FBI gun background checks (NICS)

India certified fewer films while Americans bought more guns, which sounds like a very particular kind of 2020 anxiety distributed across two continents. One country stopped making movies; the other started stockpiling weapons. Different genres, same feeling.

Both moved sharply in 2020 for covid reasons. Indian film production halted so completely that the certification pipeline ran nearly dry, while US gun background checks hit a record as anxious buyers worried about unrest, shortages, and civil instability rushed to firearms dealers. Two very different responses to the same global panic, on the same calendar.

So the correlation is the accidental coupling of cinema and firearms, both reacting to the same fear. Different weapons, same trigger. Neither is what it seems.