Jacksonville, FL. — Background checks for guns are at an all-time high.
According to FBI data, there was a nearly 60% increase in such checks this January compared to figures in January 2020.
Ammunition is scarce locally and prices are going up.
Green Acres Sporting Goods said ammo like .380 caliber and 9MM are in high demand.
A box of 50 would usually go for $20, but it’s now selling for close to $80.
Five million Americans bought a gun for the first time in the U.S. in 2020, setting a record, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
“They weren’t buying one or two boxes, they were buying cases of ammo,” Zaideh Farhat a sales manager at Green Acres said, adding that keeping up with demand has been tough.
Farhat said between March and May of 2020, the store did a years’ worth of sales in just three months.
“The store has been there 50 years, we have never sold this much ammo ever,” Farhat said.
Gun background checks in the nation have shot up. According to FBI data from 2019 to 2020, background checks were up 40%.
In Florida, from November 2019 to January 2020, nearly 350,000 background checks for gun purchases were done, compared to numbers from November 2020 to January 2021, when more than 540,000 background checks were conducted.
This was a 56% increase.
The 2020 national surge in background checks correlated with the coronavirus pandemic, and social unrest.
Cox Media Group
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