Despite reports that gun sales have slacked off since Donald Trump took office, a report from the National Shooting Sports Foundation shows that gun sales-related background checks for April were actually up slightly over April 2016.
Fox News appears to be the only news outlet reporting this. It noted that the raw data from the FBI for April shows there were 2,045,564 checks with the National Instant Check System (NICS), while April of last year saw 2,1145,865 NICS Checks.
However, when the figures are adjusted by the NSSF, last month’s number was 1,111,596, up 0.04 percent over April 2016’s figure of 1,111,205 NICS checks for gun purchases.
Fox noted that, “The group’s analysis strips out NICS checks that are conducted for gun-carry permits or other checks that aren’t related to sales.”
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By no small coincidence, the Washington State Department of Licensing reported Monday that as of May 1, there were 580,861 active concealed pistol licenses in the Evergreen State. That’s up 2,612 above the figure at the end of March.
Washington is considered a “blue” state only because of Seattle’s far left voting pattern that seems to dominate all national political votes in that state.
Over the weekend in Atlanta, more than 81,000 people attended the National Rifle Association’s annual convention. The immediate neighborhood around the convention center and hotels was quite possibly the safest and most polite area of the city for the entire weekend.
What does all of this mean? Essentially it is bad news for liberal gun control proponents. They had fits over the fact that Trump appeared at the NRA gathering. Perhaps more important, while they are spreading alarm among their supporters that the president is open to approving legislation that expands – or one might suggest “restores” – gun rights following decades of erosion, they can’t seem to stir the masses.
On the weekend when tens of thousands of Second Amendment people streamed into the convention center, the gun prohibition lobby could pull only a couple of hundred people – provided one believes the media’s crowd size estimate – to protest the convention at a park a couple of blocks away.
The gun prohibition lobby is especially fearful of national concealed carry reciprocity and passage of the national Hearing Protection Act, which would make suppressors (“silencers”) more available to the general public.
It may be no wonder why more people now feel the country is headed in the right direction than they did during the past administration. Rasmussen Reports said Monday that 38 percent of likely U.S. voters think the country is on the right track. That’s down 9 points from January right after Trump took office, but up significantly from the typical numbers over the past few years.
Related:
News media asking the ‘Well, DUH’ as NRA meets in Atlanta
Trump to NRA audience: Law-abiding gun owners’ rights secure
Get out the crying towels for gun control groups?
