"We did a survey last year during the spike in gun-buying and we found that 40% of the people who were buying guns in 2020 were buying them for the very first time," says Mark Oliva of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm trade industry association.
"We wanted to see what the pattern was this year," he continues, "so we did a survey asking the same questions that we did last year; and what they told us that 33.2% of the people who are coming in right now to buy a gun are doing so for the first time."
That may be slightly down from 2020, but Oliva says it's still above the norm. "And it's telling us there is a very strong appetite out there for people to claim their Second Amendment rights," he tells American Family News.
Survey results (see below) showed that in the first six months of 2021:
- Over 90% of retailers reported an increase of African American men purchasing firearms.
- Nearly 84% of retailers reported an increase of Hispanic-American men purchasing firearms.
- Over 76.5% of retailers reported an increase of Asian-American men purchasing firearms.
Purchases were also up among women in those communities.
Self-defense is among the reported reasons for purchasing a firearm.
Meanwhile, 44.5% of first-time gun buyers in 2021 were under 40 years of age.
"We see things saying today's gun ownership is aging out, [but] that's not reflected in the data that we're recovering from our surveys," says Oliva. "Younger people are interested in learning how to use firearms, learning how to use them safely, and learning how to use them to be able to protect themselves and their family."
(Click image to view larger version)
Image and illustration compliments of National Shooting Sports Foundation
