A poster showing Barack Obama is seen in the background as customers line up to look at firearms at a gun shop in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008. The Cheaper Than Dirt gun store recorded a record day of gun sales the day after the election of President-elect Barack Obama and is having trouble keeping up with the demand for assault riffles. (Flickr)Of course, you've seen the reports that this year's black Friday broke both the NICS check record for that day, and black Friday weekend broke the NICS check record for that weekend, too.
Fox reporter William La Jeunesse said,
“Americans are not just putting them in their closet and waiting for a burglary. They’re taking classes on how to protect themselves. Background checks on Black Friday topped 185,000 that’s 8,000 guns sold every hour. 2,000,000 in November and and almost 20 million this year.”My guess is we'll go over 21 million for 2015. You see various estimates for the number of guns in America and I think the best answer is "nobody knows". All you can say is that it's going up steadily and is almost certainly past 350 million. Might be 400 million. But that's pure speculation based on me reading that there were 300 million back in '09 or 10.
As an engineer and machinist I'm know you can appreciate the volume of work making all the parts to make 100,000,000 guns.
ReplyDeleteThat's 1630 barrels an HOUR 24 hours a day , 7 days a week. For 7 years. Where is all this production going on?
Now add all the other pcs, parts and accessories.
It is an amazing thought. 1630 of everything; every spring, every extractor; every little piece of cut, notched or etched metal every hour 24/7/365 for 7 years.
DeleteI guess it has to be very distributed. No one shop is making all of those. The S&W barrel shop (contractor?) is making theirs; same for the Glock barrel shop, the Springfield Armory barrel shop and so on.
Florida has issued 58,816 concealed weapons permits in the last 5 months. There wee 124,939 permits issued for the 12 month period that ended June 30. This means that the increase number of CCW permit holders, a number which was already doubling every five years, has accelerated.
ReplyDeleteIn 1988, there were 32,814 permit holders. It took three years to double that to 65,497.
In three more years, that number doubled again to 132,150.
Another seven years, another doubling to 259,710.
Seven more years, and there is another doubling to 511,868.
Five years later, the number had doubled again to 1,098,458.
In 25 years, the number of adults in Florida increased from 10.0 to 15.8 million, which is a 158% increase, but there are 41 times as many concealed weapons permit holders, meaning that the number of permit holders is increasing 26 times as fast as the population as a whole.
Even THAT has accelerated. If the rate we have seen for the past 5 months were to continue, Florida will have 2 million permit holders by mid 2017.
If we use that as a metric to estimate gun ownership,
Thanks for those amazing numbers. Very profound changes.
DeleteIt gets even better: According to FBI dot gov, 24 states have partial or complete NICS exemption (depending on type of firearm purchased and length of permit period) for purchasers with valid state-issued permits. So, between that and multiple guns on one NICS check, it's entirely possible Black Friday saw over 200K guns transferred.
ReplyDeleteBackground checks happen on used guns, too.
ReplyDeleteNew gun production numbers are a matter of public record and are available from the BATFEIEIO.
It also means there are more CHL holders in FL alone, than there are cops in the whole nation.
ReplyDeleteTX is headed toward that number too.
Just something to ponder.
nick
That's a pretty profound thought, too.
DeleteHaving lived in Oregon and now Montana, with CCW permits in both states (not concurrently), I've purchased a number of guns without a NICS background check, though the form was filled out. An additional number were purchased via private sales.
ReplyDeleteHowever, every gun that required a call to NICS provided the FBI with the make and serial number of that gun. So, I believe it is safe to assume that all of those guns purchased in that fashion across the country (including five US territories and D.C.) have been registered. I can see no other reason for the FBI to require the make and serial number on the BATFE Form 4473. I believe many of the 4473s completed have been copied by BATFE, along with the books of those forms they acquire when they drive an FFL out of business, or they voluntarily cease FFL activity .