Gun Sales Remain Strong Through Last Month of 2025

In July of 2025, the streak of months with over one million gun sales was broken after six years. That’s a pretty impressive run, but with less chance of infringement from the federal government, it’s not overly surprising that it eventually came to an end.

However, the break was also short-lived as the next month hit that mark, a trend that continued throughout the rest of 2025.

Gun sales might be somewhat lower than last year, but recently reported totals from December and all of 2025 indicate a continued vigorous market for firearms.

In fact, the new figure of over 1 million monthly gun sales has continued through December, marking the fifth consecutive month with more than 1 million background checks since the single month in July with fewer than a million. As most readers probably remember, before July, when the number fell below 1 million, the previous streak of months with over 1 million background checks had lasted nearly six years.

The December 2025 National Shooting Sports Foundation-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 1,587,049 is an increase from 1,408,230 in November, but represented a 3.4% decrease from last December’s total of 1,642,270. For comparison, the unadjusted December 2025 FBI NICS figure of 2,220,852 reflects a 16.1 percent decrease from the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,647,933 in December 2024.

Mark Oliva, NSSF managing director of public affairs, said the 1 million-plus number indicates that Americans are still practicing their Second Amendment rights at a brisk pace.

“The fact that nearly 1.6 million background checks were conducted in December for the retail sale of a firearm demonstrates that Second Amendment rights are critically important to Americans,” Oliva said.

NICS checks are conducted for a variety of reasons, which is why the NSSF adjusts the numbers to reflect gun sales.

And yeah, Oliva is completely correct. The right to keep and bear arms continues to be important to many Americans. Not all, unfortunately, which is something we need to figure out how to change, but enough to keep the industry going strong.

That’s important if for no other reason than the right to keep and bear arms is meaningless unless there’s a way to obtain arms. You can have a right on paper, but without the ability to exercise it, it doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot. That’s why anti-gunners routinely target the purchase of firearms in various ways. We know that most criminals aren’t getting their guns from gun stores, but it’s not about crime. It’s about us.

Sure, guns are durable and aren’t exactly consumable commodities, but sooner or later, they break, get lost, rust, or something that renders them unusable. There’s a reason we don’t see a lot of Civil War guns in your local pawn shops.

They can winnow down what’s available, but only if we can’t get new guns.

Selling a million a month makes that untenable, though, and it makes me thrilled to be an American. We can do this. Other countries can’t. We have work still to do, but we have the tools to undertake that work.

Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment. 

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