Americans Purchased Enough Firearms On Black Friday To Arm Every Active Duty Marine

In the wake of 323 mass shootings so far this year, Black Friday posted a new record high for one-day firearms sales in America.

USA Today reported that “The FBI was flooded Friday with more than 200,000 background check requests for gun purchases, setting a new single day record, the bureau reported Saturday.”

The number of requests reported totaled 203,086, surpassing the previous one day records set on Black Friday in 2016 of 185,713 requests and 2015 of 185,345.

Worse yet, USA Today reported that the actual number of firearm purchases typically exceeds the number of requested background checks:

Gun checks, required for purchases at federally licensed firearm dealers, are not a measure of actual gun sales. The number of firearms sold Friday is likely higher because multiple firearms can be included in one transaction by a single buyer.

USA Today also reported that:

The surging numbers received by the bureau’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), comes just days after Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered a sweeping review of the system, which allowed a court-martialed Air Force veteran to purchase the rifle used earlier this month to kill 25 people inside a Sutherland Springs, Texas church.

To put this in perspective, the number of service members currently serving in the U.S. Marines Corp is estimated at 182,000, according to the Operation and Maintenance Overview, Fiscal Year 2017, Budget Estimates report released in February 2016 by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense. [page 209]

That means that enough firearms were likely purchased on Black Friday to arm every single Marine currently serving on active duty.

On top of that, there is the current number of gun-related incidents as reported by the well-respected not for profit corporation, the Gun Violence Archive, “an online archive of gun violence incidents collected from over 2,500 media, law enforcement, government and commercial sources daily in an effort to provide near-real time data about the results of gun violence. GVA i[s] an independent data collection and research group with no affiliation with any advocacy organization.”

The Gun Violence Archive shows the following figures so far for 2017:

Total Number of Incidents: 55,656
Number of Deaths[1]: 14,036
Number of Injuries[1]: 28,585
Number of Children (age 0-11) Killed or Injured[1]: 669
Number of Teens (age 12-17) Killed or Injured[1]: 2,952
Mass Shootings[2]: 323
Officer Involved Incident, Officer Shot or Killed[2]: 278
Office Involved Incident, subject-Suspect Shot or Killed[2]: 1,868
Home Invasion[2]: 2,246
Defensive use[2]: 1,834
Unintentional Shooting[2]: 1,832

FOOTNOTES to GVA Figures:

1: Actual number of deaths and injuries
2. Number of INCIDENTS reported and verified

22,000 Annual Suicides not included on Daily Summary Ledger

Numbers on this table reflect a subset of all information
collected and will not add to 100% of incidents.

www.gunviolencearchive.org
www.facebook.com/gunviolencearchive

Data Validated: November 27, 2017

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