US firearms per capita/total guns in US?

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Benjamin

New member
Hello. I'm embroiled in an argument or debate regarding the merits of gun control in the US and Canada. At this moment I'm arguing some points raised by Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine'.

There were 4 essential things that people in my group discussed, I've been working on my response for 3 hours, it's 2 AM and I'm mentally hosed. So, I would appreciate help with the following.

I need a legitimate, objective* guesstimate or number of firearms in the US.

Thank you all too much.

-Ben



* Objective: Not from Brady et al, not from Texas gun fondlers association. Numbers that I won't have to inherently defend to hostile crowd. eg - if FBI has stats on it, those would be ideal.
 
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Lord Grey Boots

New member
275-300 million, about 1 per person.

Based on import rates, the rate of ownership is about the same in Canada too, about 30 million (or 1 each).
 
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Benjamin

New member
Lord Grey Boots - I beg to differ.

That's one of the points that I did find stats for.


http://www.cfc-ccaf.gc.ca/en/general_public/news_releases/survey-08202002.asp

The canadian firearms centre puts the # of guns in Canada @ 7.9 million (that they know of ;) )

With a population of 31.9 Mil, that puts it at about .304 guns per person.



Edit - couldn't find an authoritative # of guns in US, so I crunched numbers from both the MMM and NRA-ILA. Thanks for looking.
 
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D

db4

New member
Having lived in Canada for some years, I think I can shed some light on the gov't numbers. The statistical premise goes like this:

Political considerations require that we show 90% compliance with our sane, reasonable registration laws. We have N guns registered; therefore X (total number of guns)=1.1N.
The same equation applies to the number of gun owners, of course, as they are also licensed (registered).

I watched the numbers ratchet downward about every 6 months through the late '80s/early '90's. My unscientific guess would be 2 or 3 times what they admit to, at a minimum.
Canada is certainly not alone in this; remember california's assault rifle registration?
 
B

Baba Louie

New member
Benjamin,

Go to the KeepandBearArms web site and look up Gunfacts Version 3.0, scroll down to pages 46-47, they use BATF figures from 1997 and a Gallup/Women.com poll, May 2000 to come up with numbers like 65 million gun owners in the US, more than 50% being handgun owners...but they opine that the number may be low due to reluctance to admit to a gov't agency, blah, blah, blah. Also the Gallup poll indicates that 34% of Americans claim they own a gun. 42% claim to have one in the the house...

Try a search on the ATF website and see what info they've got lurking around there. You might want to use someone else's computer tho (LOL) just in case someone later decides to sneak in and download any files on your hard drive (j/k).

34% of 280,000,000 is only 9,520,000. Seems to be quite a stretch from 65 million to 9.5 million.

Do you really think anyone has a good handle on these figures? You might also try looking at NSSF and see if the gun manufacturers publish numbers of firearms manufactured and sold in the US on a year by year basis to extrapolate some form of arguable number.

I have to ask, why bother? Isn't it more productive to grab a .22 and take them out shooting?

Adios
 
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Bartholomew Roberts

Moderator
Ludwig and Cook (two anti-gun researchers) did the National Survey on Private Ownership of Firearms and came up with figures of 44 million gun owners owning 192 million guns.

ATF estimates were around 65 million gun owners and 225 million guns (but ATF estimated by counting guns manufactured and imported since 1898 minus guns exported - no variation for illegal importation, war bringbacks, breakage, missed records, etc.)
 
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KSFreeman

New member
Those numbers have to be conservative to say the least. 225 million guns? O.K., now that's Georgia but what about the rest of the nation?:confused:
 
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Benjamin

New member
Baba Louie - I already hit most of those, thanks though.

As for taking people out shooting, I do. Not this group; I honestly don't think I can trust most with a firearm. But I am doing a range day for a few people who are interested.

JackM - thanks for the link.


I can't wait till the hate mail comes rolling in...:rolleyes:
-Ben
 
B

bastiat

New member
Tamara, as someone who hasn't been able to buy as many guns as I should have lately, I thank you for picking up my slack ;)
 
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Lord Grey Boots

New member
Guns in Canada.

A 1991 Justice Department survey indicated there are an average of 2.67 firearms in one of every four Canadian Households, with 71% having access to a rifle, 64% to a shotgun, and 12% to a handgun. They calculated that there are over six million legally owned firearms in Canada. Other authorities insist that this estimate is much too low and that there are at least 20,000,000 rifles and shotguns in Canada; as many, per capita, as in the United States [1]. In 1976, the Solicitor General said there were 18,000,000 firearms and 6,000,000 owners. In Canada, there is also a long-term net-importation of 190,000 firearms every year (Justice Dept./Canada Customs, 1991/1992).There should now be over 21 million firearms in Canada.

[1] David B. Kopel, "The Samurai, The Mountie, and The Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of other Democracies", (Premetheus Books, 1992), p.136
 
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WilderBill

New member
Hmmm, don't know about Canada or the rest of the world, but around here everyone I know has...er...well, way more than they can carry by themselves at one time.
 
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madkiwi

New member
During a recent visit to a medium sized town in Montana (Libby), our host guessed the average adult there owned 5 guns.

I laughed, as I know a certain household in a large,liberal Californian city with a higher number and I know some of my neighbors have helped to raise the average too.

Anyway, the Canadian government has been fudging the numbers of firearms in Canada downwards for years. They really do not want to admit that there registration schemes are a) ignored and b) cost more than 5x what they originally estimated.

It can probably be assumed with reasonable surety that the ownership rates in the two countries are not that different.

madkiwi
 
T

TexasVet

New member
WATCH YOUR DECIMAL POINT!!!!

34% of 280,000,000 is only 9,520,000.
------------------------------------------------

Actually, it's 95,200,000.:D

And if the average is one per person, I've got the next county over's guns in my safes!!!
 
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