Number of firearms in America

[Sistema1927]

What makes you think the military would follow orders from the likes of kennedy and schumer?

The National Guard didn't appear to have any qualms about disarming law-abiding gun owners in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. "Just following orders", like a bunch of Nazis.

 

[phoglund]

5 Bolt Rifles
2 Bolt Carbines
3 Semi-Auto Carbines

1 Pump Shotgun
1 Single Shot Shotgun

1 Single Action Revolver
1 Double Action Revolver
1 Single Action Semi-Auto
3 Double Action Semi-Auto
18 Total

 

[M2 Carbine]

The National Guard didn't appear to have any qualms about disarming law-abiding gun owners in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. "Just following orders", like a bunch of Nazis.

Agreed, but in a full scale use of the military against US citizens I suspect it would be interesting.
There probably would be military units that will go both ways. Probably depending on the officers.

During the 60's riots I refused to order my NG troops into the riots without ammo for their Carbines and M1's.
I said the troops under my command will have ammo if I have to give them my Carbine and 30.06 reloads.
It was decided I wasn't needed at the riots.

 

[Ryder]

A guy's got to cover all the bases right? Getting any job done is much easier with the right tool. There are rifles, handguns, and shotguns, large and small caliber. Hunting, target shooting, and self defense applications. Don't forget black powder!

I feel that somewhere between 20 and 30 is the right number for me to own. I'd get bored shooting only one gun and besides that I'd have to worry about wearing it out. Don't think I could keep up with the maintenance on any more than that.

 

[mitchshrader]

i'm sort of BARELY

a gun owner. two revolvers, one bolt action rifle, one pump shotgun, one autoloading 22. the bare minimum.

all you OTHER people are just ...

scary.

 

[Sewerman]

I had never thought to count my guns before, i had not even taken all of them out of the safes in years till we went on vacation last may and i took them to a good friends house.it took two trips in my pickup with them wraped in blankets to get them all over there My next door neighbor owns a gun shop and has a range in his back yard,he has at least twice as many as I do. Much of my collection has been inherited however.

 

[MachIVshooter]

Are some of you guys preparing for the apocalypse?

Personally, if I bought more than one gun, I would own: semi-auto, revolver, rifle, and shotgun.

I think people that own 25, 50, or 100 guns probably live out in the country where they can shoot in their backyard or go hunting easily.

I don't think there is a blanket demographic for quantity of firearms. Yes, gun ownwership is much higher in rural areas (must just be a coincidence that crime rates are much lower in the respective areas). I live in a very rural area now, but I owned a lot of guns when I lived in town too. In elbert county, the gun-to-person ration is about 6:1 and the number of homes with guns is around 17 in 20.

I own some for hunting, some for target, some for IDPA, etc. But most were bought because opportunity, desire and financial capability coincided.

As to the number of firearms in the US, the most often cited figures are roughly 80 million owners and around 300 million units. My personal goal is to double that number Ambitious, but I'm getting there one person at a time. I have caused about a dozen people to become gun owners in the last couple years. I better step up my pace.

 

[Texfire]

I don't think there is a blanket demographic for quantity of firearms. Yes, gun ownwership is much higher in rural areas (must just be a coincidence that crime rates are much lower in the respective areas).

Unfortunately unless you are talking about per capita statistics it's hard to draw a definitive relationship between the two statistics. Otherwise the arguement can be made that there are less crimes in rural areas because there are less people there.

I agree with your assumption that armed people are a deterrent to crime, just haven't seen a study that determines exactly that with other factors discounted.

 

[Librarian]

At work we were talking and someone mentioned there are 60 million firearms in America

ATF data published in Kleck's book Targeting Guns (1997) shows 1945-1994, with a total accumulation in civilian hands of ~235 million. Add roughly another 20 million for 1995-2001 - see the BATF web site, look for their publication Firearms Commerce in the United States [year]. At 3-4 million added to the civilian stock per year, we're probably up around 265-270 million.

Distribution, of course, is not uniform across the population; in 2004 there were about 293 million residents, 212 million adults - Census Bureau - but ~1.2 per adult isn't a useful number. In 2004 the Census bureau estimated 112 million households, which gives ~2.4 per household.

I've seen other guesses that 30-40% of households have at least one gun; that's ~3,360,000 to ~4,480,000 households, giving ~6-8 per gun-owning household. Guessing the distribution of gun ownership is one of those academic pursuits that draws criticisms of methodology.

 

[Sistema1927]

If there are 112 million households, and if every one of them had as many weapons as mine, then there would be 44,480,000,000 privately owned weapons in this country.

 

[oneshooter]

After 40 years of collecting, I have, at last count 265 firearms. These range from 1 origional Japanese Matchlock, Brown Bess muskets, Civil War origionals, WW1 & 2, Korea, and Vietnam. Includes firearms made by Colt, Marlin, Winchester, Springfield, Sharps, S&W, and many others. This is a big part of my retirement. This also includes about 50 that are daily shooters. The rest are safe queens.

Oneshooter
Livin in Texas

 

[Oleg Volk]

Wouldn't the number of guns owned per household follow normal statistical distribution around the average number? Lots of 2-3, few 1 or 10.

 

[Matthew748]

Let’s see.

7 semi-auto rifles
8 bolt action rifles
1 lever action
1 pump shotgun
3 semi-auto pistols
1 single action revolver
3 double action revolvers

24 total, all either safely under lock and key or within easy reach.

 

[DevLcL]

I own 8, and I'm only a couple of years into my gun ownership history.

I suspect by the time I die, I will have owned hundreds and surely own dozens... at least.

-Dev

 

[Librarian]

Wouldn't the number of guns owned per household follow normal statistical distribution around the average number? Lots of 2-3, few 1 or 10.

I don't think so, because of what is already on this thread: there are several different motivations for having guns, and each appears to require different numbers to satisfy the goal. I think there might be some age differences, too, not just because of a different attitude toward firearms from those who grew up in the 40's or 50's, but because compared to the population it seems there used to be more guns available (not absolute numbers, but compared to the demand) - more milsurps, more antiques, more things which have moved onto museum displays these days, but were 'affordable' for more private individuals.

I'd say there are at least the overlapping sets of Collectors, Hunters, Target Shooters, and those interested in Personal Defense. Probably there are more sets, or those could be refined some, but IMHO each is likely to have a characteristic distribution somewhat different from the others.

Of course, I don't have actual data to support that guess.

 

[NickEllis]

sad sad sad story

at this point in time, I do not possess a single bloody firearm, and am probably the only THR member to say (or at least admit) that.... what a sad sad sad state of affairs


















Of course, thats because I am living in Canada for a year, and all my guns are either home in Texas, or in Nebraska, or in Tenessee, nice and safe for my return. Only have until May.... keep strong..... keep strong....

 

[Moonclip]

All the people I mentioned I knew including myself that own/owned large numbers of guns live within less than a 30/45 min drive from a city in a county that probably has over 9 million people, hardly rural!

To find a place to shoot a centerfire rifle caliber/outdoor range once one place that is closing does so will involve usually an hours drive and to find a place that is BLM land for shooting involves the same drive, usually about 100 miles from me!

In the big city though there is at least in my area multiple indoor ranges so maybe thats why I like handguns so much partly and the collection is about 3/4 handguns. One range is within walking distance sort of and the one I go to is about 15 miles or so away.