Amid violent riots and unrest, FBI ran record number of gun background checks last month

Americans bough a record number of firearms last month as violent protests and civil unrest spread throughout the country, with the FBI performing 35% more background checks in June than it did in April of this year.

The bureau ran just under 4 million background checks in June, according to numbers posted this week from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. That was up from about 3,100,000 in May and around 2,900,000 in April. 

The exact number of firearms that exchanged hands may be lower than the total number of background checks performed because many buyers purchase more than one gun at a time. It could also be significantly higher: Many states do not require background checks when guns are exchanged between two individuals outside of a federally licensed firearm dealer, meaning many gun exchanges go unrecorded.

June's figures are significantly higher than the last record number of about 3.3 million background checks, performed in December of 2015. At the beginning of that month, a shooting terrorist attack in California had re-ignited the American debate over increased gun control measures, leading many Americans to rush to buy firearms ahead of possible restrictions on gun purchases.