Gun sales in Va. reach record high in 2011

RICHMOND

Virginia gun sales surged to an apparent record in 2011, fueled in part by shoppers buying more firearms in December.

State police statistics on gun buyers' mandatory criminal-background checks showed that there were 321,166 gun transactions last year, with a single-month record of 41,957 in December.

The number of Virginia gun transactions rose 16 percent from 2010 to 2011, the second-largest percentage increase in a decade and the most since President Barack Obama was elected in 2008. That year, Virginia recorded 268,136 gun transactions.

Not all checks represent the sale of a gun, as some customers buy multiple firearms and other checks involve people reclaiming firearms that had been pawned. Exact sales figures aren't recorded in Virginia.

Nationally, a record 16.4 million firearms background checks — 1.8 million in December — took place in 2011 through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, up from 14.4 million the previous year.

Neither the FBI nor state police would offer a theory on the increased activity. Those involved in the firearms industry attributed the increase to a fear of crime during a bad economy, expanded concealed-carry rights, increased supply and affordability of guns, and perceptions of possible federal intervention under Obama.

"I think it's a multifaceted answer," said Stephanie Samford, a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association. "Part of it is certainly that people are placing a high premium on personal safety. We're reminded on TV and in the news that with the economic downturn, criminals are being furloughed and police officers are being laid off."

Aside from self-defense, the NRA believes more people are buying guns for recreational purposes and shooting sports, including a growing number of women, Samford told the Richmond Times-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/zx0WMC ).

J.D. McEwan, who manages the firearms department at Southern Police Equipment in Chesterfield County, said his sales for 2011 were up in the midteens over the previous year, which tracks closely to Virginia's 16 percent rise in gun transactions.

"I think finally the supply chain has caught up with demand; we've seen prices come down to general retail pricing," McEwan said. "Availability has been as good as it has been in the last five years for us, as far as new gun models."

Meanwhile, gun-control advocates question whether the federal numbers present a misleading, if not distorted view of booming gun sales.

Josh Horowitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said it's crucial to examine the overall federal background-check number to understand what it includes aside from gun purchases.

In recent years, the statistics have been inflated by a number of states that now use the system to run checks on concealed-carry permit holders, he said. He estimates that 5 million of the 16.4 million checks processed nationally last year were concealed-carry checks.

Horowitz said states such as Utah submitted about 1 million inquiries in 2011 but only about 70,000 were for gun purchases. People who pawned and then later reclaimed their firearms also have inflated the numbers, he said.

The background-check numbers also have to be adjusted for U.S. population increases, which when correlated show a more modest rise in gun sales. The numbers rose from 2.8 background checks for every 100 people in 1999 to 3.2 checks in 2011, he said.

"So yes, 2011 is going to be a big year, but it's not a giant year," Horowitz said. "The story (line) that we're awash in guns and this is an unprecedented high level" is not accurate on a national level. "The reality is there's been a modest uptick in gun sales over the last decade."

Horowitz cited a recent general statistical survey conducted by the National Research Center at the University of Chicago that concluded that the number of households with firearms has actually declined since 1972 as a percentage of the population.