Nearly 1.3 million guns were bought in California last year, according to sales data.
That's a 56 percent increase from 2019, and the highest number of purchased firearms since 2000. Researchers believe the increased number of firearms could lead to more gun violence and deaths.
The estimated figure of 1.26 million guns purchased is based on FBI data on the number of background checks conducted after gun purchases. This does not account for sales made outside of stores.
UCLA law school professor Adam Winkler believes many of the purchases are from first-time buyers. Winkler is the author of the book "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America."
“With the pandemic and social unrest, you're attracting more people who don't already have a firearm but are [fearful] all of a sudden,” said Winkler.
“They want to have something to protect themselves when push comes to shove.”
Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency room physician, told the San Francisco Chronicle he believes the increase in firearms means the US is likely to experience a large increase in gun violence. According to the Chronicle, “His team determined that, controlling for other variables, the larger the increase in firearm purchases in a state early in the pandemic, the greater the firearm violence increase in that state in 2020.”
The upsurge in gun sales comes at a time when the state government is battling to reinstate a decades-long ban on the sale of assault weapons.
Attorney General Rob Bonta is currently in the process of appealing a federal judge’s ruling that the state’s regulation of assault weapons is unconstitutional. The ruling is on hold pending an appeal in the ninth circuit.
Nationally, it is not only California experiencing an increase in gun sales. According to data collected by the Brookings Institution and its own estimates, almost three million more firearms were sold since March 2020 than would have ordinarily been sold during those months.