How many guns have Americans really bought over the last 3 1/2 years? This is an interesting question, since there is no gun registry in this country and it is impossible to count precisely for that reason. We do know how many firearms the gun manufacturers have made. That’s not the same as bought, though.
Any time you go in a gun store, you see dozens, even hundreds, of guns on display that haven’t been sold yet. Multiply that by thousands of gun stores across the country. Add to that all the guns in inventory at the manufacturer, something that some gun stores allow you to see via their own inventory system. There are literally millions of guns in stock waiting to be purchased. And millions more being built every month.
Over the past 42 months, Americans have had 1 million, or more, background checks performed to purchase a firearm every single month.
We know this because the NSSF — The firearm industry trade association — does the hard work for us to determine how many background checks were conducted every month. And then a website called The Truth About Guns shared the NSSF data with us.
This graph illustrates the NSSF data over time
NSSF background check data over past 42 months. At least 1 million firearms background check every month.
If we assume that each of those background checks represents a single gun purchased, we get something like 47 million guns purchased in 3 1/2 years. But that number dramatically undercounts reality.
January, 2023 is the 4th highest month on record. Likely due to the insanity of unconstitutional laws we see in NY, NJ, OR, MD, WA, CA, IL, CO and the continued dementia fueled crazy talk from the President.
What this means is that AT LEAST 1.2 million firearms were probably purchased in January.
Answering that question, though, is challenging as you can see from the data so far. The question: How many guns have Americans really bought?
I have purchased more than one firearm on a single background check, and I’m sure many other people have also. In fact, when you come back to my local gun store after the background check is complete, the point out that you are legally able to buy one or more additional guns right then. And 25 states have an alternative (such as a Concealed Pistol License) that can be substituted for that background check. Meaning that there are some number of firearms purchases that do not have a single corresponding background check.
It seems to me that the purchasing rate in all 50 states will be pretty similar. So, my educated guess is that it is more like 2.5 million firearms purchased every month. This is assuming that a background check averages 1.75 firearms purchased and that another 400 to 500 thousand firearms are purchased with alternative mechanisms every month. This works out to about 2.5 million firearms in January 2023.
If my educated guesses are correct, then over the past 3.5 years, probably 100 million firearms have been added to the civilian population. And at the beginning of that time period (June 2019, roughly), there were an estimated 350 million firearms owned by approximately 80 million Americans.
We also know that there has been a significant growth in first time firearm purchasers. Those numbers also have to be deduced since Federal law prevents tracking them as well. But let’s suppose that there has been a 20% increase in gun owners. This seems kind of reasonable based on my personal experience with new gun owners over this time period. That would mean that there are now about 100 million Americans that own about 450 million guns.
Roughly 25 million of those guns are what the Democrats and gun grabbers describe as “assault weapons”. Which really means a semi-automatic rifle with certain physical features that make it similar to military rifles. Lest we forget, it is the exact purpose of the Second Amendment of the Constitution to enable American Citizens to keep and bear arms similar in function and capability to military weapons.
So, how many guns have Americans really bought? Well, we don’t know exactly. But it’s a lot. It’s likely tat least 100 million new guns in the hands of Americans. Talking to my local gun store about it, they said that 80% of their firearms purchases are semi-automatic rifles and pistols. If we assume this trend continues across the country, that amounts to 80 million semi-automatic firearms in widespread, common use for lawful purposes.
Pistols and rifles like these:
An AR-15 with a common setup, including collapsible stock, folding backup sights, a red dot sight, and a 2 point sling.
Several semi-automatic pistols based on John Browning’s M1911A1 design. A weapon of war.
Long live the Second Amendment.
