Estimated gun sales in February defy expectations

By Christen Smith

(Source: NICS/FBI)
Estimated firearm sales dipped slightly last month, despite a wave of gun control proposals introduced in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
Dealers processed just shy of 2.3 million applications through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in February, 3.1 percent higher than 2017.
Estimated gun sales — the sum total of transfers in the NICS’s handgun, long gun, multiple and other categories — exceeded 1.1 million, a 2.5 percent decline over last year and the slowest February recorded since 2014.
Background checks serve as a proxy measure for gun sales, albeit an imperfect one. Applications for concealed carry permits, periodic rechecks for maintaining licenses and a slew of smaller categories for pawns, redemptions, rentals and other rare situations undercut the total amount of checks processed in one month. Guns.com removes these categories from the total figure to more accurately assess actual transfers, though it’s still an estimate.
Given the politically-charged atmosphere sweeping across the nation since a 19-year-old gunman murdered 17 students and staff at his former high school in southern Florida last month, however, the stage was set for an anticipated bump in federal background checks.
It’s a trend often witnessed after other high-profile mass shootings. In December 2012 — the same month

Source: Guns.com