South Dakota Among States Where Gun Sales Are Rebounding Most

In the last 20 years, gun ownership in America has skyrocketed.

According to the FBI, since gun background checks were first tracked in 1999 the numbers have grown from 9,138,123 in the first year to a whopping 39,695,31 background checks in 2020.

Those numbers took a bit of a dip nationally over the past couple of years (down to about 30,000,000) but they are on the rise again in a handful of states, including South Dakota.

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24/7 Wall St. has the Mount Rushmore State second nationally (behind Maryland) among the states where background checks increased in each month of the last three months of this year.

South Dakota went from 6,236 background checks in July to 8,737 checks in October - an increase of 40.1 percent.

STATES WITH BIGGEST REBOUNDS IN GUN SALES
(background checks 7/22-10/22)

1. Maryland - 67.1% increase
2. South Dakota - 40.1% increase 
3. North Dakota - 30% increase
4. Maine - 26% increase
5. Wisconsin - 21.7% increase
6. Arkansas - 19.1% increase
7. Montana - 17.7% increase
8. West Virginia - 16.1% increase
9. Georgia - 12.9% increase
10. Missouri - 6.4% increase

Prior to that, the state had seen one of the biggest drops in background checks.

From January - October 2021 to January - October 2022, checks were down ten percent, which was the 17th largest decrease in the country.