Mass shootings' states sit out gun-buying surge

WASHINGTON Background checks for gun sales and permits to carry guns surged at the end of 2012. But people in Connecticut and Colorado, scenes of the deadliest U.S. mass shootings in 2012, were less enthusiastic about buying new guns than people in most other states, an Associated Press analysis found.

The biggest surges in occurred in the South and West.

"I assure you this: If someone wants to come to our home to cause problems, my home will be defended," gun owner Andrew Arocha said outside a gun show held during the weekend in Ontario, Calif., CBS News correspondent Carter Evans reports.

Nationally, there were nearly twice as many background checks for firearms between November and December than during the same time period in 2011.

As CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reported on "CBS This Morning" last week, the FBI conducted nearly 2.8 million background checks in December and slightly more than 2 million background checks in November, an increase of 39 percent.

On the day after Thanksgiving alone, a record 154,000 guns were sold in the United States, Miller reported.

The latest FBI figures reflect huge increases across the U.S. in the number of background checks following President Obama's re-election, the school shooting in Connecticut and Mr. Obama's promise to support new laws aimed at curbing gun violence.

Gun store owners told Miller that the AR-15 rifle, the same type of gun used in the shooting massacres in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., was such a popular item that they couldn't keep them on the shelves.