The FBI processed roughly two firearm background checks per second on Black Friday

(Image credit: David McNew/Getty Images)

published 2 December 2015

Firearm background checks were at an all time high on Black Friday this year, with the FBI processing 185,245 requests in a single day — roughly two per second. While retailers like Cabela's and Sportsman's Warehouse were advertising Black Friday deals, Friday was also the day that three people were killed and nine wounded in an attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.

FBI background checks, part of the 1998 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, are conducted for gun purchases from federally licensed dealers or to get a permit to carry guns; just because the FBI processed a background check does not mean a gun was necessarily purchased. Before this year's Black Friday record, the most background checks ever processed in a single day was on December 21, 2012, about a week after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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