There were a lot of 4473's filled out on Friday which means we will soon be accused of killing trees. |
Black
Friday Facebook posts seemed to be the norm this past week especially for the
local shops in the area that don’t put the money into fancy commercials or
newspaper inserts. This was especially true for the small shops around the
region. Even the local gun shops took to Facebook to promote the discounts that
they were offering this weekend (Tanner’s Sports Center
is a perfect example of this). And, as it turns out, my local mom and pop shops
were not the only ones cutting prices.
While
I kept reading about the lines at various retailers across the country, it didn’t
quite click that the same thing would be happening at the local gun shops and
big chain stores. Just like last year, I didn’t have the need to go wait in
those lines and none of those stores are along my usual commute so I was fairly
oblivious to the rampant sales that were happening across the nation. Those
thoughts were soon chipped away when I started reading through some of the
comments left on the Facebook sale posts.
These
demonstrated that there was a higher than normal pace to the sales but the
volume was still something that I didn’t fully grasp until additional posts
were made by a few of these stores. As it turns out, the PICS system was
completely overloaded (no back door gun control theories here just the pointing
out of a crappy antiquated system). Something that I cannot remember happening
for some time and not this bad since the first few months of 2013. That is when
I really began to wonder how many firearms were being sold on Black (Rifle)
Friday.
And
then I came across a CNN article (via The Blaze) that summarized
the mass buying that was taking place across the country and why the system was
unable to handle the load. Here is a little bit from the article:
The busiest shopping day of the year also saw a
major boom for gun sales, with the federal background check system setting a
record of more than 175,000 background checks Friday, according to the FBI.
The staggering number of checks -- an average of
almost three per second, nearly three times the daily average -- falls on the
shoulders of 600 FBI and contract call center employees who will endure 17-hour
workdays in an attempt to complete the background reviews in three business
days, as required by law, FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer said.
"Traditionally, Black Friday is one of our
busiest days for transaction volume," Fischer said.
Indeed, Friday saw the highest number of
background checks ever for a Black Friday, and second in history. The highest
day on record was December 21, 2012, with more than 177,000 background checks.
Without
any major controversies or political maneuvering currently being considered, it
really came down to price this year. While there may not have been great Black
Friday deals to be had overall, it seems as though the firearms industry is
doing well and the real deals were in the gun shops. Like it or not, firearms
are part of our culture and the ownership thereof is our right. Thankfully,
there are many people out there who choose to exercise that right and Black
Friday was there opportunity to embrace that right… and at a discount.
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