# of privatly owned guns in the U.S.?

[usmc1371]

I have to write an essay for my philosophy class so I figured I would use the "ethics and morality of privatly owned guns in the modern U.S.

I need an estimate of how many guns are in the country and how many gun owners. I am looking for educated unbiased info not the "brady truth" bs that seems to be all over the net.

I will post my essay when its done, thanks for any info you all can come up with.

 

[Onmilo]

The loose estimates are 240 million or one for every man, woman, and child.

 

[brboyer]

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=519180

 

[aka108]

Give the NRA a telephone call. Pretty sure they would have some numbers that would be nicely backed up and not off the wall.

 

[Zoidberg523]

Give the NRA a telephone call. Pretty sure they would have some numbers that would be nicely backed up and not off the wall.

+1 - Unlike the Brady bunch, the NRA's stats come from reality.

 

[Sam1911]

I did some quick calculations on this a while back:

http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactShe...=206&issue=007

Quote:
3. BATFE estimated 215 million guns in 1999 (Crime Gun Trace Reports, 1999, National Report, Nov. 2000, p. ix , www.atf.gov/firearms/ycgii/1999/index.htm). The National Academy of Sciences estimated 258 million (National Research Council, Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review, National Academies Press, 2005). The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports 72 million approved new and used firearm transactions by firearm dealers through the National Instant Check System between 1999-2007 (“Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 2007,” http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov./bjs/pub/ht...bcft07st01.htm).
Further:

Quote:
More Guns: There are 250+ million privately-owned firearms in the United States.3 The number of guns typically rises by about 4.5 million every year,4 though between 2007-2008, firearm transactions cleared by the National Criminal Instant Background Check rose 14 percent.5
Even further:

The FBI says that 113,680,372 NICS checks were requested between Nov. 1998 and March 31, 2010. (http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/nics/Tot...d Checks.htm) A truly intformative chart -- worth a quick study.

The most interesting point to me is that, in Dec. of '98 there were 871,000 checks performed. 10 years later, in Dec. of 2008, there were over 1.5 MILLION checks performed. Almost a 300% increase.

Actually, if you add the estimate of 215 million in '99 to around 110 million more sold in the 10 years following, you get a reasonable approximation of 325,000,000 privately held firearms in the US today.

That should put a smile on your face.

Another cheery thought is that NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE! Ain't it grand?

 

[meytind]

The loose estimates are 240 million or one for every man, woman, and child.

You know there are over 300 million Americans right?

 

[cchris]

Brady Bunch number?

12,000,000,000,000,000,000

My guess around 300 million, given these "gun buyback" things that have probably ended up in a number of firearms (some good and some garbage) destroyed.

 

[azyogi]

I can't help but wonder if BP guns are included in those figures, since no check with NCIS is required to purchase one. My gun safes are about 40% BP I'm just wondering, did they get counted, or even should they be.

 

[oneounceload]

There are approximately 330 million people and almost as many guns owned by a tenth to 20% of the populace

 

[TIMC]

I think there are only 37 left in Texas, the rest were smuggled into Mexico according to CNN.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Usual figure is about 240 million guns owned by about 80 million adults of an adult population of about 200 million (about 100 of 300 million Americans are minors) representing over 40 percent of all households.

 

[brboyer]

You know there are over 300 million Americans right?

Does that number come from the Census?

 

[Carl N. Brown]

What is amusing about the 1994 National Survey on Ownership and Use of Firearms (NSPOF) designed by Gary Kleck and performed by Chiltons for the Department of Justice National Instutute of Justice, is that the 1997 write-up by anti-gunners Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig accepts the results on ownership of guns (numbers and types of guns, number of gun owners) and most uses (hunting and target shooting) but reject the results on self-defense uses of guns (4.7 million defensive gun uses by 1.5 million individuals per year).

 

[Agostini]

The # 300,000,000 makes me smile

 

[usmc1371]

Thanks for the input it is a big help. I am changing the scope of my essay to "The morality of civilian gun ownership in modern America" I am leaving the ethics part out since I am limited to 1250 words. The hard part so far is making this a Philosophy paper and not a reserch paper on gun control.

 

[Agostini]

4.7 million defensive gun uses by 1.5 million individuals per year).

Could you please provide the source for the data. I recall once reading from the then AFT that the figure was ~80,000 defensive gun uses yearly, which is a huge number provided by the official government.

This data must become from the NRA or similar org?

Thank you in advance.

 

[A and O]

I know of at least 37.

 

[Dionysusigma]

Four.

We just trade them around a lot and change out parts for the day.

 

[oldbear]

Philosophy paper and not a reserch paper on gun control. [/QUOTE

Part of the philosophy of many who have purchased firearms is the fear of gun control. How many firearm purchases have taken place since it became obvious that senator Obama, whom I supported and voted for, would be the democratic choice to run for president? Fear is a strong motivator.

 

[leadcounsel]

Not enough?!

 

[Zoogster]

I can't help but wonder if BP guns are included in those figures, since no check with NCIS is required to purchase one. My gun safes are about 40% BP I'm just wondering, did they get counted, or even should they be.

I do not believe they are generally counted because they are not guns at the federal level.
They require no FFL, and so do not typically go through the channels that are counted.
There is no 4473, and no NICS (Brady check which started November 30, 1998) check to log.

However black powder firearms have traditionally also been much less popular, and so the number of functional and used ones is typically much less.
The number however may have spiked in the last decade as special black powder hunting seasons have become common many places, and cowboy action shooting became popular.

 

[Zoogster]

Many of the estimates for not only national ownership, but worldwide ownership come from known numbers produced by various factories. So the estimates are fairly accurate, though they do not count unofficial or illegal batches or personally made firearms which account for a small percentage.

They can cite with fairly decent accuracy the total number of firearms officially produced by most factories of the world, and the destination of most of them.
They even cite with decent accuracy the number of firearms held by various military forces of the world.

There is some very accurate numbers by a couple of the more organized international anti-gun groups. Often used by the UN.
The world actually does not have that many guns surprisingly relative to its population, even counting military firearms. Most of those that do exist are concentrated in just a few places in the world. Places like the USA.

 

[Hatterasguy]

Never enough.

Probably around 300 million.

 

[XxWINxX94]

TONS!
You never know who will have them, or for what reason.
A good place to start counting might be under that "How many guns you own" thread.........