Are monthly gun purchases a leading indicator of declining citizen confidence in governance?

From FBI: No end to soaring gun sales by Paul Bedard

President Joe Biden’s anti-gun crusade, echoed in major cities where liberal majors are blaming guns for the rise in young gangbanger killings, is having no impact on the uninterrupted three-year surge in firearm sales.

The FBI reported this week that sales have been over 1 million for 37 straight months, historic numbers.

[snip]

“Consistently throughout the year, background check figures for firearm sales at retail have put 2022 on pace to be the third strongest year, behind only the outsized years witnessed in 2020 and 2021. August’s figures of 1,286,816 background checks was slightly ahead of July’s that came in at 1,233,115. This also marks 37 months straight of background checks exceeding 1 million. 

It wasn't the article, which is reasonably partisan, so much as the headline which sparked a thought.

We are accustomed to gun sale increases when 1) there is a spike in crime or civil disturbance (think Ferguson Riots in 2014 and Floyd Riots in 2020), or 2) when there is an uptick in gun control rhetoric.  

In the past three years we have seen increases in crime, civil disturbance and in government and advocate rhetoric in pursuit of gun control, so it is not surprising that there should be a sustained increase in gun purchases.  

What occurred to me is that gun purchases could be seen as a leading indicator of a decline in citizen confidence in governance effectiveness.  

There are opinion surveys such as those by Gallup which measure stated trust in institutions such as the courts, government, the police, the military, Congress, etc.  But these are mere opinions.  Economists are always alert to revealed preference - the gap between what people say versus what they actually do.  

Regardless of what the public reports in opinion surveys about their trust in government, (and those results might perhaps be inversely correlated with gun purchases), the decision to spend money on purchasing a gun, undertaking the expense of training, and the commitment to assume responsibility for the risks inherent in a firearm in the house, almost must necessarily reflect a decline in trust in governance (police, courts, legislature, executive administration.)  

Three graphs cover the issues though none of them are up to date in sales (mostly missing 2021 and 2022.)

The first is monthly firearm background checks, the predicate to gun purchases.  As you can see, through 2008, gun sales were mostly seasonal with a very modest increasing trend.  With Obama's election, and the increasing rhetoric over gun control, gun purchases accelerated.  As they did with Ferguson and Minneapolis riots.  

Click to enlarge.  

The second graph provides data that softens the connection between shootings and gun purchases.  At the bottom are the number and size of mass shootings.  They seem weakly correlated with surges in gun purchases.  For example, there are a cluster of mass shootings around the tragedy at Sandy Hook but only Sandy Hook has a surge.  Almost certainly because the other mass shootings were local whereas Sandy Hook was a national story and launched yet further gun control rhetoric.  The correlation between gun purchases and rising crime as distinct from the correlation between gun purchases and mass shootings warrants some investigation.  

Click to enlarge.

The third graph shows the disconnect, the revealed preference between what people say and what they do.  Over the past three years, a clear majority (ranging from 52% to 67% of the population) tell Gallup that they think there should be stricter controls on gun purchases.  At the same time people are actually buying more guns than ever.  

Click to enlarge.  

It is not inconsistent to personally want to purchase more guns and also to want to have better gun control but there is something of a dissonance between the two phenomena at a population level.

Are rising monthly gun purchases a leading indicator of declining trust in governance effectiveness?  I don't know but it seems like it might be.  And possibly even stronger than the connection gun purchases and crime and possibly even between gun purchases and gun control rhetoric.