The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) reported last week that from January through July more than 12 million background checks for the purchase of firearms were processed, an increase of 71 percent from the same period a year earlier. “That equates,” said the group, “to nearly 5 million first-time gun owners in the first seven months of 2020.” An analysis of those background checks by the NSSF further revealed that almost 60 percent of those purchases “were among African-American men and women, the largest increase of any demographic group. Women comprised 40 percent of first-time gun purchasers.” The NSSF opined that it was the combination of mayors and governors emptying prisons of violent felons in response to the COVID threat, the “peaceful protests” being taken over by radicals such as Antifa and BLM, and the resulting looting, burning, and riots that were followed by calls to defund the police that “continued to spur sales.”  [full article]