That’s the implication of the background check numbers released by the FBI on Monday. The agency, which oversees the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), reported a record number of checks on Black Friday 2023. This year’s 214,913 checks are up 5.5 percent from the previous record set in 2017 and ten percent from last year.
Black Friday 2023 was the third-busiest day in the history of the FBI’s background check system–though the agency’s official report has yet to be updated to reflect that fact. However, the week leading up to this year’s Black Friday did not climb into the top ten rankings. The 680,671 NICS checks performed from Sunday to Friday last week represented a 4.3 percent decrease from 2022 and a 16.8 percent decrease from 2020.
The number of NICS checks has exploded in recent years as Americans of all stripes have sought out guns for self-defense since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight of the top ten days for NICS checks have happened since 2020. The same is true for nine of the top ten weeks.
The number of NICS checks in a given period has traditionally been one of the most reliable gauges of how many gun sales occurred during that period because new gun sales across the country, and used gun sales by private sellers in some states, must go through NICS by federal law. However, the raw number of NICS checks has increasingly diverged from the number of gun sales over recent years as the system is also used for other purposes, such as background checks associated with gun-carry permit applications–with some states even re-checking every resident with a carry permit each month.
For monthly NICS data releases, the FBI reports more detailed information on how checks break down between sales and other purposes. That allows industry groups and media companies to whittle down the count to get closer to just the sales-related checks. The limited nature of Monday’s release doesn’t make that process possible. So, the numbers are less representative of the true number of gun sales on Black Friday.
Americans – some of them at least – are trusting their gut when it comes to personal safety and security. They see the insane violent crime happening all around them. Maybe they’ve even been victimized themselves. Their intuition is telling them that there’s danger in the world today. Serious danger.
Obviously, no sane person likes to feel threatened in their daily lives by brazen predatory criminals. Knowing that the best thing – the ONLY thing – that stops bad people with evil in their hearts is a good guy with a gun, Americans are buying guns. And on the week of Black Friday, your fellow Americans voted with their wallets. They bought guns. A record number of guns, in fact.
Back to the trusting your intuition: ZeroHedge had a great story about Tucker Carlson’s short little speech in Las Vegas the other day:
This probably goes in the ‘must watch’ category.
I’ll second that, although “must listen” would probably suffice just as well. Thirty-one minutes. Beats ANY 31 minutes of anything on broadcast TV (does anyone still watch that?) and probably most any 31 minutes on Cable TV too.
Tucker Carlson delivered an insightful speech at last weekend’s Risk On360! Global Success Conference in Las Vegas, where he began by explaining how just about everyone he knows is “angry and paranoid.”
Always trust your gut. If you feel like they’re lying to you, they are. pic.twitter.com/zkKYtRUbrf
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 21, 2023
“I flew out here across the country this morning and spent five hours texting people … and I gotta tell you, every single person I texted, with the exception of my wife — who’s not on the internet at all — was angry and paranoid,” said Carlson.
“Seriously, and these are not crazy people. These are normal good people with like kids and stuff. With a vested interest in Americans’ success. These are not the burn-it-down caucus. These are the, you know, these are the people you want voting.”
Gee, what’s to worry about? An illegal alien invasion? Rampant violent crime? Energy availability, affordability and stability? Green energy scam? Global warming hoax? Globalism? AI to further promote leftist inculcation of the young and less informed? Child sex grooming in our schools? Gun control schemes? Free speech restrictions? The FBI is a tool of the police state? Voting “irregularities”? The destruction of America as we know it? Potential for nuclear war? Bankrupting of America?
Trust your intuition
Carlson suggested that people need to trust their gut, expressing a strong belief that the upcoming year would be particularly chaotic, and unlike anything the country has gone through.
“Your gut is the one thing that doesn’t lie to you. Your gut only has your interest in mind. It is not trying to sell you a product, or convince you to vote for it,” he said, suggesting that people use their intuition going into the upcoming chaos.
“I’m just telling you once again, what you already know, which is this is going to be — the next year is going to be, I think I’d bet my house on it, really like nothing we’ve ever seen in the country. And everyone can kind of feel that. You know, most of our perceptions come through intuition rather than reason.” said Carlson, adding “If something bad is about to happen, everybody gets jumpy and everybody’s really jumpy right now.”
Tucker Carlson has a knack for analyzing and articulating the world around us. Sure, he’s not perfect and he makes mistakes once in a while. At the same time he’s spot on the great majority of the time. Here’s a thought: There’s a real chance that he’s going to be Donald Trump’s running mate in 2024. Ponder that for a moment or three.
Oh, and did you take a peek at comments? AI delivered this one to me as the “top comment”:
During an emergency, do exactly the opposite the government tells you to do. Ask the maui residents about that. and the vaccine takers.
Anyway, finish pondering another time because here’s the rest of the deets on the RECORD gun buying spree that just took place under everyone’s noses. From The Reload:
Americans were out in full force buying guns during the start of the holiday shopping season.
Yup, Americans bought a metric bleep-ton of guns on the week of Black Friday.
I’ll admit to buying a gun, although I was a few weeks early.
ROCK ISLAND PRO MATCH ULTRA 45 ACP 8 ROUND PISTOL, PARKERIZED
From Palmetto State Armory.
Currently a “Daily Deal” at PSA for 699.99.
A while back PSA dumped a bunch of them for this price.
Which made it one of those once-in-a-blue-moon deals too good to pass up.
Would I buy it sight unseen at $699.99? Probably not.
Would I buy it today if I was looking for a 1911-style .45 that runs like a gem and shoots something akin to a match pistol? Yes, probably. At $700 it’s an okay deal. At the $419 price it was a screaming great deal.
(I should write a review since they have them in stock again!)