An Arms Race in America: Gun Buying Spiked During the Pandemic. Itâs Still Up.
Preliminary research data show that about a fifth of all Americans who bought guns last year were first-time gun owners. Sales usually spike around elections, but the sheer volume is notable.
A gun store in Austin, Texas, this week. More guns are being bought by more Americans than ever before.Credit.Matthew Busch for The New York Times
May 29, 2021, 12:12 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON â It was another week with another horrific mass shooting. In cities across the country, gun homicides were climbing. Democrats and Republicans argued over the causes. President Biden said enough.
Americans have gone on a buying spree for guns
Americans have gone on a buying spree for guns While gun sales have been climbing for decades, Americans went on an unusual, prolonged buying spree fueled by the pandemic, last summer s protests and the fears they stoked.
By Sabrina Tavernise New York Times May 29, 2021 2:28pm Text size Copy shortlink:
WASHINGTON It was another week with another horrific mass shooting. In cities across the country, gun homicides were climbing. Democrats and Republicans argued over the causes. President Joe Biden said enough.
But beneath the timeworn political cycle on guns in the United States, the country s appetite for firearms has onl
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Young people in the last decades have had to study more than academics they’ve had to learn what to do when a person shows up to your school with a gun and starts shooting. And unfortunately those types of skills could help you anywhere these days even on Capitol Hill. As the American pandemic of gun violence grows, so do the arguments about what can be done about it. Often those arguments are about the Second Amendment, but do we have the right to bear arms . right? Or are we arguing about it wrong? NoMoNo hits part two of our look at gun violence.
Vox’s German Lopez is here to guide you through the Biden administration’s unprecedented burst of policymaking. Sign up to receive our newsletter each Friday.
America is certainly an exceptional country when it comes to firearms. It’s one of the few countries in which the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected. But the relationship is unique in another crucial way: Among developed nations, the US is far and away the most homicidal in large part due to the easy access many Americans have to firearms.
These maps and charts show what that violence looks like compared with the rest of the world, why it happens, and why it’s such a tough problem to fix.