Since the pandemic began, gun sales nationwide have been shooting through the roof. Now, with the presidential election just days away, the fervor for firearms continues.
“It’s nuts. Crazy busy,” Ryan Wannett, owner of Wanney’s Firearms in Lakewood, said the day before the election. “It’s been like this for six months. It’s the pandemic, the election, the riots, everything. It’s the perfect storm for gun-buying.”
According to FBI data, background checks for guns have surged in 2020. So far, they’ve conducted 32.1 million background checks this year, breaking 2019’s all-time record of 28.4 million.
Turner’s Outdoorsman is a sporting goods store with a franchise location in Signal Hill. Their range of products is best described by their website’s menu: guns, ammo, hunting, shooting sports, archery, fishing and clothing.
At 11 a.m. on election day, patrons were already forming outside the store. Senay Kenfe, owner of the gallery space Play Nice in Long Beach, was in that line.
He’s already a gun owner but said he came to the location to stock up on .223 and 9mm ammunition. He’s been stocking up throughout the pandemic. Just last week, he waited three hours to buy ammunition at a Turner’s Outdoorsman in Chino.
“I’m a small business owner. I’ve got a shop,” Kenfe said. “Last time there was looting going on, police did not come and help whatsoever. I had to stand outside all night and ward off multiple looters. That’s why I’m out here.”
He said he wasn’t as paranoid about unrest this time around. His store is already boarded up, but he plans on visiting it sporadically to check-in.
“I’ve got elderly people in my family that live in some of the areas that were hit off Anaheim and Atlantic, so I’m going to be going and checking in on my family,” he said.
According to the Turner’s Outdoorsman website, the increase in demand for their products and number of phone calls alone have been “enough to overwhelm our phone systems.”
Their website points to demand in one particular area— firearms and ammunition. Many locations require appointments to purchase these items.
The site says its Signal Hill location is welcoming walk-ins but warns of “extended wait times” due to social distancing. Wannett said that Wanney’s Firearms had transitioned to an appointment-based system to prevent lines.
The number of background checks in 2020 are record-breaking
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) conducts background checks each time a gun is purchased from a licensed dealer.
The agency keeps track of the top 10 weeks with the highest number of background checks since they began recording them in 1998.
In their 22 years of records, eight weeks from 2020 were in the top ten. The number one position was taken by the week of March 16, when the nation first went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The second highest was from the week of June 1, when protests sparked across the nation in response to the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
The weeks of Dec. 17, 2012 and Dec. 14, 2015 also held top ten positions.
The first was the week of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 26 dead, mostly children. At the time, it was the largest mass shooting in United States history.
The next was the week of a 2015 terrorist attack and attempted bombing in San Bernardino, California that left 14 dead and 20 wounded.
Background checks in 2020 are breaking those weeks’ records.
Why do people feel compelled to buy guns during the pandemic?
Cognitive psychologist Dan Chiappe, who teaches at California State University, Long Beach, said that increased gun purchases are a sign of people’s perceptions of danger.
He explained a concept called the “availability heuristic,” when people use their most readily available, immediate memories to judge whether something is likely to happen.
He said that when people see recent images of violence and rioting on television, they’re more likely to believe that that violence is likely.
“On the right, you have constant examples on TV that feed into their paranoia about out-of-control race riots all summer long, protests turning violent and burning things down,” Chiappe said. “It makes it seem to people that the world is really a dangerous place.”
He believes these images “feed a sense of danger.” Their response— “Obviously they need protection, and I think they run to guns for that purpose.”
At the Turners Outdoorsmen in Long Beach, there’s been lines out the door since May. No Glocks in stock and no ammo anywhere.
— S k y (@Skkyyyyyyyyyyy) September 26, 2020
Local gun shops and sporting goods franchises see boost in overall sales
On their own, the long lines outside Turner’s Outdoorsman aren’t necessarily evidence of increased gun sales. Social distancing requires the store to have a lower capacity than usual, meaning many have to wait their turn to enter the store.
Big 5 Sporting Goods, another sporting goods store that sells firearms and ammunition in Long Beach, requested the Signal Tribune contact their corporate offices for comment.
An Oct. 27 press release from their corporate office states that the chain has seen record sales during this past quarter.
In the release, their president and chief financial officer Steven Miller stated that the third-quarter numbers represent “the strongest sales and earnings performance in our 65-year history.” It’s unclear whether these earnings are directly correlated with firearm and ammunition sales.
Even if people are falling victim to the availability heuristic, that doesn’t necessarily mean that gun owners pose a threat. Chiappe said that guns act as a symbol of security.
“I do think it provides a sense of protection for people,” Chiappe said. “Even if it’s illusory.”
I just wanted to say that where you wrote “He’s already a gun owner but said he came to the location to stock up on .233 and 9mm ammunition”, it should be .223, not .233.
Other than that, excellent reporting. The inclusion of the statement from the psychologist reminds me of an episode of The Big One, an NPR broadcast, where the researcher interviewed stated that people feel compelled to buy firearms because they expect critical services such as police, EMS, and firefighters not to show up to work during a catastrophe, which those workers have attested to, preferring to attend to their own families over the public, which is a natural response. Her response is much more in-depth than what I’ve written, but I just wanted to post it here because it seems relevant.