American Civilians Estimated To Own 400 Million Firearms

Posted 4 days ago in Daily News, Guns & Gear by Matthew Moss with 214 Comments
Tags: Firearms Ownership, Gun Ownership, Small Arms Survey

Gun Store Wall (Photo by Michael Saechang)

In a new study published by the Small Arms Survey estimates that American civilians own owning just under 400 million guns. Worldwide it’s estimated that civilians own nearly 1 billion firearms, with India a very, very distant second to the US.

American Civilians Estimated To Own 400 Million Firearms

The report published by the Swiss-based research centre in June estimates that the number of firearms owned globally by civilians, military and law enforcement totals around 1.1 billion. With American civilians owning 393 million of those or 40% of the world’s firearms. That’s more than those held by civilians in the other top 20 countries combined.

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It is difficult to quantify exactly how many firearms are privately owned in the US. There many numbers suggested by numerous sources with estimates ranging between 250 million to as high as 600 million. The Small Arms Survey’s estimations are based upon official firearms registration databases, expert estimates, surveys and comparisons to similar countries on page 8 of their report the Small Arms Survey go into detail on how they computed their estimates.

The report makes use of a number of tables and diagrams to break down the data and perhaps the most interesting is he first pie chart, seen below. It shows how over 1 billion firearms around the world are distributed with civilian ownership, at an estimated 857 million, by far the largest group.

Small Arms Survey global firearms ownership estimates for 2017 (Small Arms Survey)

HOW DO THE NUMBERS BREAKDOWN BY COUNTRY?

Here’s Small Arms Survey’s table showing the estimated total civilian-held legal and illicit firearms in the 25 top ranked countries and territories, 2017:

United States 393,300,000
India 71,100,000
China 49,700,000
Pakistan 43,900,000
Russian Federation 17,600,000
Brazil 17,500,000
Mexico 16,800,000
Germany 15,800,000
Yemen 14,900,000
Turkey 13,200,000
France 12,700,000
Canada 12,700,000
Thailand 10,300,000
Italy 8,600,000
Iraq 7,600,000
Nigeria 6,200,000
Venezuela 5,900,000
Iran 5,900,000
Saudi Arabia 5,500,000
South Africa 5,400,000
Colombia 5,000,000
Ukraine 4,400,000
Afghanistan 4,300,000
Egypt 3,900,000
Philippines 3,800,000

Just over 10 years ago, in 2007, the Small Arms Survey published a similar report that estimated that 650 million guns were owned world wide. The report also believed that 270 million of these were owned by US civilians. This clear increase shows that the US civilian market is the foremost driver behind the increase in firearms ownership in the world. The latest report suggests that 120 firearms are owned per 100 people in the US. By this metric the next country to hold a substantial number of guns per 100 people is Yemen, with 53 guns per 100 people. Japan and Indonesia have the lowest number of guns per 100 people, both with an average of just just 0.3 guns per 100 people.

The report’s author, Aaron Karp, said that “with acquisition averaging around 14 million guns annually during the last five years, growth of civilian holdings in the United States contributes disproportionately to the increase of the global firearms stockpile.”

Small Arms Survey have also created a dedicated interactive map that shows the distribution of firearms globally and by civilian, military and law enforcement ownership. Check it out here.

Sources: 1 2

"I'll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands." The slogan popularized by National Rifle Association (NRA) bumper stickers has been a rallying cry for gun owners over the last several decades. It reflects the sentiment that too many politicians don't respect the individual right to gun ownership ensconced in the Constitution. The challenge for most of gun owners is that amending gun policies isn't usually a give-and-take issue. It's often a take-and-take scenario facing even those of us willing to discuss policy reforms in good faith.

Most gun owners aren't really Second Amendment absolutists. We don't want violent felons carrying firearms. We're comfortable restricting gun ownership for people who have adjudicated mental incapacities. We also support reasonable age restrictions for purchase. Even as some politicians suggest we allow teachers to arm themselves in the classroom, I haven't heard anyone call for minor students to carry guns in school.

But even those reasonable restraints are concessions of individual gun rights. As best I can tell, gun control advocates aren't credibly offering to liberalize any gun laws in exchange for reforms in other areas. Otherwise, we could have already addressed glaring problems with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) through the FIX NICS Act that passed the House in December of 2017. Democrats balked at the idea of requiring reciprocity for concealed-carry permits across state lines.

As such, it's truly amazing that ideas like raising the age for certain firearm purchases, Texas's mental crisis gun seizure law, and playing hardball with states who shirk NICS reporting are viable. Even in an environment with no additional policy consideration put on the table for gun owners, modest reforms aren't definitively out of reach. 

If all this back and forth were really about improving gun laws, we'd have Republicans and Democrats seizing that common ground on politically achievable ideas and making progress. I haven't been shy about my personal willingness to engage, but my phone hasn't been ringing with calls from Democratic policy makers.

Modest achievable compromises won't be praised by the NRA or sufficient for anti-gun activists in the headlines. More specifically, reasonable policy consensus isn't the way to raise political dollars.

Take the recently formed NoRA Initiative for example. According to reporting by Time, Parkland shooting survivor and political activist David Hogg, Alyssa Milano, Jimmy Kimmel, Alec Baldwin and others have joined forces to "expose public servants who have been stymying gun control legislation after taking money from the NRA."

I'm not sure how they plan to "expose" information that is extremely well documented, public and campaigned upon. In most heavily Republican districts, NRA support is a critical advantage for candidates. They're not hiding from it; they prize it. In toss-up districts, candidates are generally smart enough to know whether the NRA affiliation is an advantage or disadvantage, and they act accordingly.

Progressives will love and applaud NoRA's "coalition" of liberals and liberals. Conservatives will largely ignore it. The NRA will point to the entity as an attack on gun rights by the leftist elite, raise more money, and increase membership. NoRA literally stands for "NoRifle Association." Gun owners like me don't see that as simply an anti-NRA stance; it's an attack on people who share similar views about the government's further encroachment on Second Amendment rights. It isn't a call for reasoned discussion.

On a similar note, the NRA's bellicose recent ads "coming for" the New York Times and warlike rhetoric toward political opponents are equally unhelpful. A "clenched fist of truth" sounds downright authoritarian. As much as I'm a fan of the Second Amendment, the first one is equally important. In fact, protecting the First Amendment is a primary reason I support the Second.

I don't want another civil war, but I am adamant about defending the Constitution that's served our nation well. At times, I'm going to agree with the ACLU on issues like free speech. On other occasions, it's the NRA on gun rights. Sometimes it's even stranger. I recently discovered that I agree with Kanye West on the importance of individual political expression.

We're spending too much time conflating gun policy reforms with political objectives. If NoRA wants to be the anti-NRA and a political fundraising machine for progressives, so be it. We're free to do that in America. But such efforts aren't about making policy headway any more than the NRA's fight ads.

Either we trade equal opposing political blows or genuinely seek common ground. It's incredibly difficult to do both. The latter is far less emotionally gratifying, but it's also more prudent. Gun owners give some ground, and the gun control crowd doesn't get everything it wants. Votes aren't there for a federal ban on AR-15 style guns. Aggressive federal licensure requirements are probably dead on arrival as well. Such compromise might make everyone a little unhappy, but good public policies usually do that.

I won't be joining the likes of Hogg and Milano at the NoRA Initiative, but I'm happy to discuss achievable policy reforms. While many gun owners are similarly open to improving gun policies, we're not interested in political surrender. The take and take tenor needs to find a little more give to law-abiding gun owners. That's understandably a tall order for gun control advocates, but it's much easier than trying to pry the guns out of our cold dead hands.