The U.S. saw slightly fewer Black Friday gun sale background checks compared to a year ago but still posted the fourth-highest total on record, according to the FBI.
The agency recorded 186,645 checks the day after Thanksgiving, down about 8 percent from 2019. While checks do not correspond directly to sales, they are typically an indicator of demand.
Black Friday is usually one of the biggest days for background checks, and this year’s came after civil unrest and the coronavirus pandemic contributed to a surge in background checks earlier in 2020.
The FBI has posted more than 32 million background checks so far this year, according to USA Today.
President Trump frequently claimed during the 2020 campaign that President-elect Joe Biden would curtail gun rights. While Biden has proposed expanding background checks and banning high-capacity magazines, Trump falsely claimed Biden intended to “terminate” the Second Amendment entirely.
The new background check figures follow an analysis by the National Shooting Sports Foundation that indicated October posted the most gun purchases of any October on record. More than 1.7 million background checks were conducted last month, a 60 percent increase from October 2019.
Earlier in the year, the FBI reported a record 3.63 million background checks for July, while in late October, Walmart announced it would remove gun displays from U.S. stores due to concerns about “unrest.”
“We have seen some isolated civil unrest and as we have done on several occasions over the last few years, we have moved our firearms and ammunition off the sales floor as a precaution for the safety of our associates and customers,” a Walmart spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill in October.