Two studies of U.S. mass shootings found no uniform pattern in firearm buying, with one linking purchase increases to 26 of 124 events and another identifying a temporary sales rise under Democratic presidents.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s office said three children and one adult died in the Oct. 15 shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon. One child and one adult were injured, and the 16-year-old suspected shooter also died. The studies examined periods that ended years before the shooting.
A 2019 study in JAMA Network Open examined federal background-check records from November 1998 to April 2016. It covered shootings in which at least five people were injured or killed, and used checks as an indicator of purchase activity. The analysis linked 26 of 124 shootings, or 21%, with purchase increases and 22, or 17.7%, with declines.
A separate study published in the Journal of Policy Modeling in 2022 used data from 49 states between 1999 and 2016. It found that firearm sales rose temporarily after shootings, with a larger increase following events with more fatalities. The association was statistically significant only during Democratic presidencies, and firearm ownership did not rise in parallel.
The study suggested that existing owners buying additional firearms could explain the sales increase.
SafeHome.org estimated 7,736,306 firearm sales from January through June 2026, 3% above the same period a year earlier. Its estimate applies an adjustment formula to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) background-check data.
The FBI cautions that background checks do not count completed firearm sales and cannot be converted directly into the number of guns sold. SafeHome’s estimate ends in June, before the Bend shooting, so it does not capture any buying activity after the attack.
