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Block, stock and barrel

Alexandra Suich Bass: senior correspondent, politics, technology and society, The Economist, DALLAS

Gun control will make headlines

More guns were sold in 2020 than in any previous year

ACCORDING TO THE Chinese zodiac, 2020 was the year of the rat. In America

it was the year of the gun. More guns were sold in 2020 than in any previous

year. Amid widespread anxiety about the coronavirus and social unrest, 5m

more guns were sold than otherwise would have been, according to Phillip

Levine and Robin McKnight, professors at Wellesley College. In the first nine

months of the year 29m federal background-checks were submitted for

firearms, 84% more than in the same period five years earlier. (Not all

background checks correspond to a sale.) First-time gun-buyers waited in

queues more reminiscent of rock concerts than retail. On one Saturday in July,

the wait to enter the gun show being held at a Dallas convention centre was

more than two hours.