Federal firearms licensees sold more than 2.5 million guns to the American public in March 2020, easily smashing the previously held record for the most gun sales in an individual month by more than a million transactions.

The gun sale data has been gauged by Small Arms Analytics, and the estimation of a total of 2,583,238 sales has been pulled from raw FBI National Instant Criminal Background Checks System data. It’s actually possible that the total figure of guns sales is a bit higher, considering gun sales between private individuals are not subject to the NICS system.

Not only does the figure of 2.5 million gun sales surpass the previous monthly record holder from March 2019, but it does so in a resounding fashion. 1.4 million guns were sold in that month, meaning that March 2020 surpassed the record by approximately 1.1 million sales.

A breakdown of the sales between long guns and handguns was provided by Small Arms Analytics. Handgun sales in particular spiked exponentially, easily surpassing previous quarterly highs in gun sales that preceded major American elections.

An alternate system of quantifying gun purchases utilized by the National Shooting Sports Foundation verified that March was in fact a record-setting month for gun sales.

The surge in gun and ammunition sales in the wake of the nascent Chinese coronavirus epidemic is well documented at this point, with gun and ammunition retailers reporting selling out their entire inventories and still not coming close to meeting demand.

As Americans arm themselves in unprecedented record-setting numbers, some major American municipalities and states have taken it upon themselves to wholly shut down the lawful firearms commerce and manufacturing industries. However, several of them have been stopped cold in their tracks, in light of federal guidelines from the Trump administration that recognizes businesses serving the Second Amendment community as “essential.”

New Jersey and Los Angeles County are among the two biggest governmental entities forced to walk back arbitrary commands that gun stores close in light of the guidelines.

Dubious state of emergency declarations that try to implement backdoor gun control in a hour where more Americans are seeking to lawfully arm themselves than ever before simply aren’t going to work, judging from historical amounts of armaments freedom-loving patriots have secured in the last month alone.