The number of background checks run in 2020 has made national headlines every month in 2020, with the media eagerly watching the numbers of checks skyrocket above previous record numbers.
But the NSSF has said that it’s not been all smooth sailing for the government’s FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The sheer volume of checks being run in 2020 is bogging the NICS system down, increasing the number of potential gun owners who pass the NICS check because the three-day period has expired.
As most gun owners know, the NICS check is supposed to be instant, as the name implies. But if the FBI’s system can’t find the information it needs, it can delay approving the check for up to three days.
Due to the extreme volume, more gun owners are reaching that three day threshold and being automatically approved.
We think that’s just awesome.
Of course, the left thinks that we should change the NICS law to remove that three day ‘automatic approval’ option.
Record High Numbers
According to a recent report from Reuters, there was a “54 percent increase in the number of background checks that were delayed past three days in … March through July.”
Of that number, more than five percent of those delays lasted longer than three days.
Most interesting to gun owners, the number of NICS checks conducted March 2020 through July 2020 was up 93 percent, when compared to the same time period in 2019.
We’ve reported how August was the eight straight month that gun sales were at record highs. Each month from January to now has blown it’s 2019 number out of the water.
Gun Control Is A Failed Idea
These sorts of numbers could mean several things: more great, patriotic Americans are carrying guns than ever! That’s the good news. Nearly every analysis of the data by experts says that over 5 million Americans have bought their first gun in 2020.
But we have yet to see if these new gun owners VOTE like gun owners. We hope that the obvious inability of the left to control their Antifa shock troops has converted many leftist to the merit of being able to protect themselves — and the government’s inability.
We and other pro-gun media outlets have been hammering home how the cities with the exact gun control that the left wants everywhere…..are the cities seeing the worst crime in the nation.
Gun control has failed the left, but will these new gun owners realize that? Or did they just buy a gun on a whim and haven’t changed their thinking on guns in general?
That remains to be seen….and the election of 2020 is less than 50 days away.