Getting 2025 off to a good start, last month saw a bump in the number of background checks performed for likely firearm purchases.

Last month was the fifth-highest January on record in terms of federal background checks for gun transfers since the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System was established over 20 years ago. 

The unadjusted figures of 2,299,989 checks conducted through NICS last month is a 5.5 percent increase from the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,180,262 in January 2024.

When the numbers for last month were adjusted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation to remove gun permit checks and rechecks, the adjusted figure stands at 1,207,557, which remains about 1 percent higher than the January 2024 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,197,294. 

Further, January 2025 is the 66th month in a row that has exceeded 1 million adjusted background checks in a single month. 

"This is what American freedoms look like – 1.2 million times over," Mark Oliva, public affairs officer with the NSSF, told Guns.com via email. "Americans from all walks of life continue to exercise their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms and do so lawfully and responsibly." 

Importantly, the figures do not show a drop following the recent election that saw Washington reverse in polarity from Democrat to Republican. 

"One political party chose to elect a gun control advocate to their leadership team," noted Oliva. "Certain states continue to punish their citizens with onerous and unconstitutional gun control laws to ban entire classes of firearms and to diminish this right. The fact that background checks continue to exceed 1 million for over six years shows that those politicians are out of step with how Americans value their Constitutional rights."

Banner image: A 17+1 capacity EAA Girsan 2311 Witness Match double stack in 9mm, equipped with a 1,000-lumen/25,000-candela InForce Wild2 WML. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)