So the background check numbers are out for April and once again the media gets it all wrong. Here’s the statement from CNN: “The FBI conducted nearly 3 million background checks associated with the sale, transfer or permitting of firearms in April, making it the fourth highest month for background checks since the bureau began keeping statistics in 1998.” By tomorrow. I’ll get emails from the various gun-control organizations quoting the CNN story and asking me to send them some dough. Fine.

              In fact, 45% of the calls received by the FBI NICS call center in April had nothing to do with gun sales at all. They were calls being made to check license applications, concealed-carry applications, guns taken out of pawn, or guns transferred between two gun nuts in a private sale. That’s right, almost 3,000 NICS checks were for transfers between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Now you might think that 3,000 private sale background checks are nothing compared to the almost 1,600,000 checks done by dealers for guns they sold. But in 1998, the FBI didn’t bother to count NICS checks for private sales and of the 24 categories for background checks for which the FBI now issues their monthly report, there were only 5 categories of types of checks reported in 1998. You want to compare apples to oranges; you go right ahead. But the monthly FBI-NICS report issued last week has only contained the same categories since August 2016. Oh well, oh well.

Of course CNN being a responsible media outlet which always checks its facts, made sure to get statements about this avalanche of guns sales from both sides of the debate. A lady at the NRA who has not been laid off, said that the reason for all those guns being purchased is that “Americans are fearful and seeking security in the time of the COVID pandemic.” One of our gun-control friends, Igor Volsky, was then asked to chime in and he noted that the Trump administration “has repeatedly worked to expand access to guns during a national pandemic and has encouraged folks to take up arms and intimidate their governors into reopening the government.”

Last week I wrote a column in which I compared the current gun frenzy to what happened after the World Trade towers came down. I said that by the end of November, 2001 just three months short of 9-11, the spike in gun sales had come to an end. Guess what? This time around the number of Americans rushing out to protect themselves from the ‘Chinese virus’ (I love that phrase) may already be winding down. Background checks for gun transfers in March were 2,286,207; for April they were 1,596,519.  That’s only a drop of 30 percent. No big deal.

Remember I said that the FBI-NICS background check data has only contained the same categories for checks being done today since August, 2016. Know when Americans bought just as many guns in one month as they bought last month? Try November, 2016. The following month, December, they bought even more. Know what happened back then/ No virus, no ISIS invasion, no Korean or Iranian atom bomb. There was something called a Presidential election which a certain, notorious gun-grabber was supposed to win. And the reason why so many guns were sold not before but directly after the November vote is because many guns are sold on the installment plan – put down half now and the balance in 30 days.

I think we have a lot more to be concerned about than whether some gun guys use the COVID pandemic as an excuse to stock up on another gun. The worst that will happen is that ‘The Wife’ will find out that he snuck another gun into the house, which means it can always be sold back to the store if the washer-dryer goes on the fritz.

We have an election coming up on November 3^rd. Let’s stop screwing around with the side-show, okay?