Those with a gun control agenda have been heard to claim that the increase of sales of firearms to the public can and does result in increases in violent crime. The last two years provide data to evaluate that theory.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is the agency in Tennessee that administers the “instant check system” through which all firearms sales by federally licensed dealers must be processed. TBI has issued annual reports since 1998 on the volume of firearms transactions involving citizens purchasing firearms through licensed dealers in Tennessee. In 2018, TBI statistics show that it processed 468,299 applications to purchase 543,419 firearms (some sales involved more than one firearm). In 2019, TBI statistics show that it processed 484,778 applications to purchase 547,528 firearms. In 2020, TBI statistics show a substantial increase in that it processed 740,694 applications to purchase 818,567 firearms. Thus, in the last 3 calendar years, Tennesseans have purchased approximately 2 million firearms just through licensed dealers.
The FBI tracks similar data nationally and reports on it as well. The national data, which includes, Tennessee, indicates that in 2018 there were 11,749,732 NICS checks for firearms purchases, in 2019 it reported 11,802,989, in 2020 it reported 19,424,199 and for the first six months of 2021 it has reported 8,887, 109 (it attributes 344,315 to Tennessee for the first six months. Thus, national data mirrors Tennessee data in terms of there being massive increases in the demand for firearms in 2020 and that perhaps the demand even exceed the available inventory such that the numbers could have been much higher.
According to gun control and “gun sense” advocates, this massive increase in guns being made available to roughly a population of about 7 million Tennesseans (many of whom are too young to purchase firearms) should have caused massive increases in violent crime.
A study released on July 5, 2021, by Injury Epidemiology, suggests that there is not a correlation between the massive increase in firearm purchasing in 2020 and violent crime rates. The study concluded:
We found substantial increases in firearm purchasing and firearm violence during the coronavirus pandemic. Our results suggest that state-level excess firearm purchases may have contributed to an increase in firearm injuries from domestic violence during the first months of the pandemic, but that the increase in purchasing did not explain a large increase in non-domestic firearm violence. There is a need for additional research and investment in firearm violence prevention strategies.
https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-021-00339-5
Although the study found that there for a 2 month period an increase in domestic related firearms injuries, the authors noted that the increase in domestic violence occurred in only 2 of the 5 months in the study and that for those two months (March and April 2020) “these were the months when physical distancing was generally at its peak”. The authors did not draw a statistical correlation between the increase in sales volume and the increase in those two months.
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