Businesses that regularly sell guns are required to process background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
Each month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) releases the data on the number of checks conducted through NICS.
While background checks are not mandated for License to Carry (LTC) holders and not every NICS check equates to a gun sale, the statistic is an indication of the number guns being purchased.
According to the FBI, there were a total of 179,192 NICS checks conducted in Texas throughout May — a 9 percent decline from April and a 35 percent decline from March.
At the nation-wide level, background checks increased from April to May by about 6 percent.
Both at the state level and nationwide, May 2020 is a record high for the month since NICS first began in 1998.
Previously, the May record in Texas for background checks was shared by the years 2013, 2015, and 2018 at just over 111,000.
May 2020 was 38 percent higher than that previous record, a number usually seen in December.
Nationally, background checks in May of this year increased by about 23 percent from last year’s record of 2.4 million to this year’s 3.1 million.
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Daniel Friend
Daniel Friend is the Marketing and Media Manager for The Texan. After graduating with a double-major in Political Science and Humanities, he wrote for The Texan as a reporter through June 2022. In his spare time, you're likely to find him working on The Testimony of Calvin Lewis, an Abolition of Man-inspired novel and theatrical podcast.