The sale of ammunition during the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically increased in the last few months, especially here in Texas. A report from AMMO.com shows that sales for ammunition here in Texas by caliber has risen as much as 2478 percent since last February.

Texas leads the country in ammunition sales increases followed by Florida. Apparently people were stocking up on more than just toilet paper and ramen noodles.

Man shooting gun
Credit: Joe Belanger
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According to the website ammo sales since February has gone up 524 percent in Texas. 9 mm ammo has a spike of 1016 percent while 223 ammo rode in sales by 2478 percent. People are arming themselves. They are lining up outside gun stores. Or going online to buy . In February, the internet retailer ammo.com reported a 309% increase in revenue and a 222% surge in transactions.

By federal law, the U.S. government does not track the number of guns sold, but it does track the number of background checks for buyers. Gun sales were up significantly during the period when COVID-19 began impacting the nation, causing a surge in background checks conducted by the federal government. Those federal background checks for gun sales in Texas were up 92 percent over February, according to FBI data released April 1. Texas saw 274,211 background checks in March compared to 142,928 in February.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Background Check System, firearm background checks soared over 3 million in March and May of 2020. According to the data, the last time the FBI recorded 3 million checks was December of 2015.

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