May saw gun background checks hit a monthly record for the 13th month in a row,
according to statistics reported by the FBI.
According to the FBI, the agency completed 1.87 million checks using the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in May 2016, about 300,000 more than May of last year, which was a record for May at the time.
The numbers are down over the past several months, as requests for background checks typically fall during the summer months,
The Washington Free Beacon notes. The all-time record month was last December when 3.31 million requests were made.
Criminal background checks are an indication of the number of gun purchases made since they are required for all sales made by licensed dealers. But they don't reflect an exact one-to-one relationship. Laws differ by state, and a single background check can cover the purchase of more than one gun in a single transaction.
Background checks have risen as Democrats including President Barack Obama and expected presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have talked about toughening gun laws. The number of checks exceeded 2 million for the first time around the time of the Sandy Hook school shootings in December 2012 when Obama began a push for stricter laws.
"There is no doubt that the string of record monthly gun sales have been driven by the anti-rights agenda of the Obama Administration and the millions of dollars that Michael Bloomberg has spent assaulting the Second Amendment," Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan Gottlieb told the Free Beacon.
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