Tile map of state-level adjusted NICS checks (raw totals minus permit checks & rechecks) · toggle % change vs total volume above · scrub the month slider to animate · permit-only states with tiny adjusted bases (e.g. Hawaii, a few dozen checks a month) can show extreme % swings
Adjusted checks; states only (territories & DC excluded); comparison-month volume ≥ 3,000 · bars capped at ±60% (⫽ = off-scale, exact value labeled)
YoY momentum of the selected month's top-2 gainers & bottom-2 decliners (adjusted checks) · zero line = flat vs prior year · y-axis capped at ±80% (⫽ = off-scale; exact value in the end label) · follows the month slider, change metric & trend window
This dashboard uses adjusted NICS: raw checks minus permit checks and permit rechecks (the NSSF-style adjustment), computed per state from the type-level data. Raw totals are dominated by bulk permit activity in some states — in the latest month (September 2026) Illinois was 231,920 raw but 29,710 adjusted, Utah 72,484 → 11,761, Kentucky 22,937 → 19,788; July 2026 was starker still, with Kentucky 272,859 raw → 17,951, Illinois 249,475 → 28,508 and Utah 72,109 → 9,646. Raw state comparisons therefore badly overstate those markets. Kentucky's irregular recheck batches and North Dakota's quarterly rechecks are likewise removed by the adjustment.
Adjusted NICS is still a demand proxy, not sales. One check ≠ one firearm: multiple firearms can transfer on one check, permit holders bypass point-of-sale checks entirely in ~25 states, and the adjusted series still counts redemptions and private-party checks.
Pre-law-change surges: states often spike before a restriction's effective date, then “decline” as volumes normalize — the surge month and the payback month are the same event. Connecticut is September's new example: 14,187 adjusted checks, +50.7% MoM and +94.2% YoY (vs 7,306) — the top gainer on both metrics and its highest month since March 2022 (15,223) — immediately ahead of Public Act 26-41's ban on the sale of easily convertible pistols taking effect Oct 1, 2026. Expect October to show the payback. Colorado is the payback in progress: a July record of 82,103 ahead of SB25-003's semiautomatic purchase-permit rules (effective Aug 1, 2026), then 19,195 in August and 16,524 in September — September's steepest YoY decliner (−34.7% vs 25,300) and roughly half its pre-surge run-rate of ~30–34K. Rhode Island remains depressed after its pre-ban rush (7,815 in June) ahead of the Jul 1, 2026 sale ban on semiautomatic rifles: 1,633 in September, against a 2,300–2,700 norm a year earlier. Virginia shows the same shape: 123,699 adjusted checks in June ahead of the July 1 “assault firearms” sales ban (since blocked by state-court preliminary injunctions, under appeal), then 35–43K a month since. Delaware (−28.1% YoY) is still lapping its Oct–Nov 2025 surge ahead of its handgun permit-to-purchase requirement (effective Nov 16, 2025). Nevada (−30.7% YoY) is lapping an unusually elevated Sep 2025–Feb 2026 stretch (12–15K a month vs a ~8–10K norm) rather than a known deadline.
Raw vs adjusted: the trend chart shows both series; the gap between them is permit-system volume, not market demand. State-level raw totals were verified against the FBI PDF exactly — all 5,775 overlapping state-months back to Jan 2018 match with zero discrepancies — and adjusted values derive from the same source's per-type columns.
• FBI NICS — Month/Year by State (PDF) — retrieved Oct 7, 2026; the 2026 sheet now covers Jan 1 – Sep 30, 2026, so September 2026 is a new reporting month since the last refresh. All 55 state and territory rows recovered on every page back to 2018 (Connecticut via the page-text fallback).
• Data Liberation Project — NICS firearm background checks CSV — retrieved Oct 7, 2026, covering through September 2026. All 5,775 state-month raw totals back to Jan 2018 verified against the by-state PDF with zero discrepancies, zero revisions to any earlier adjusted cell since the Sep 30 refresh, and no negative adjusted cell.
• FBI NICS — Month and Year by State and Type (PDF, last five years) — the per-type reference for the permit/recheck adjustment.
• ATF — Current Processing Times — page last updated Sep 29, 2026 (read Oct 7, 2026; unchanged since the previous refresh): processing-time medians and monthly volumes cover August 2026 applications (266,897 received, 300,409 finalized), NFRTR registration counts are as of Sep 3, 2026, and year-to-date eForm counts as of Sep 3, 2026. ATF separately reports a median of 5 days for individual eForm 4 applications finalized in August; the chart and KPI use the 6-day figure from its processing-times table. Paper Form 3 (dealer-to-dealer) is the outlier at a 266-day median.
• Context: Colorado Dept. of Revenue on SB25-003 implementation · Colorado Sun on the July record ahead of SB25-003 · turnto10 on Rhode Island's pre-ban rush · WSET on Virginia's pre-July 1 surge · WTVR on the Virginia injunctions · Spotlight Delaware on permit-to-purchase (effective Nov 16, 2025) · CT OLR bill analysis, HB 5043 (effective Oct 1, 2026) · CT Governor on signing, Jun 2026