,827

Georgia
> January gun sales: 48,062

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Hawaii
> January gun sales: 1,358

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Idaho
> January gun sales: 15,947

Illinois
> January gun sales: 473,953

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Indiana
> January gun sales: 111,333

Iowa
> January gun sales: 22,011

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Kansas
> January gun sales: 14,630

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Kentucky
> January gun sales: 354,595

Louisiana
> January gun sales: 27,768

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Maine
> January gun sales: 7,239

Maryland
> January gun sales: 17,340

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Massachusetts
> January gun sales: 17,297

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Michigan
> January gun sales: 62,731

Minnesota
> January gun sales: 65,564

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Mississippi
> January gun sales: 19,312

Missouri
> January gun sales: 38,691

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Montana
> January gun sales: 9,052

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Nebraska
> January gun sales: 5,904

Nevada
> January gun sales: 13,648

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New Hampshire
> January gun sales: 9,481

New Jersey
> January gun sales: 13,063

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New Mexico
> January gun sales: 12,417

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New York
> January gun sales: 29,536

North Carolina
> January gun sales: 50,952

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North Dakota
> January gun sales: 5,064

Ohio
> January gun sales: 50,625

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Oklahoma
> January gun sales: 27,273

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Oregon
> January gun sales: 30,035

Pennsylvania
> January gun sales: 93,298

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Puerto Rico
> January gun sales: 5,778

Rhode Island
> January gun sales: 2,139

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South Carolina
> January gun sales: 29,123

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South Dakota
> January gun sales: 6,536

Tennessee
> January gun sales: 62,111

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Texas
> January gun sales: 127,737

Utah
> January gun sales: 80,486

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Vermont
> January gun sales: 3,184

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Virginia
> January gun sales: 42,218

Washington
> January gun sales: 52,914

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West Virginia
> January gun sales: 13,050

Wisconsin
> January gun sales: 51,816

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Wyoming
> January gun sales: 4,827

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.