Like many small businesses, Action Impact firearms wondered how busy Black Friday would be this year. Their worry however wasn’t due to a lack of customers.
“How big is the number of customers I have left to service," wondered Action Impact owner William Kucyk. “I don’t know who’s left to sell guns to, I just don't.”
Black Friday is usually their busiest day of the year, but 2020 has been by far the busiest year to date. Action Impact has had a tough time keeping enough guns and ammo in stock to handle the demand.
"Still to this day we cant order what we would like," Kucyk said. "Pretty much our distributors call and say this is what’s available, would you like us to ship it?'”
According to the FBI, which runs background checks for every gun purchase, five of the 10 busiest days on record are Black Fridays. The other days? The first five days of the pandemic shutdown in March.
“It’s almost been like a perfect storm for people wanting to purchase firearms,” Kucyk said.
The pandemic combined with social unrest and an election has made 2020 the industry's busiest year. Before the pandemic, the FBI only passed 3 million firearm checks in a month once. However this year, it’s already happened 6 times out of 10 months.
“A high percentage of our customers are new firearm purchasers, and a high percentage of the new firearm purchasers happen to be female,” Kucyk said.
Longtime gun owner Terrence James came for the Black Friday deals, and to buy a handgun for personal protection for his daughter.
“My daughter is getting ready to move out into her own place and I wont be there," James said. "So that's what our reason is for it.”
Despite dealing with a shortage of ammunition, Action Impact still had Black Friday sales on everything in the store. The message James and Kucyk had for those first time gun owners, is to get training.
"Don't buy it if you don't get trained on it," James said. "You’ll end up hurting yourself.”
“Just because you’re buying a gun doesn't make you safe or effective with it,” Kucyk added.
