Thailand international tourist arrivals

FBI firearm background checks and Thailand's international tourist arrivals have, between 2016 and 2023, moved in near-perfect opposition at r=-0.914. As Americans bought more guns, fewer tourists landed in Thailand. The pandemic is responsible for both halves of this correlation, in completely separate ways. Spreadsheets, as ever, have no sense of direction.

FBI firearm background checks peaked at 39 million in 2020 during pandemic-era anxiety purchasing. Thailand's international tourist arrivals collapsed from around 35 million in 2019 to under 500,000 in 2021 during pandemic travel restrictions, recovering only partially by 2023. Both trends run through the same pandemic but in opposite directions: Americans buying defensive goods at home while international leisure travel evaporated. The two trends share 2020 and essentially nothing else.

Eight years of inverse movement can describe one pandemic expressed in two entirely separate markets on opposite sides of the world. The Bangkok airport and the American gun counter are not linked. Both are, however, 2020's children.