Another Strong Year for Gun Sales

According to a recent story by Stephen Gutowski at The Reload, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) reported that 2022 saw 16.4 million queries run through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) that were related to firearms.

While NSSF has not yet done a complete analysis of 2022 data—where it removes NICS checks that were likely not related to actual firearms sales—it is possible that the final tally will exceed 15 million gun sales for the year.

NICS background check numbers don’t represent firearm sales exclusively or correlate exactly to the number of firearms sold, but they are broadly indicative of sale trends and, by implication, the growth of the gun-owning community.