Data released by the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) reported 1,407,155 checks in December 2009, ranking the month in the top five for most NICS checks of all time.
This figure, while being a 7.6% decrease from the 1,523,426 checks conducted in December 2008 — the beginning stage of an ongoing surge in firearms and ammunition sales — is an increase of 14.4% over checks in December 2007.
Year-to-date background checks for 2009 total 14,033,824, an increase of 10.4 percent over the same time period last year. The total number of background checks reported since the beginning of NICS is 110,017,832.
