While overall retail sales disappointed following President Obama's impassioned plea to Americans that the world is in grave danger from terrorists but they should go about their usual business of spend-spend-spend-ing on Black Friday [5], it appears they did buy one thing. As USA Today reports, [6] more Americans had their backgrounds checked purchasing guns on Black Friday than any day on record, according to data released by the FBI this week.
Friday's purchases came the same day as the mass shooting incident in Colorado Springs that killed three people and injured nine others.
On Saturday, President Obama called for tighter controls of "weapons of war" in the wake of the Planned Parenthood shooting.
"This is not normal," Obama said. "We can't let it become normal. If we truly care about this — if we're going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience — then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them. Period. Enough is enough."
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System processed 185,345 requests on Nov. 27, one of the largest retail sales days in the country.
"This was an approximate 5% increase over the 175,754 received on Black Friday 2014," wrote Stephen Fischer, the FBI's chief of multimedia productions. "The previous high for receipts were the 177,170 received on 12/21/2012."
Previous spikes for background checks, conducted before a gun buyer can obtain a firearm, occurred after prominent mass shootings, like in December 2012 in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
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It appears Thanksgiving is a popular time in America to reaffirm the right to bear arms as other Black Friday shopping days in 2014, 2013 and 2012 occupied the FBI's "top 10" list of the most background checks processed in a 24-hour period.
[7]
But the overall trend of rising background checks continues...
[8]
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Of course, today's mass shooting in San Bernardino, CA already brought comments from Hillary...
I refuse to accept this as normal. We must take action to stop gun violence now. -H https://t.co/SkKglwQycb [9]
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) December 2, 2015 [10]
