America’s Favorite Black Friday Sale Item? Guns

Happy holidays — it looks like Grandma got you a Glock. According to the FBI, Black Friday 2015 saw the most gun sales in a single day since the agency started keeping records. The Associated Press reported that on November 27, the FBI processed a record-breaking 185,345 background checks for gun owners, or about one every two seconds. It’s the most firearms sold in a single day since background checks were instituted in 1998. This record sales figure beat a previous high set in December 21, 2012 — a week after the horrifying Sandy Hook shooting that left 26 people, mostly young children, dead. After that massacre, a push for stronger gun-control measures was largely shut down by political infighting, leaving many wondering if any tragedy would be enough to bypass the politics of gun control. November 27, the day of this year's new record, was the same day reports surfaced that a shooter attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, killing three people and wounding numerous others. Even the new sales record may not accurately capture the total number of weapons sold on Black Friday. Firearms purchased at gun shows and from “private collections” — meaning person-to-person — are often not required to process background checks. Although the FBI statistic covers all sales processed through a store, there may have been an unknown number of additional transactions of which the government has no record. The U.S. already has more guns per capita than any other country in the world.