According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), America passed a major milestone in July: For 48 straight months, concerned citizens have purchased a million or more firearms, adding an estimated 50 million more to the stockpile over the last four years.
That stockpile is estimated to be between 300 and 400 million, but the real number is likely much higher. The ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) has been busy tracking and collecting the personal data of buyers for years, but they simply don’t know where most of those privately owned firearms are or who owns them.
Despite every effort to infringe on the precious God-given right to self-defense enshrined in the Second Amendment, the Deep State-controlled central government simply cannot impose its ultimate will on the American people.
And the harder it tries, the more people arm themselves.
As NSSF’s Public Affairs Manager Mark Oliva noted:
This milestone was achieved in the midst of the continuous attacks by the Biden administration which has demonstrated nothing but contempt for the Second Amendment and has twisted the levers of government to impede the ability of law-abiding citizens to legally possess firearms of their choosing.
Americans are sending a clear signal each and every month.
It’s that signal that must be discouraging to leftists working to disarm the American people. The harder they try, the more difficult the task becomes. Oliva called it a “remarkable milestone … no small achievement and is indicative of the strong and sustained appetite for law-abiding Americans to take ownership of their Second Amendment rights.”
July 2023 was marked by a staggering number of background checks — 1,987,650 — which, when translated into purchases, comes out to well over a million new purchases. And that number fails to tell the whole story as many of those purchases occur in states where a single background check serves for multiple purchases at a single time.
More women, more blacks, and more urban dwellers than ever are purchasing a firearm for the very first time. That means that each of them has been forced to complete the invasive Form 4473, often subject themselves to some sort of training, and pay for the privilege of exercising the right. That sort of infringement is bound to rankle more than a few and adds confirmation to their decision to arm themselves for personal protection.
Over time they are likely to learn about the attack on the right they just exercised, which improves their understanding of just how precious that right is. The Founders of the American Republic put the guarantee in second place, just behind the first in order to secure it. Remove the Second and there is no First.
There are other more direct and welcome advantages to a well-armed society: It’s safer and, as Robert Heinlein wrote in his epic science fiction novel Beyond the Horizon, “an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”
Indeed, as those arming themselves for the very first time will shortly learn, it may just take that extreme measure to protect the lives of those near and dear to them as well as the nation that guarantees them the freedom to do so.
