BY Meg Wagner

Black Friday shoppers sought to buy a record number of guns on the nation’s biggest retail holiday — about two every second — eclipsing a previous record set in the days after the Sandy Hook massacre.

The FBI processed a terrifying 185,345 firearms background checks — the most ever on a single day — on Black Friday, the agency said Tuesday.

While a background check does not mean a gun was purchased, the mandatory National Instant Criminal Background Check System checks are seen as the best measure for U.S. gun sales.

FBI agents ran two background checks every second on Friday, the same day three people were killed and nine others wounded in a gun rampage at a Planned Parenthood office in Colorado. The Black Friday figure was more than three times the 2014 daily average of 57,448 per day.

The record-setting figures marked a 5% increase over the 175,754 permit applications received on Black Friday 2014, which is now the third highest day on record.

This Black Friday’s numbers surpassed the previous record of 177,170 set on Dec. 21, 2012, about a week after a gunman stormed Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School and slaughtered 20 children and six adults.

The week after the grade school massacre saw the processing of 953,613 gun background checks: Four of the highest 10 days are in that week.

The FBI started processing background checks for potential gun owners in 1998 as part of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. The checks are conducted on gun purchases from federally licensed dealers and for permits to carry guns.

In 2014, the agency processed 20,968,547 background checks, or about 57,448 per day.

It’s not clear how the Black Friday Planned Parenthood shooter acquired his weapons

Robert Lewis Dear, 57, is accused of killing a local police officer and two others in the shooting rampage. He is expected to be formally charged later this month.

With News Wire Services

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