Mass shootings' states sit out gun-buying surge

A man fires a handgun at Sandy Springs Gun Club and Range in Sandy Springs, Ga., Jan. 4, 2013. / AP Photo

WASHINGTON Background checks for gun sales and permits to carry guns surged at the end of 2012. But people in Connecticut and Colorado, scenes of the deadliest U.S. mass shootings in 2012, were less enthusiastic about buying new guns than people in most other states, an Associated Press analysis found.

The biggest surges in occurred in the South and West.

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"I assure you this: If someone wants to come to our home to cause problems, my home will be defended," gun owner Andrew Arocha said outside a gun show held during the weekend in Ontario, Calif., CBS News correspondent Carter Evans reports.

Nationally, there were nearly twice as many background checks for firearms between November and December than during the same time period in 2011.

As CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reported on "CBS This Morning" last week, the FBI conducted nearly 2.8 million background checks in December and slightly more than 2 million background checks in November, an increase of 39 percent.

On the day after Thanksgiving alone, a record 154,000 guns were sold in the United States, Miller reported.

The latest FBI figures reflect huge increases across the U.S. in the number of background checks following President Obama's re-election, the school shooting in Connecticut and Mr. Obama's promise to support new laws aimed at curbing gun violence.

Gun store owners told Miller that the AR-15 rifle, the same type of gun used in the shooting massacres in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., was such a popular item that they couldn't keep them on the shelves.

[lvwolfman--2008]

What did I miss? The last I heard from the news was that the AR-15 supposedly used was found locked in the guys trunk out in the parking lot. If that's the case, then the last sentence might as well have said, "the same type of spare tire used..."

[donotfear2012]

"Mass shootings' states sit out gun-buying surge" is a ridiculous statement. Connecticut and Colorado kept pace with every other state (right in the middle of the pack for both states). Why does CBS/AP post inaccurate statements and articles like this?

[AttyFAM]

This article contradicts my observations here in Connecticut, where I have seen on at least 3 occasions so many cars parked around a gun shop that they had to park on the grass not just in the parking spaces. I have never before seen anything like that amount of traffic at that gun shop.