Tag: Sale

Connecticut Guns Sales Reach Five-Year High During Pandemic

The Center Square
woman in a white dress holding an AR in a gun shop

Gun sales reached a five-year high in Connecticut in 2021, the year that the FBI saw the second-highest number of recorded background checks.

According to Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, there were 21 million background checks for gun sales in 2020 and 18.5 million in 2021, nationwide. Those figures are the top two highest on record.

“Background checks skyrocketed in March 2020, when there were 2.3 million background checks recorded,” Oliva told The Center Square. “That was the most ever recorded in a single month. That, of course, was the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns. People became concerned for their safety when police were warning they would not be able to respond to all emergency calls because they were seeing COVID infections rise.”

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Republicans Take Different Tact to Privatize Pennsylvania Liquor Sales

The Center Square
man standing next to wine bottles, wearing a mask

Lawmakers are set to discuss legislation next week to privatize liquor sales in Pennsylvania through a constitutional amendment.

State Rep. Natalie Mihalek, R-Allegheny, introduced House Bill 2272 on Friday to privatize Pennsylvania’s state run liquor stores through a constitutional amendment that cannot be vetoed.

The General Assembly passed legislation in 2016 to privatize the sale of wine and spirits, but the legislation was vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf. Pennsylvania is one of only two states with a government monopoly on liquor sales, and the only state in the nation to shut down sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mihalek wrote in a legislative memo accompanying the bill.

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