Posted Mar 12, 2021, 11:44 am
An escalation in firearms sales last year, driven in part by new gun
owners, is prompting some health experts to call for more attention to
gun safety and the relationship between owning weapons and injuries or
suicide.
In 2020, the FBI processed a record 39.7 million firearm background checks, one of the best measurements of likely sales. The week of March 16-22
– just after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic and then a
national emergency – is the top week for background checks since the
agency’s instant system launched in November 1998.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry, estimates more than 8 million
people were first-time gun buyers last year, and experts cite
pandemic-related worries, as well as the presidential election, as
primary drivers of rising sales.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of
Medicine are among those calling for action to help prevent firearm
injuries or deaths amid the uptick in purchases.
More safety education “is essential to address the potential
downstream adverse effects of increases in firearm ownership with regard
to injury and suicide prevention,” the researchers recently in JAMA Network Open.
They pointed to one study
that found some California gun owners had begun using less safe storage
practices during the pandemic, choosing to leave weapons loaded and
unlocked. Respondents cited concerns about pandemic-prompted lawlessness
or prisoner releases, along with government collapse, as some reasons
for their purchases.
Experts note that the rise in gun sales coincided with increasing
psychological distress caused by isolation, economic worries and health
concerns related to COVID-19. Studies show that depression, substance abuse and suicidal thoughts all have worsened during the pandemic.
A study
in the Journal of Psychiatric Research surveyed 3,500 Americans last
June and July about their intent to buy firearms, and found that those
who said they planned to do so had experienced more severe fears around
COVID-19 and were more likely to have had some kind of suicidal ideation
in the preceding year.
“The 2020 firearm purchase surge does not guarantee a subsequent
epidemic of suicide deaths, but it most definitely increases risk,”
wrote authors Craig Bryan, a psychologist who directs trauma and suicide
prevention programs at Ohio State University, and Michael Anestis,
executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.
Gun violence is one of the most pressing health crises in the
country. In 2019, nearly 40,000 people died by firearms – the majority
in suicides, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Arizona’s gun death rate was about 27% higher than the national
average in 2019, according to CDC data, with 1,136 deaths by firearms
that year – 70% of them suicides. White people were far more likely to
die of gun-related suicide in the state, while Black people and Native
Americans were statistically overrepresented among homicide victims.
The Gun Violence Archive, an online database of real-time incidents, estimates the number of firearm deaths in 2020 surpassed 43,000.
In north Phoenix, Veerachart Murphy, owner of Ammo AZ, said sales of
firearms and ammunition at his shop doubled from 2019 to 2020 – to $13
million – and at least some of that was driven by first-time buyers.
“It first started with COVID,” Murphy said, attributing the surge to
the same hoarding mentality that prompted runs on hand sanitizer and
toilet paper. “We saw it hit probably mid-February, when everybody
started coming in here and just going crazy.”
He also pointed to worries related to the 2020 presidential election.
“There’s a change in administration, so a lot of people are scared that the AR-15 and AK-47 are going to get banned,” he said.
Gun shop owners and researchers also cite last year’s high-profile
police killings of Black men and women and subsequent protests for
racial justice as factors in rising sales. Industry groups estimate gun
purchases by Black individuals increased by 56% compared with 2019.
“We’ve seen a trend of more African Americans choosing to express
their Second Amendment rights to own a firearm, especially for personal
protection,” Philip Smith, president and founder of the National African
American Gun Association, said in a news release.
As the FBI background check statistics show, firearms sales often increase
during times of crises – mass shootings, for example. In December 2012,
the month of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, 16
states had record sales months, and in December 2015, the month of the
San Bernardino shooting, six states set sales records, according to an
analysis by home security company SafeHome.org.
Twenty-five states had record sales months in 2020 – 16 of them in March when lockdowns began, according to SafeHome.org. Arizona had a record 665,458 firearm background checks in 2020, according to the FBI.
“It’s a classic case of panic-buying,” said target shooter Andre
Philippin, 25, of Apache Junction, recalling surges in sales after
Democrat Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 and gun owners
worried about new restrictions.
“People feared that new gun laws would be introduced and restrict or
limit the amount of guns or ammunition an individual could purchase,”
Philippin said. “That same kind of fear and paranoia resurfaced in
2020.”
President Joe Biden has vowed to push Congress to enact stricter gun
laws, including requiring background checks on all gun sales and banning
assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
“We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer,” Biden said in a statement last month on the third anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Arizona State University student and recreational shooter Ethan Happ, 21, sees two reasons for rising gun sales.
“It’s sort of a two-part issue, half of which is due to the
pandemic,” he said. “Then there are the people buying guns and ammo
because they think the new administration will take away that freedom.”
In a post last month on the Facebook group Cave Creekers Infamous
Bulletin Board, a woman noted that a local Cabela’s store was so out of
stock on ammunition that her husband asked what was happening. “The
reply he got was, ‘The civil war.’”
As firearm sales increased, so, too, did some categories of violent
crime. Homicides in Phoenix increased 52% from 2019 to 2020, according to police, driven by a 175% increase in homicides related to domestic violence.
In 70% of Phoenix homicides last year, police said, the killer used a firearm.
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