Americans bought almost 60 million guns during the pandemic

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2 years ago

April 21, 2023

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One-fifth of U.S. households purchased guns during the pandemic, a national arming that exposed more than 15 million Americans to firearms in the home for the first time, academic studies show.

Americans purchased nearly 60 million guns between 2020 and 2022, according to an analysis by The Trace, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that tracks gun violence. Yearly gun sales are running at roughly twice the level of 15 or 20 years ago.

All the new weapons may be fueling a historic surge in gun deaths, which reached record highs during the same period.

“It’s a totally different type of gun ownership now,” said John Roman, a senior fellow in the Economics, Justice and Society Group at NORC, a research organization based at the University of Chicago.

“It’s not a rifle stored away somewhere that you take out twice a year to go hunting. It’s a handgun, probably a semiautomatic handgun, that you keep in your bedside table or in your glove compartment, or that you maybe carry around with you.”

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a run on gun shops, part of a larger national spasm of panic-buying that gripped the country at a moment when many Americans thought society might collapse.

“There was fear, and real concern, about what happens to the country during a global pandemic,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice president of law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control nonprofit.

The National Rifle Association fanned that fear, Suplina said, by tweeting out a video of a woman holding a rifle and pushing firearms as a pandemic safety measure.

“You might be stockpiling up on food right now to get through this current crisis,” the woman says. “But if you aren’t preparing to defend your property when everything goes wrong, you’re really just stockpiling for somebody else.”

Between March 2020 and March 2022, 18 percent of households bought guns, according to a NORC survey.

Pandemic gun sales raised the share of Americans living in armed homes to 46 percent, up from 32 percent in 2010.

“Five percent of Americans said they bought a gun for the first time during the pandemic, which is a huge number,” Roman said. “Those buyers were younger, they were more likely to be renters, they were more likely to be women, they were more likely to be people of color.”

A scholarly study found that 7.5 million Americans became new gun owners between 2019 and 2021. Those purchases exposed 17 million Americans to household firearms for the first time, a figure that includes 5 million children.

The study found that many Americans who already owned guns, nearly 20 million, bought more.

“Most people say, ‘I bought the gun to protect myself and my family against home invasion,’” said Matthew Miller, professor of health sciences and epidemiology at Northeastern University and one of the report’s authors. “But that doesn’t explain why most of the guns that were bought during this time period were bought by people who already owned guns.”

The pandemic accelerated a rise in gun ownership that began around 2005, the year Congress passed a law that largely shielded gun manufacturers from liability when their products are used in crimes.

That law set off a new era of emboldened advertising by gun makers, who marketed firearms as an essential tool for defending the American home.

“This is to protect yourself against your fellow humans,” Roman said, “with the implication being that your fellow humans are getting increasingly dangerous. Which is ironic, of course,” because violent crime stood at a low ebb after the turn of the millennium.

Gun sales rose further with the 2008 election of former President Obama, partly from fears “that the government was going to shut down gun purchases,” said Eric Fleegler, an associate professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School who studies gun violence.

FBI background checks for firearm sales more than doubled in a decade, from 9 million in 2005 to 23 million in 2015. Five years later, in pandemic-scarred 2020, the bureau conducted nearly 40 million background checks.

Gun sales have retreated since then. But the FBI logged 8 million background checks through March, presaging a yearend total of at least 30 million for 2023.

Background checks are an imprecise measure of gun sales, because they include sales of multiple weapons and concealed-carry permits for guns already owned, among other complexities.

Using background checks and other data, The Trace estimates that gun sales almost tripled between 2005 and 2020, from 7.8 million to 21.8 million. Firearm sales eased to 18.9 million in 2021 and 16.6 million in 2022. All three figures are larger than the gun-sale total for any other year in the new millennium.

“Clearly, there has been a stark increase in gun purchases, and I think a lot of these folks are new,” said Christian Heyne, vice president of policy and programs at Brady, the gun-control nonprofit.

“And I think it’s incumbent upon us to make sure that all gun owners make sure they understand the responsibility they have to safely store these weapons, and to understand the risk that is associated with having the firearm in the home in the first place.”

With the nation awash in firearms, gun deaths are rising anew. Research by Fleegler and colleagues found that firearm fatality rates increased by nearly half between 2004 and 2021.

More Americans died from gun violence in 2020 and 2021 than in any prior year on record. Gun-related homicides and suicides totaled 48,830 in 2021. Shootings of children nearly doubled during the pandemic.

“There are no two years in recorded history that I’m familiar with, going back to the 1980s, that you see such a dramatic increase” in such a short span, Fleegler said.

The nation also endured a record number of mass shootings in 2021: 690 incidents in which four or more people were shot. The Gun Violence Archive tallied 646 mass shootings in 2022.

The link between rising gun ownership and rising gun violence is hard to prove. Yet, “gun ownership rates track very closely to gun fatalities,” Fleegler said. “If you want to know where people are dying by guns, look where the guns are.”

Guns are most common in the South and least prevalent in the Northeast, a 2021 Pew analysis found. Firearms sit in around half of rural homes, two-fifths of suburban homes and 30 percent of urban dwellings, and in 40 percent of all American households.

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Nearly one-third of Americans hunted in 1977. Hunting declined over the decades, and gun ownership reached a low ebb around 2010.

Estimates vary on how many guns are circulating today in the United States, but most sources suggest guns outnumber Americans.

“There’s enthusiasts, survivalists, collectors,” Heyne said. “I think somewhere around 3 percent of the U.S. population possesses more than half of the guns in the country.”

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Mariann Edgar Budde: Who is the bishop Donald Trump called ‘nasty’?

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2 hours ago

January 22, 2025

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Mariann Edgar Budde: Who is the bishop Donald Trump called 'nasty'?

Donald Trump has hit out at the bishop of Washington after she lectured him on respecting immigrants and LGBT+ citizens during a televised church service.

The president remained straight-faced alongside his vice president JD Vance as bishop Mariann Edgar Budde addressed him at Tuesday’s interfaith prayer service at Washington National Cathedral, telling him to “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now”.

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The direct appeal to Mr Trump, which went on for around two minutes, has gone viral on social media and drawn criticism from Republicans, including a congressman who urged the president to deport the bishop.

But what exactly did Bishop Budde say and what has the president’s response been?

What did Bishop Budde say?

She began: “Let me make one final plea, Mr President. Millions have put their trust in you.

“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.

“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in democratic, republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”

The bishop then highlighted the contributions of asylum seekers – a group Mr Trump has wasted no time in cracking down on.

She listed groups including “the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings” and those “who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals”.

“They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she said. Mr Trump then looked down at the floor.

She continued: “I ask you to have mercy, Mr President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.

“And that you help those who are fleeing war and persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here.

“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”

Her comments came after Mr Trump promised to carry out the biggest deportation in US history and his executive order stating the government will recognise only two sexes.

How did Donald Trump and other Republicans react?

The president remained stony-faced during the remarks, during which he sat alongside wife Melania in the front row, and next to Mr Vance and his wife Usha Vance.

He did at one point turn away and look over his shoulder before examining the booklet he was holding.

At another point in the sermon, Mr Trump turned towards his VP and the pair shared a wordless exchange of looks.

Mr Vance raised his eyebrows at one stage and turned to share a look with his wife, whose gaze remained firmly forward.

He repeated the move after the bishop spoke about immigrants, and followed it up by whispering to Mrs Vance.

When Bishop Budde finished her sermon, Mr Trump leaned over to say something to Mr Vance, who shook his head in response.

Asked what he thought of the sermon as he returned to the Oval Office, the president told reporters: “They could have done better.”

In a late-night post on his social media platform Truth Social, he called Bishop Budde a “radical left hardline Trump hater” and said she was “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart”.

“She brought her church into the world of politics in a very ungracious way,” he said.

“Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job. She and her church owe the public an apology.”

Republican congressman Mike Collins shared a video of the sermon on X and wrote: “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”

Who is Mariann Edgar Budde?

She was elected as the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington (EDW) in 2011, having served as rector of St John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis for 18 years.

She has had her sermons published in several books and journals, and has authored three of her own books about faith – most recently in 2023.

She has also been openly critical of Mr Trump before, having written an opinion piece for The New York Times in 2020, in which she condemned him for clearing Lafayette Square, near the White House, amid the George Floyd protests and then posing for photos on the grounds of nearby St John’s Church while holding a Bible.

She said she was “outraged” by the move and claimed he was using the Bible and the backdrop of the church, which belongs to her diocese, “for his political purposes”.

The EDW’s website describes her as “an advocate and organiser in support of justice concerns, including racial equity, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons, and the care of creation”.

The bishop is married and has two children and grandchildren, the website adds.

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Hotel fire at ski resort in Turkey kills at least 76 people – four arrested

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2 hours ago

January 22, 2025

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Hotel fire at ski resort in Turkey kills at least 76 people - four arrested

A fire at a hotel in a popular ski resort in Turkey has killed at least 76 people, the country’s interior minister has said.

Ali Yerlikaya added that at least 51 other people were injured in the fire at the Grand Kartal hotel in Kartalkaya in Bolu province’s Koroglu mountains in northwest Turkey, about 185 miles (300km) east of Istanbul.

Four people, including the business owner, have been arrested by Turkish authorities, the justice secretary said.

The fire broke out at about 3.30am in the hotel’s restaurant, with pictures showing several fire engines surrounding the charred building, and white bed sheets tied together could be seen hanging from one upper-floor window.

At least two of the victims died after jumping from the building in panic, the governor of Bolu told the state-run Anadolu media agency, adding that 234 guests were staying at the 12-storey, 161-room hotel.

Other reports said some people tried to climb down from their rooms using sheets and blankets. The health minister said at least one of the injured was in serious condition and 17 others had been discharged from hospital after being treated.

Third-floor guest Atakan Yelkovan told the IHA news agency his wife smelled burning but “the alarm did not go off”.

“We tried to go upstairs but couldn’t, there were flames. We went downstairs and came here [outside],” he said.

Mr Yelkovan said it took about an hour for the firefighting teams to arrive.

“People on the upper floors were screaming. They hung down sheets… some tried to jump,” he said.

Ski instructor Necmi Kepcetutan said he was asleep when the fire began and, after rushing outside, he helped some 20 guests escape.

He said the hotel was engulfed in smoke and admitted he couldn’t get to some of his students.

“I hope they are OK,” he said.

Mr Aydin’s office said 30 fire trucks and 28 ambulances were sent to the site. Other hotels at the resort were evacuated as a precaution and guests were placed in hotels around Bolu.

A team of six government-appointed prosecutors is investigating how the fire started.

German TV station NTV suggested the wooden cladding on the outside of the hotel may have accelerated the spread of the fire and that efforts to put it out were hampered by the fact it is built on the side of a cliff.

The Grand Kartal hotel passed a fire inspection last year, tourism minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy told reporters.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to take “all necessary steps” to find out what happened and “hold those responsible accountable”.

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Boy, two, and man, 41, killed as two others injured in Germany knife attack

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2 hours ago

January 22, 2025

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Boy, two, and man, 41, killed as two others injured in Germany knife attack

A two-year-old boy and 41-year-old man have been killed while two others were injured in a stabbing incident in the southern German state of Bavaria.

A man, described by police as a 28-year-old Afghan national, has been arrested following the knife attack in a park in Aschaffenburg on Wednesday.

Police said the two seriously injured people were receiving hospital treatment and that a cordon remained in place in the area around the scene.

Officers have said the motive for the attack is currently unclear.

The suspect, who had followed a day care group of five small children, was detained at the scene in Schoental park, an English-style garden in the Bavarian city, where the attack occurred at around 11.45am local time.

Train services in the town were temporarily interrupted as the suspect tried to flee along the tracks, German news agency dpa reported.

However, he was quickly detained, police said.

A witness is being questioned, police added. They said there was no indication of further suspects and no danger to the public.

Police said they did not know the nationality of the two people who were killed and they did not release any details about those injured.

Germany has been hit by a string of violent attacks, including a car ramming into a crowd at a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg in December, killing six people and injuring about 200.