27 years of gun sales

Last edited Fri Nov 24, 2017, 04:07 PM - Edit history (2)

I've taken the trouble to summarize some of the data from the ATF's annual "Report on Firearms Commerce in the U.S."

The 2015 report is here:

https://www.atf.gov/about/docs/report/2015-report-firearms-commerce-us

It's a PDF, not particularly long (22 pages), a few tables and some graphs.

I combined domestic firearms production (10.8 million in 2013) with US population figures to get some gun-sales-per-capita figures. Here they are. Note I scaled the handgun, rifle, and shotgun graphs equally for apples-to-apples comparison.









The graphs show domestic firearm production per 1,000 people. Obviously it doesn't include imports of guns (over 3.6 million in 2013) or exports of guns (slightly under 400k in 2013); maybe tomorrow I'll throw in those numbers as well.

Offhand, it seems that effort to enact gun-control results in MORE guns being made and sold. If your goal as a person on the anti-gun side is for fewer guns per capita, it seems it's backfiring. Rifle and handgun sales are shown being way up while shotguns remain relatively flat, which is probably explained by the urbanization of America resulting in more guns for self-defense purposes and fewer for hunting. And well over half of gun imports are handguns (Glocks are made in Austria, for example).

Discuss away.