Cronkite News Background checks for gun purchases in Arizona hit their highest level ever in 2020, driven by an unprecedented convergence of a pandemic, a summer of national unrest and a presidential election, experts said. At the beginning of December, 610,911 background checks had been performed in the state through November, well over the 372,912 done in all of 2019, according to FBI data. The Arizona spike is part of a nationwide increase, said Kelly Drane, research director at Giffords Law Center, a gun control advocacy group. She estimated that there was a nearly 90% increase in gun sales nationally from March to October this year compared to last year, with early data indicating âa substantial number of these purchases were made by new gun owners.â