The number of names processed through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in July for the purchase of a firearm—according to a National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) estimate—totaled 978,731. It’s the first time in almost six years that the number fell below one million, ending a seven-figure sales streak that began in August 2019.
The years-long run began months before a record number of law-abiding citizens exercised their Second Amendment rights for the first time when the COVID-19 pandemic collided with widespread social unrest. All previous firearm sales highwater marks were shattered in the period.
On Aug. 5, 2024, NSSF reported some of the figures. “The five years of million-plus monthly background checks included record setting years for lawful firearm ownership,” it wrote on a blog post. “The month with the most background checks for firearm sales ever recorded was in March 2020, when 2.3 million background checks were completed. That year (2020), over 21 million background checks for the sale of a firearm had been completed by the year’s end. That shattered the previous annual record set in 2016 of 15.7 million completed background checks.”
The week of March 16 to March 22 even set the record for the highest volume in a seven-day period. It came in at a staggering 1,197,788.
July 2025 sales, according to NSSF, decreased by 8.1 percent when compared to the same month in 2024, when NICS figures reflected roughly 1,064,790 firearm purchases. Stabilization to a new normal was not unexpected. Street riots no longer routinely strain law enforcement resources, and supply chains have returned to relative normalcy. Add a Second Amendment-friendly administration, with a mid-term election more than a year off, and major gunmakers and suppliers understood a “new normal” in demand was on the horizon.
NSSF’s figures do not include those from the 28 states that have at least one qualified alternative permit, which under the Brady Act allows the permit holder—who has undergone a background check to obtain the permit—to purchase a firearm from a licensed dealer without a separate additional NICS background check for that transfer. Purchases in those areas are not included in published NICS numbers, and NSSF does not adjust figures for these transfers.
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