ARTESIA, N.M. (KRQE)- Apparently Black Friday wasn’t just about smartphones and Star Wars Legos. It also may have been a record-breaking day for gun sales.
About two every second, that’s how many firearm background checks the FBI processed on November 27.
“Every year it’s been higher and higher and higher and higher, every year there is just more background checks run on Black Friday,” said Dale Rutherford, owner of First Street Firearms in Artesia.
As the holidays approach, gun shops say that firearms have been flying off the shelves.
“Top sellers that we see here, we see a lot of shot guns, a lot of handguns,” said Rutherford
Before getting your hands on one, you have to pass a background check. This year the FBI processed more than a 185,000 background checks for gun buyers.
This broke the single day record set in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre.
Rutherford says that the low prices are only part of the reason for the increase in Black Friday gun sales.
“There are more people that are becoming concerned out there that their defense or their protection is up to them so they’re buying handguns for personal protection, self-defense, concealed carry things like that,” he said.
He says whatever the reason, it’s been good for business. “The last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy actually with the number of people coming in to buy guns as Christmas presents and things like that,” said Rutherford.
In the past weeks alone, there have been the Paris attacks, the Planned Parenthood ambush and now the San Bernardino massacre.
First Street Firearms in Artesia says they also seeing a spike in applications for concealed carry classes.
