Record Number of Guns Bought for Christmas 2011

What would you say was that most popular Christmas gift in 2011? Some hot new toy or video game? Or maybe gift cards? Actually, it's a gun.

Last month, nearly 1.5 million background checks were performed by gun dealers, with almost 500,000 taking place in the six days before Christmas. There were over 100,000 background checks performed on December 23rd alone, the second busiest day for buying guns ever. The busiest day to buy guns was also in 2011, the day after Thanksgiving, when close to 130,000 background checks were performed on customers buying guns and other weapons.

There are a lot of explanations for this spike in buying guns.  While some believe people are buying guns out of fear of crime waves, others are in a rush to buy guns before Barack Obama will supposedly ban gun sales. (yet another reason why Obama cannot win this next election...) Personally, I think as long as the guns are going to the responsible gun owners and not the nutcases, I've got no problem with more guns being sold.