Reply #32: In a 1950's Field and Stream paradigm of the U.S shooting sports, perhaps.

[benEzra]

In the real world, 12.5 million Americans were licensed to hunt in 2006.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/fhw06-nat.pdf

Between 65 and 80 million Americans own guns. Do the math.

Even if you accept the NSSF's estimate that the Census Bureau license figures undercount the number of hunters by 30% (which I doubt, since the NSSF is assuming that all licensees actually hunt), that would only be 17.5 million hunters, best case. According to the NSSF, another 4 million Americans shoot skeet and 3 million shoot sporting clays (not sure if those overlap or not, but I suspect they might).

Currently 40 to 45 million own handguns, 16 to 30 million own "assault weapons," taking H.R.1022 et seq as the operative definition. And many of those 12.5 million hunters also own nonhunting guns that would be affected by an AWB.

Several years ago, the Georgia Arms Collectors association put the number of SKS carbines alone in U.S. homes at seven million. AR-15 sales are running in excess of a third of a million per year (and it's been on the market since 1961, though sales didn't really take off until the early '90s). I think Ruger sold its two millionth mini-14 a couple years ago. Add to that M1 Garands, M1 carbines, civvie AK's, Kel-Tecs, various .22's, CETME's, FAL's, HK's, Benelli's, Marlins, Feathers, FN's, etc. etc. and you are talking about tens of millions, not even counting the tens of additional millions that would be affected by an over-10-round magazine ban.

I'm not sure when the number of "assault weapon" owners alone exceeded the number of hunters, but it was probably well prior to 2004. And skeet is a VERY small slice of the pie (there are more SKS owners alone than that).