The Federal Bureau of Investigation is on target to break the record of gun background checks this year, with some 19.8 million requests processed as of Monday.
As of November 30, the federal agency has processed 19,827,376 gun background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Checks System, or
NICS, CNN Money reported. That number is on par with the 20,968,547 checks processed for all of 2014 and, by year's end, could even eclipse the record 21,093,273 requests
processed in 2013, according to FBI records.
"That's a 6-percent increase from the same period last year. It's also 4 percent more than the same period in 2013, which is the record year for background checks," CNN Money reported.
A big uptick came last month on Black Friday, or the day after Thanksgiving, when "more Americans had their backgrounds checked purchasing guns . . . than
any day on record," USA Today reported. A total of 185,345 requests were processed that day.
"This was an approximate 5-percent increase over the 175,754 received on Black Friday 2014," the newspaper quoted Stephen Fischer, the FBI's chief of multimedia productions. "The previous high for receipts were the 177,170 received on 12/21/2012."
There are often big spikes in gun purchases after mass shootings, like the one that occurred Wednesday in San Bernardino, California.
And while background checks do not correlate directly to gun sales, they can be a good approximation, as "anyone buying a gun from a federally licensed dealer must submit personal information to the FBI," CNN Money reported. Federally licensed dealers use the NICS system to check whether a gun buyer has any prior felony convictions, dishonorable military discharges, or domestic violence issues, among other things.
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