June checks fell marginally, gun sales dropped 12 percent

June-2017-NICSJune gun sales fell 12 percent compared to last year, according to Guns.com’s analysis of data reported Thursday by federal regulators.

Estimated gun sales totaled 947,107, down by 129,485 from last year. June’s total is comprised of checks processed by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System before a licensed dealer transferred a firearm to a buyer. The gun industry uses the system as a proxy measure for gun sales.

Sales checks break down into 569,149 handguns, 331,152 long guns, 29,730 “other” type firearms, and 17,076 checks for a transaction covering multiple firearms.

For the second year in a row, NICS reported higher June sales checks than in May, beating out the month by 2.2 percent. Dealing with high inventory levels, major gun makers have credited promotional materials leading into to the summer, effectively moving inventory by discounting items with rebates.

Yet, keeping with seasonal trends, total background checks — which includes permit checks, sales checks and other miscellaneous checks — saw a slight decline, by about half a percentage point. Making up about 46 percent of June’s background checks, permit checks and re-checks accounted for 872,053 of the total. Compared to last year, permit checks are down 11.8 percent.

So far 2017 is trailing last year — the biggest year in NICS history for sales and total background checks — by 7.6 percent, or 524,537, in sales and 9.2 percent, or 1.3 million, total checks.

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