Reply #42: interesting claim

[iverglas]

Zanne promotes yet another fantasy

And yet, no evidence for it ...

where are all of the guns that ATF says have been manufactured yearly in this country going?

http://apha.confex.com/apha/133am/techprogram/paper_109135.htm

Distribution of firearm ownership in the United States: Findings from the 2004 National Firearms Survey

... Results: Thirty-nine percent of households and 28% of individuals reported owning at least one firearm. The majority of firearm owners own more than one firearm, with 60% owning three or more. Over 50% of firearm owners own both a handgun and long gun, but long guns represent 62% of the privately held gun stock. Men more frequently reported firearm ownership, with 45% stating they personally owned at least one firearm, compared to 11% for women. ... Among firearm owners, however, ownership appears to be concentrated with 20% of firearm owners owning more than 60% of the firearms.

That could help to answer your question.

And yes indeed, a similar phenomenon is observed in Canada.

Back to the fantasy. We'll remember the General Social Survey; this is from the March 2007 edition.

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/07/pdf/070410.guns.norc.pdf

Some have speculated that the 9/11 terrorist attacks undermined support for the regulation of firearms, arguing that fear of terrorism increased the public desire for firearms for self-defense. However, this was not the case. First, except for a small bulge in handgun applications in September-October, 2001 which had already started to subside by November, there was no increase in firearm purchases in response to the 9/11 attacks (Smith, 2002; NICS, 2005; NICS, 2006). As Figure 2 shows gun ownership has been declining over the last 35 years and the 9/11 terrorist attacks did not reverse that trend.

The Figure 2 referred to shows, roughly,

- household firearms ownership, from 1972 to 2006, declining from 50% to 35%
- personal firearms ownership, from 1980 to 2006, declining from 30% to 20%

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/13/1/15

The US gun stock: results from the 2004 national firearms surveyWe conducted a nationally representative household telephone survey in 2004 to explore the characteristics of privately owned firearms in the US. The last study to examine detailed questions like these, such as the types and numbers of working firearms in private homes, was conducted in 1994 by Cook and Ludwig. In their comprehensive report, they found that 35% of households and 25% of individuals owned firearms, and estimated that there were 192 million working firearms in the US in private hands. In addition to describing demographic characteristics of firearm owners, they were able to determine that the ownership of private firearms was highly concentrated among a small percentage of owners. They also clearly identified a difference in the number of household firearms reported by married men and women, who, in theory, should report similar rates of household firearm ownership. Their findings, however, that married men reported a rate of 49% household firearm ownership compared with 36% reported by married women suggested that women were either unaware of their spouse’s firearm ownership or were reluctant to report it. These results led the authors to believe that more complete survey responses would come from individuals who personally owned a firearm rather than the household responses.

All of these findings helped identify patterns of private firearm ownership in the US and provided health professionals, researchers and policy makers with information about the private gun stock that was previously unknown. Through our survey, we wished to investigate possible changes in the privately owned gun stock between 1994 and 2004 and provide additional information about firearm ownership patterns in the US.

... Cook and Ludwig reported an estimate of 192 million working firearms in circulation in 1994. Although the population increased 11% between 1994 and 2004, population growth alone does not explain the differences in the number of guns reported. A recent report by the National Research Council, using national data on firearms manufactured, imported and exported, estimated that 258 million firearms were available in the US as of 1999.12 This estimate does not account for firearm loss, breakage or those destroyed. When we calculated the number of guns in the same manner as in the National Research Council report, adding all available years, we calculated that about 275 million guns were manufactured or imported for private sale in the US by the end of 2003. As the US does not require firearms to be registered (although some individual states do), it is impossible to determine the exact number of privately owned firearms in this country.

The General Social Survey indicates that household gun ownership has been declining over time, from about 50% in the early 1970s to current estimates of 34%. Although the exact number of firearms in the US may be debatable as a result of inclusion or exclusion of outliers, or whether individual or household responses are used, it seems that although the proportion of households with firearms is declining, the number of working firearms in the US is increasing, not decreasing, and increasing most among those who already own firearms.

There. That should help you.