#NICS

The American firearms industry is still going great guns after a minor slump in 2025, with the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) adjusted NICS numbers showing more than a million guns sold in the U.S. in May of 2026, as well as an increase over May’s numbers in 2025.

After a bit of a slump in 2025, it looks like the firearms industry is going great guns in the U.S. (no pun intended … maybe …) through 2026. April’s NICS numbers show more year-over-year growth in the firearms world, although the change is slight.

For a while there, it looked like American gun sales numbers were going to trend down, down down—but that trend has reversed, and in March of 2026, we saw sales of well over a million guns, and a year-over-year increase.

The $0 NFA tax stamp is doing exactly what you'd expect it to do.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen a consistent decline in the amount of firearms sold in the U.S., year-over-year. That trend saw a switch-up in September, as firearms sales were up over the numbers from September 2024.

After July saw sales at American gun stores drop below the one-million mark for the first time in many years, August saw a rebound. Although August 2025 saw fewer guns sold in the States than August 2024, the number was still over one million firearms sold (more or less), putting the industry back on track.

How’s the firearms industry faring in these wild financial times? There’s one metric that we can use as a rough guide to sales numbers in the United States: the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). According to the NICS numbers for March, sales are not as strong for the month as they were the past few years at the same time—but retailers are still selling a pile of guns.