Sales of firearms on Black Friday were surprisingly strong, with some retailers reporting their best post-Thanksgiving sales day since the 2020 COVID-19 crisis.
“This was our best Black Friday sale since COVID. Full stop,” said Justin Anderson, the marketing manager at Hyatt Guns in Charlotte, North Carolina, one of the nation’s biggest firearms stores.
The FBI reported robust requests for gun sales background checks, and November’s overall numbers are expected again to top over 1 million sold, continuing an unbroken five-year trend.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the industry trade group that tracks the sales numbers, said that the FBI recorded 169,906 sales background checks on Friday and 613,380 during the week.
While sales overall were down 9%, NSSF said that the healthy numbers showed a continued appetite for protection.
“The background checks reported by the FBI are in keeping with the trends NSSF has seen throughout the year. While the overall trends are still coming off the peaks experienced in recent years, firearm sales remain consistently strong, with over a million per month for more than five years running,” said Joe Bartozzi, NSSF’s president and CEO.
