The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) reported that the October 2023 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) number increased by 8.2 percent, rebounding after five months of declines.
Checks amounted to 1,265,311 in October compared to the 2022 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of October 2022 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,265,311.
The October gain followed declines of 8.2 percent in September, 13.0 percent in August, 17.0 percent in July, 19.6 percent in June, and 0.1 percent in May. The last positive month was April, up 0.7 percent.
NSSF noted that October 2023 was the third-highest October on record and marks the 51st month in a row that it exceeded 1 million adjusted background checks in one month. For comparison, the unadjusted October 2023 FBI NICS figure of 2,194,313 reflects an 11.4 percent decrease from the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,475,869 in October 2022.
The adjusted NICS data comes from subtracting NICS purpose code permit checks and permit rechecks used by states for CCW permit application checks and checks on active CCW permit databases. NSSF started subtracting permit rechecks in February 2016. The statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS and do not represent the number of firearms sold or sales dollars.
