Gun purchases are rarely a static phenomenon. Sales tend to slump in the summer and pick up in the fall, but they can also spike in response to threats to our Second Amendment rights as new and existing gun owners decide to pull the trigger on a gun purchase ahead of any potential new restrictions. 

Is there evidence that Kamala Harris is helping to drive up gun sales ahead of the election? Maybe, though it's far from conclusive. 

The National Shooting Sports Foundation reports that background checks on gun sales increased 1.3% in September compared to September, 2023, with 1,156,223 background checks performed on gun transfers last month. It's the 62nd straight month of more than 1 million background checks on gun sales, though the number is still significantly less than the 1,632,918 background checks conducted in September 2020. Four years ago, however, the Great Gun Run of 2020 was still firmly in place, with soaring sales attributed to both the COVID pandemic and the riots and civil unrest that rocked the country that summer. 

The September 2020 numbers were more than 61% higher than what was recorded in 2019, according to the NSSF, while last month's figures are more in line with the trends that we've seen over the past couple of years. Still, as the Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard notes, the rise in gun sales coincides with Harris replacing Biden as the Democratic candidate. 

According to the latest FBI background check count, sales and checks were below last year. That was unusual since gun sales typically increase in an election year. 

But when Biden was pushed out by party elites in July and Harris swooped in to claim his nomination without facing a single primary voter, gun sales turned higher than last year. Also, the first assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump occurred in July.

Since July, month over month sales have ticked higher by about 125,000 with the background check count up some 260,000. Those checks include more than just gun sales.

Bedard suggests that gun buyers are already reacting to Harris's extremism when it comes to gun control by voting with their wallets and pocketbooks. 

More than Biden, Harris has been especially threatening to guns and the Second Amendment. Her vice presidential pick, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), last night in the vice presidential debate backed Harris’s plan to ban guns. 

“Sometimes it’s just the guns,” he said in a discussion about school shootings.

Harris has pushed for a ban on modern sporting rifles, such as the AR-15. She also wants to limit the size of magazines that hold cartridges, and new reports suggest that she supports a handgun ban.

“As commander in chief, Harris would likely push for expanding background checks for all gun purchases and reinstating the federal ban on assault weapons. She could also pursue tougher regulations on ghost guns, large-capacity ammunition magazines, and bump stocks,” said the anti-gun news site the Trace.

I'd argue that while Harris's history supporting gun control is even more extreme than Joe Biden's record, there's not much daylight between the two since Harris was selected as his running mate in 2020. But the uptick in gun sales since Biden was shoved aside and replaced by Harris may very well be a reflection of voters' concerns over Harris's designs on their Second Amendment rights. If nothing else, NSSF's most recent data on background checks tells us one thing: We the People aren't abandoning our right to keep and bear arms, even as the gun control lobby works hard to denormalize gun owners.