Firearm Sales
Monthly firearm sales in the U.S., estimated by The Trace using data derived from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
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Details
The Trace estimates monthly firearm sales in the United States using data derived from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). This dataset provides an accounting of estimated national and state gun sales since 2000. It includes seasonal adjustments to allow for meaningful month-to-month comparisons. The data is updated monthly.
Citation
If you make use of this data, please include one of the following citations, preserving the link back to the Gun Violence Data Hub:
- In news copy — … according to data provided by the Gun Violence Data Hub.
- In news graphics — Source: Gun Violence Data Hub
- In research — The Trace Gun Violence Data Hub. (2025). CDC Gun Deaths
Limitations
Undercounting
The estimates undercount firearm sales because of state-level permit laws. Some states require prospective handgun buyers to obtain purchase permits, which then exempt them from background checks at the point of sale. Many other states issue some form of permit, like a concealed weapons permit, that exempts holders from NICS background check requirements. Because some buyers in these states receive permit checks in lieu of transfer checks, our estimates do not account for those sales, and numbers vary from state to state.
Private sales
Background check data also does not capture private sales, which are estimated to make up 13 percent of all sales, and are not reflected in these estimates.
State notes
33 states have particularities that could make the data inaccurate.
Methodology
The Trace’s firearm sales estimates are derived from NICS data, a background check system run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that includes checks on prospective firearm purchasers. NICS launched in November 1998; the sales estimates begin in January 2000.
Our analysis draws on the work of economist Jurgen Brauer of Small Arms Analytics, as well as BuzzFeed News and The New York Times.
Background checks, as the FBI notes in its published data, do not correspond one-to-one with sales, but in most cases, background checks for firearms transfers are conducted by licensed firearms dealers at the point of sale. We use these transfer checks to produce estimates of gun sales, taking into account the share of transactions that include multiple guns.
Seasonal adjustments are calculated with the U.S. Census Bureau’s X13-ARIMA-SEATS software, and account for factors including cyclical changes in demand, the number of days in a month, and the timing of holidays. This adjustment allows meaningful comparisons to be made between months.
The NICS data includes four categories of transfer checks: handgun, long gun, multiple, and other. More than one handgun or long gun can be transferred during a single check; “multiple” checks are only conducted when a transaction involves two types of guns. For this reason, we add multiple checks to both the handgun and long gun background check counts. Those totals are then multiplied by 1.1, a “multiple gun sales factor” proposed by Brauer to account for the average number of guns sold per transaction, based on his interviews with firearms retailers.
The transfer data also includes a category for “other” firearms, which includes “frames, receivers, and other firearms that are neither handguns nor long guns.” These checks, which tend to make up 3 to 4 percent of the annual total, are not included in The Trace’s estimates. Other categories of background checks, including permit, pawn shop, and administrative, are not used for producing the estimates.
Usage
Seasonal adjustments apply only to variation within a single year. As a result, if you’re using the data to compile yearly sales estimates, only use unadjusted figures.