Arms sales in the United States, which skyrocketed last year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, continues to grow.
And
a fifth of purchases are made by people who are new owners
, according to preliminary data from a study published this Sunday by The New York Times.
The figures, compiled by Northeastern University and a Harvard research center, indicate that there are more and more weapons in circulation, but also more and more armed people.
The study, which has not yet been published, also shows that
half of these new gun owners are women
, a
fifth
black
and
another fifth Hispanic
, which points to a
diversification of the
most common
profile
of the gun buyer, who is the white man.
"There was an increase in purchases like we had never seen before
," Garen J. Wintemute, a weapons researcher at the University of California, Davis, told the quoted outlet.
"Normally it slows down. But this didn't stop."
A gun store window at a mall in Oceanside, California, on April 12, 2021. REUTERS / Bing Guan
The data comes from a survey of 19,000 people carried out in April and indicates that around 6.5% of the US population - some 17 million people - acquired weapons last year, up from 5.3% in 2019.
[Biden Announces Executive Orders to Prevent Gun Violence, Following Several Recent Shootings]
Overall, an estimated
39% of the
nation's
homes
have
at least one weapon
, up from 32% in 2016, according to a public opinion poll conducted by a University of Chicago research center.
Sales skyrocketed last year coinciding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing the number of federal background checks - a rough indication of the number of gun sales - to one million in March 2020. week for the first time since data collection began in 1998.
[Why Biden's Actions to Prevent Gun Violence Are Not Enough, Expert Says]
That record was broken again this spring, with a week in which 1.2 million verifications were passed, according to FBI data.
Of the 10 weeks with the most background checks, six have occurred so far in 2021 and another three took place in 2020.
Gun sales have been on the rise for years in the United States, usually with sharp rises in election years or after notorious crimes, but the latest data points to an unprecedented rate today.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, in addition, shootings have increased significantly in many cities of the country, after years of reductions.
Only at dawn this Sunday two people died and more than 20 were injured after a shooting at a party hall northwest of Miami, Florida.
Last month, President Joe Biden urged the Republican opposition to join with Democrats in restricting access to guns.
The president maintained that the arms problem, which he defined as "an
epidemic and an international shame"
, should not be a partisan issue and defended the prohibition of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, weapons and devices common in shootings. massive.
With information from The New York Times and Efe.