The number of firearm transfers ticked up nationally in April, led by a huge increase in NICS checks in Virginia. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, there were 1,193,428 background checks performed on firearm transfers across the country, which was a slight increase of 1.6% compared to April, 2025.
Virginia, however, posted some eye-popping numbers. NSSF says gun transfers in the Commonwealth were 79% compared to one year ago, led by a huge increase in background checks on long gun sales. Virginia was actually second in the nation for long gun sales last month, behind Texas but ahead of California, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
At the range:
RO: “Is that an MP5?”
Me: “Just a clone, but yes.”
RO: “I don’t see many, but I’ve seen four or five just today.”
Me: “Well, it was my last chance to get one legally in Virginia.”
RO: “That’s what all the other guys said, too.”Nothing sells guns like gun control.
— Mark (@marklivesthings) May 4, 2026
Gun control efforts are having an impact on sales in other states as well. According to NSSF, NICS checks on tranfers increased 28% in Connecticut, where lawmakers are pushing to ban the sale of Glocks and other striker-fired semi-automatic pistols. In Rhode Island, where Democrats have introduced a bill that would ban the possession of so-called assault weapons after banning the sale of those firearms last year, NICS checks were up by 54%.
Gun control really does goose sales, at least in the short term. I expect gun stores across Virginia are going to continue to be extraordinarily busy over the next couple of of months, and it’s likely that by the time Virginia’s gun ban takes effect on July 1, close to 200,000 “assault firearms” will have been sold within its borders this year. July’s NICS numbers, though, are likely to crash once these popular firearms have been pulled from the marketplace.
One wild card would be the introduction of “Virginia compliant” models of newly-prohibited rifles, pistols, and shotguns. I can see Virginians purchasing those items in relatively large numbers, if only to deliver a message to anti-gun Democrats that their efforts to infringe on our Second Amendment rights won’t be as easy as they thought it would be.
NFA transfers are also booming in Virginia (and nationally). There were 18,538 NFA checks in the state in April, which again was the second-highest total in the country behind the Lone Star State. Sales of suppressors and other NFA items impacted by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s zeroing out of the $200 transfer tax continue to be strong, with a total of 190,086 NFA checks performed in April. That’s an increase of 130.3% compared to the same month in 2025.
NSSF’s Mark Oliva says the April NICS figures show there’s a “steady and increasing appetite among Americans for exercising their Second Amendment rights,” as well as a rejection of gun control efforts in states like Virginia, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. I suspect that with the news from Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes is about to see a boomlet of its own.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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