For 51 straight months, the National Shooting Sports Foundation has reported more than one million background checks on firearm transfers, and it looks like that trend will continue when the numbers for November are released in early December. The NSSF says that background checks on Black Friday set a new record, with 214,913 NICS checks run on gun transfers on that day alone.

Sales modestly declined over the week that includes Black Friday compared to last year, with the 680,671 completed checks down 4.3 percent from the 711,372 that were recorded during the same week in 2022, but the figures still strongly suggests that the streak of more than one million checks each month will remain intact when November’s totals are tallied.

“The background checks reported by the FBI are in keeping with the trends NSSF has seen throughout the year. Firearm sales remain consistently strong, with over a million per month for more than four years running,” explained Joe Bartozzi, NSSF President and CEO. “These figures tell us that there is a continued strong appetite for lawful firearm ownership by law-abiding Americans and that firearm manufacturers across the country continue to deliver the quality firearms our customers have come to expect.”

The adjusted NICS figures aren’t the only sign of that appetite for lawful gun ownership that we’ve seen lately. There’s also the recent NBC News poll that found a majority of households now have a firearm, with much of the increase coming from self-identified Democrats. The 52 percent of respondents reporting they have a gun in their home is the highest that NBC News has ever recorded in the more than two decades they’ve been asking that question.

Pearle Robertson, who owns Minuteman Supply Co. in Arizona, says she’s seen an influx of new customers, particularly at her store in Maricopa.

The customers she sees in Ahwatukee tend to be more experienced than those who patronize her Maricopa store, she said.

“Maricopa is more newbies because we have a lot of people that live out there that moved out from like California, New York, Chicago, where they have very restrictive gun policies…Here, I get a lot of people who were actually born out here. So, they’re a little bit more experienced with firearms.”

And more Ahwatukee customers are male while her Maricopa base comprises a heftier share of women, she said.

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As she enters a busy time for her two shops, Robertson has plans for the Ahwatukee store, mainly to offer more classes firearms-related classes. The store does not have a shooting range, but she said she can direct customers to ranges in the area.

For now, she’s getting ready for holiday shoppers. “Yes,” she assured, “people often buy guns during the holidays.”

Indeed they do. Last December the NSSF reported 1.75 million NICS checks on firearm transfers, and while Bidenomics may be taking a bite out of our bank accounts there’s every reason to believe that this year’s holiday shopping season is going to be in line with last year’s figures and will once again be a bitter disappointment to the prohibitionists out there intent on reducing the number of guns in the hands of responsible citizens. They can wag their fingers and berate their fellow Americans for exercising their Second Amendment rights as much as they like, but their animosity isn’t going to stop us from keeping, bearing, and buying arms in record-setting numbers.