CT Ranks 15th in Increase in Gun Permit Background Checks in Recent Years

Last Friday – Black Friday – the number of background checks in the U.S. hit an all-time high for a single day, up five percent from the same day a year ago.  The increase shouldn’t have come as a surprise to those watching the trends in recent years. In seven states, the number of federal firearm background checks more than doubled from 2008 to 2014. No states reported a decrease. Connecticut’s increase ranked the state 15^th highest in the nation.

The 50 states and the District of Columbia were ranked by the percentage increase in number of NICS firearm background checks from 2008 to 2014, in an analysis of data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System done by Bloomberg media.

The largest increases during the six year period were in North Carolina (240%), Indiana (194%), Delaware (137%), New Jersey (127%), Illinois (118%), Alabama (107%), Florida (105%), D.C. (97%), California (89%) and Tennessee (88%).

The number of background checks in Connecticut grew from 155,885 in 2008 to 270,297 in 2014, and increase of 73.4 percent.

The largest number of background checks in 2014 were in Kentucky (2,492,184), California (1,474,616), Texas (1,465,992), Illinois (1,344,096), North Carolina (1,182,349) and Florida (1,034,546).  Connecticut, with 270,297 background checks in 2014, ranked 25th in the nation.

Because of varying state laws and purchase scenarios, Bloomberg points out that the statistics do not represent the number of firearms sold.

On Black Friday, a record 185,345 background checks – roughly two a second – were processed, according to published reports of FBI data.