Originally Posted by
Nessie
There are estimated to be 88 guns per 100 people in the USA, way higher than any other western nation (and possibly the rest). Criminals and gang members have no problems getting hold of guns.
In 1968, Congress did some research and found there are 300 million firearms in the United States, in a country with a population of 200 million at that time.
The current US population is close to 327, million people, and quiet internal industry estimates place the number of firearms in the US at well over 400 million. Could be less, but could easily be twice the 1968 number.
The fact is that we don't track every sale of individual weapons because each state has its own laws. In Georgia, once you have a concealed carry permit you can walk into a gun shop and load up because you're already in the system. That individual sale is not reported to the ATF, just the gun sales at the end of the year. The ATF tracks licensees only.
The Government does keep track of firearms produced and exported each year, and those numbers (for 2014 as an example) are here:
https://www.atf.gov/news/pr/atf-rele...-export-report
This is the ATF's report on Firearms Commerce in the United States for 2017:
https://www.atf.gov/file/118216/download
We be buying guns y'all. The most interesting number is the imported numbers. We are big on Austrian and German guns.