Gun sales are spiking in Tennessee, and whether that is tied to presidential politics or hunting season, it depends on whom you ask.

This year, gun sales could break records across the state. According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, some 51,330 people applied for the background check necessary to buy a gun last month alone. That is compared to just 37,347 in November 2011. “The only other time that there was kind of a peak in November was in 2008, and it was an election year as well,” said TBI spokeswoman Kristin Helm. However, those numbers may not tell the entire story because customers can buy more than one gun on a single background check. So the actual increase might be even higher.

The overall increase in recent years has led the TBI to add more staff in order to keep pace with the demand.

Handgun permit statistics are also on the incline. In Rutherford County, there were 14,278 handgun permit holders as of November 1st of this year, according to legallyarmed.com. That is a jump of over 230-new permits in the past month.