Background checks for gun sales in Colorado in the first nine months of 2020 have exceeded the annual totals of 2017, 2018 and 2019, and are close to surpassing the previous high in 2013.

Through September, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation processed 373,036 background checks. Because there is no national database for recording sales of individual firearms, background checks are a proxy measure for weapons purchases. In all of 2013, there were almost 397,000 background checks, a threshold nearly matched in 2016 with more than 389,000 checks.

“Fear. It’s all about fear,” said Dave Heath, an instructor at Colorado Gun Classes, based in Parker. “Are the BLM going to come marching through my neighborhood? That’s their biggest fear right there.”

He explained that BLM, meaning the Black Lives Matter movement, also scared many people due to the subsequent violence that took place after — and separately from — many of the racial justice protests across the country this summer.

Firearm purchases “really accelerated with some of the protests, not even so much in Colorado as what they’re seeing in other cities,” said Kevin Holroyd, a National Rifle Association-certified instructor with Colorado Concealed Carry. “Our protests have been relatively benign so far. We haven’t seen some of the damage and the real looting and rioting.”

Both men described a confluence of events whose effect was to supercharge gun purchases this year: first came the pandemic, where uncertainty led to buying, and scarcity led to even more buying. (“It’s like the toilet paper fear,” said Heath, referring to the run on toilet paper in the early months of the pandemic, despite the product having no connection to the novel coronavirus.)

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically accelerated sales in the early months, to the point that wait times for background checks exceeded three days. Although average turnaround time has drifted down to 10 hours as of September, that is still an increase from the six minutes CBI reported in January.

Then came the protests, which led into the presidential campaign and fear-mongering about further unrest and infringement upon the right to bear arms. President Donald Trump as recently as Wednesday tweeted in all capital letters: “VOTE TRUMP. SAVE YOUR 2ND. AMENDMENT.”

It is not a coincidence that firearm purchases spike normally in presidential election years: scholarship has suggested that uncertainty around future gun safety laws is a motivator for people to acquire guns.

“Firearm background checks reached record highs at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak and have been shown to increase significantly during elections and following mass shootings,” wrote Bree Lang and Matthew Lang, associate professors at the University of California-Riverside, in a paper published in April.

Heath said that the fear this year from gun owners spans the political spectrum, be it from conservatives afraid of protesters or Democrats who are worried what will happen if Trump, as he has suggested, will not unequivocally accept the result of the election. The firearms instructor said his customers lately are similar to two nurses who called him in mid-March to say they just bought guns.

“Why did you buy your guns?” he asked them.

“Fear of the unknown,” they responded. “We don’t know what the pandemic lockdown means.” Heath agreed with the sentiment.

“So where do we put the bullets?” they continued.

“In the box, ladies. In the box,” Heath said emphatically. “Not until you come and see me do you take the bullets out of the box.”

The percentage of denials CBI has issued resulting from prospective purchasers’ ineligibility to own a gun is also elevated. Through September, 3.08% of background checks came back as denials, compared with 2.06% in 2019. Only in 2005 and earlier — in the first years after the establishment of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System — did denials exceed the percentage seen this year.

Holroyd, who has been an instructor for 20 years and is a former law enforcement officer, recalled lines around the corner of gun ranges when he took his students in 2013. Not only was that the year after President Barack Obama’s reelection and the Sandy Hook and Aurora theater massacres, but the General Assembly passed laws instituting universal background checks and banning large-capacity magazines.

He acknowledged that the legislature’s actions likely contributed to that year being the high-water mark for background checks and gun sales in Colorado.

“All of the reasoning is fallacious, in many ways,” he observed. “Why would you think that if I get my gun before the Democrats get in, they’re going to be any less able to take it away from me than after they get in? That doesn’t make logical sense.”

Unlike Heath, he is not teaching during the pandemic because he is worried about his health in close quarters with students. Nevertheless, Holroyd senses that people’s motivations in the current turbulent environment are largely about protecting themselves and their property.

“I’m getting the overwhelming feeling that’s what I’m seeing,” he said.

This story has been updated.