The sale of guns has skyrocketed across the nation after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, as enthusiasts scramble to purchase firearms they fear could be outlawed if a renewed push for stricter gun control prevails, the Washington Post reported.

More from the Post:

Gun dealers requested nearly 5,150 background checks on purchasers in Virginia eight days after the Dec. 14 shootings in Newtown, Conn. — the largest number ever in a single day, Virginia State Police said. And in the days since, the daily number of background checks has regularly doubled corresponding totals from the previous year.

However, it's not the first time gun sales spiked after a mass shooting. Purchases rose after the 2011 shooting in Tucson and July shooting Aurora, Colo. Brownells Inc., which claims to be the world's largest supplier of firearms accessories, said it sold 3 1/2 years worth of ammunition in three days, according to the Los Angeles Times.

More from the Huffington Post:

No organization publicly releases gun sales data. The only way to measure demand is by the number of background checks that are conducted when someone wants to buy a firearm. Those numbers are released by the Federal Reserve Bureau every month. Data for December is not out yet. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation says that it did 16.8 million firearm background checks as of the end of November, up more than 2 percent from a year ago.

In California, Sen. Dianne Feinstein has vowed to introduce new legislation to ban assault weapons at the start of the next Congress.

 

Follow more Neon Tommy coverage of gun control here.

Reach Executive Producer Danny Lee here; follow him here.