Black Friday is typically known for its deals on hot holiday gifts such as clothes and consumer technology, but the last two years have shown another item gaining popularity: guns.
According to the Huffington Post, gun sales have declined since the early months of 2013, but gunmakers are hoping Black Friday represents a significant turnaround, and numerous retailers are offering firearms at a discounted rate.
Over the last two years, the day after Thanksgiving has seen a surge in gun sales. In 2012, Black Friday resulted in such a large wave of requests for background checks – a record 154,873, to be exact – that call centers at the National Instant Criminal Background Check System suffered from overload and outages. That was a 20 percent increase over the previous record-setting Black Friday in 2011, which saw calls for 129,166 background checks.
What’s more, since the FBI doesn’t track individual gun purchases, the ability to buy multiple firearms at once means there could be even more weapons sold than the number of background checks indicate. As of October 31, the FBI has recorded requests for more than 17 million background checks this year.
