Washington Examiner – by Paul Bedard
America’s love affair with guns is only getting stronger.
New federal data shows that there are 422.9 million firearms in circulation, or about 1.2 guns for every person in the country.
What’s more, despite years of criticism of modern “assault-style” rifles such as the AR-15 and AK-47, there are a record 17.7 million in private hands, proving that it is the most popular gun around.
And last year alone, the arms industry produced 8.1 billion rounds of ammunition.
The figures are from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and were crunched by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry trade group.
“These figures show the industry that America has a strong desire to continue to purchase firearms for lawful purposes,” said Joe Bartozzi, president of the NSSF, in a statement releasing the group’s new report.
“The modern sporting rifle continues to be the most popular centerfire rifle sold in America today and is clearly a commonly owned firearm with more than 17 million in legal private ownership today. The continued popularity of handguns demonstrates a strong interest by Americans to protect themselves and their homes and to participate in the recreational shooting sports,” he said.
Gun shops contacted by Secrets said that they are seeing more and more purchases of semiautomatic weapons such as handguns and AR-15s due to the criticism of those guns by 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
“Sales have definitely been brisk, especially of small, concealable handguns. We also saw a spike in sales of tactical rifles like AR-15s and AK-47s, for which I think we can confidently thank Beto O’Rourke,” said Justin Anderson, the marketing director for Hyatt Guns in Charlotte, North Carolina, one of the country’s biggest retailers.
During his short presidential campaign, O’Rourke called for a ban on the rifles.
Other details from the NSSF report, shared with Secrets:
- Of all rifles produced in 2017, 54% were modern sporting rifles.
- In 2017, 7,901,218 total firearms were produced and imported. Of those, 4,411,923 were pistols and revolvers, 2,821,945 were rifles, and 667,350 were shotguns.
- An interim 2018 estimate showed 7,660,772 total firearms were produced and imported. Of those, 4,277,971 were pistols and revolvers, 2,846,757 were rifles, and 535,994 were shotguns.
- Firearms-ammunition manufacturing accounted for nearly 12,000 employees producing more than $4.1 billion in goods shipped in 2017.
- An estimated 8.1 billion rounds, of all calibers and gauges, were produced in 2018 for the U.S. market.
“New federal data shows that there are 422.9 million firearms in circulation,…”
Sans all the weapons brought here ‘under the radar’ from other countries… AND all the ghost guns that have been built here.
Truth is, you scumbags have no CLEAR IDEA of how many guns are REALLY in this country, and it scares the cr@p out of you.
“These figures show the industry that America has a strong desire to continue to purchase firearms for lawful purposes,”
‘Lawful purposes’?
More like a strong desire to survive the so-called ‘government’s’ WAR on us.
AND a strong desire to destroy them in the process.
1.2 per person???
MY POINT 2 IS UNDER MY LAPTOP. IT HAS NO SAFETY, AND ONE IS IN THE CHAMBER.
20 years ago they were reporting 370 plus million guns were in the country and 8 billion rounds of ammo a year sold.
I also heard a gun manufacturer say recently that he thought there were 30 million AR type rifles in the country.
In the end i don’t think they have a clue.
Biggest army in the world. Bigger.
.
i can semi believe those numbers. like for example, i have 5 guns and my uncle has none. that’s 2.5 per. my brother? well, that’s where I’m taking mine!! like bringing a snowcone to a church social! but seriously, there are literally millions, 10s of millions who have never fired a weapon let alone own one. there are ”Super Nazi Nationals” (I’m being funny sarcastic) who have hundreds of unknown unverifiable guns. my point is, if we do have 1.2 avg per person, we’ll slaughter them in a 3 day weekend. if they confiscate 423mln arms, we’ll STILL be in the fight!!
They’ve already lost, they damn well know it.
that’s true but we still gotta play it out. even though ohio state is a 41pt favorite over Rutgers, they still play the game. put me in Coach!!
Agree with the above a bit, there is probably double that, you could take overall part sales and equate that to built arms also in “Private Hands” whatever the fk that means.
““These figures show the industry that America has a strong desire to continue to purchase firearms for lawful purposes,” said Joe Bartozzi, president of the NSSF, in a statement releasing the group’s new report.””
Does this Bartozzi dude believe that armed rebellion against a foreign occupied, corporate government masquerading as the peoples government is also one of those “Lawful Purposes”? I wonder… !
Acting like they know. Truth is, they have no idea.
Mamon vs Fish head and bowl of rice….
Now if we can just get 400 million copies of “Unintended Consequences” circulating and being read!