Firearm sales at or near record high amid rising tension; Walmart takes guns and ammo behind the counter for now

Amid rising anxieties about the pandemic, racial injustice and election-related fears, Americans are on track to hit a record high for single-year firearm purchases, according to groups that track Federal Bureau of Investigation background-check data and other analytics firms.

"Across the country, Americans bought 15.1 million guns in the seven months this year from March through September, a 91 percent leap from the same period in 2019, according to seasonally adjusted firearms sales estimates from The Trace, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on gun issues," Dionne Searcey and Richard A. Oppel Jr. report for The New York Times. "The FBI has also processed more background checks for gun purchases in just the first nine months of 2020 than it has for any previous full year, FBI data show."

Small Arms Analytics, a firearms analytics company, estimates Americans have purchased nearly 17 million firearms in 2020. "The previous record for estimated firearms sold in a single year was 16.6 million in 2016, when Hillary Clinton ran for president against Donald Trump and endorsed a strong gun-control platform," Lois Beckett reports for The Guardian.

Walmart has pulled guns and ammunition from store shelves, citing worries that civil unrest could prompt looting and theft of the merchandise, Vanessa Romo reports for NPR. The items are still for sale in stores that normally sell them, but they are not on the floor and customers must request them.