GREENVILLE, SC, USA & HALIFAX, NS, CANADA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF) estimates August 2018 firearms sales at 1,001,981 units, a year-over-year decline of 6.3% from August 2017. Likely single-unit handgun sales (529,087) fell year-over-year by 5.6% and single-unit long-gun sales (399,884) fell year-over-year by 8.8%.
All other likely firearms sales (73,010) increased year-over-year by 3.3%. This includes so-called “multiple” sales where the allocation between handguns and long-guns cannot be determined from the data record.
Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting’s firearms unit sales estimates are based on raw data taken from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), adjusted for checks likely to be unrelated to end-user sales. The FBI’s raw numbers (for August, some 2,026,309, the highest August number on record) cannot be taken at face-value as very large numbers of background checks are unrelated to end-user sales. For example, in August the state of Kentucky conducted about 394,000 so-called permit checks alone whereas end-user checks at firearms retailers likely amounted to just over 16,000 checks.
Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting Chief Economist Jurgen Brauer comments that “as expected, likely firearms sales increased from July to August 2018 as the slow-sales summer season ebbs away, but the sum total of likely U.S. firearms sales for the first eight months of 2018 is, at 8.8 million units, considerably below the 9.2 million units sold in the first eight months of 2017, let alone the 10.2 million units for the first eight months of 2016.”
ABOUT Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting:
Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF) is a research consultancy focusing on the business & economics of the global small arms and ammunition markets. Politically unaffiliated, SAAF is an independent, evidenced-based resource for industry, advocacy, research, and policymaking alike, as well as for financial analysts and members of the media. Among other services, SAAF produces forecasts of U.S. civilian firearms unit sales, nationwide and for most states. Small Arms AnalyticsSM and Small Arms Analytics & ForecastingSM are legally protected Service Marks of Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting. (Contact [email protected] for sales and other information.)
I did my part — and bought a new firearm. Now, the rest of us need to step up…keep the economy going strong…buy guns! 🙂
A good time for gun retailers to have some deep discounted prices and rebates from manufacturers to help out the economy some more.
Don’t worry next term when reality kicks in that a piss poor candidate from the corrupt DNC are up for election, folks will go on a buying surge. Folks we all need to get out and vote for the man in the Whitehouse! The alternative is BLM, ANTIFA, and COMMON SENSE GUN LAWS..