Gun sales haven't been as brisk as many might imagine, myself included. We've got a nasty election fight coming up and the possibility of post-election violence is very real, and let's be honest, it could be either side depending on just what happens.

That should, in theory, be spurring gun sales. It hasn't.

But, on the flip side, there's been a lot of people buying guns in recent years. In fact, it looks like the number of people who have become new gun owners since 2020 is about the same as one of our more populated states.

The number of new gun owners in America exercising their Second Amendment rights has surged — equaling the population of Florida since 2020.

According to a report by the National Sports Shooting Foundation (NSSF), the number of people who became first-time gun owners since 2020 has reportedly grown to over 22.3 million people, or the population of Florida.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Mark Oliva, the managing director of public affairs for the NSSF, attributed the surge of new owners to COVID-era lockdowns, soft-on-crime prosecutors who forced residents across the fifty-states to realize that they could not always rely on law enforcement and the Biden administration's "overbearing regulations."

"Over the last several years, there have been a significant increase of Americans who have chosen to exercise their Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms," Oliva said. "That’s been for several reasons, including concerns for personal safety, rising crime, the refusal of some prosecutors to not lock up criminals and the attacks by the Biden administration to diminish rights through overbearing regulations."

According to the NSSF, the percentage of new gun owners in 2020 was around 40 percent. Normally, that would have been 20 percent, but 2020 was an unusual year in oh-so-many ways.

In 2021, when the COVID concerns died out a bit, that percentage dropped, but only to 30 percent of gun sales were new gun buyers.

Let's understand that equalling the population of Florida isn't a small thing here. It's the third most populated state, right behind California and Texas.

While those are all spread out across the nation, they represent something of an opportunity for gun rights advocates.

Gun owners have a tendency to become gun voters. It's imperative we start finding a way to reach out and let them know about the threats to their rights and how gun control may have great PR, but it's not a viable approach to dealing with violent crime. All it will do is encroach on their rights as gun owners if it's not opposed.

But if we don't, if there's no effort to reach them and educate them--to say nothing of the millions of others who may be open to voting to support gun rights but who don't have an interest in owning a gun themselves--how long before we can see our right to keep and bear arms evaporate into nothingness?

One attempt to destroy the Second Amendment is stalled, but it's not dead. It doesn't take a massive move by anti-Second Amendment forces to make it happen, though. All it takes is continued apathy.