Looking at the NICS data from March and April, there is an interesting trend going on... A thread... 1/7

(2/7) I often argue politics matters for gun sales more than pretty much anything. At first glance, that would make sense. Look at this correlation between household gun ownership and GOP voting in 2016 ( @RANDCorporation data on gun prevalence)

r=0.76!!!

(3/7) March 2020 (best month for gun sales ever*) makes that argument look pretty weak. March 2020 NICS gun "sales" do not correlate with 2016 GOP votes.

(% change in NICS is how much NICS increased in a state in 3/20 compared to 3/19)

r=-0.07

*I quibble

(4/7) March 2020 gun sales look very non-political. This would jive with the story that people were scared of COVID, went out and bought guns, and this happened across the political spectrum.

So, April 2020, another banner month for sales, would surely keep this trend?

(5/7) Nope. April 2020 gun sales have a moderate correlation with politics in a state (r=0.4)

So while March 2020 gun sales appear to have no political associations, April 2020 sales do.

(6/7) Interestingly, this trend also appears when you compare gun sales by the overall prevalence of households with guns too.

(7/7) So, there may have been an influx of new gun buyers that were to the left of the modal gun owner in March, but after a month or so the partisan associations are emerging again, and sustaining these higher the rates of sales.