New Gun Study Has Some Surprising Stats

Preliminary results of a study by Harvard and Northeastern Universities that looked into the current state of gun ownership in the United States were released today by the Trace and the Guardian. As of 2015, 55 million Americans own 265 million guns, which is an increase of about 70 million guns and 11 million owners since 1995. Of those new guns, 40 to 50 million are handguns and most of those have been bought by Americans who are fearful for their personal safety. This comes despite an unprecedented decline in the nation's violent crime rate in the last 20 years.

There are a couple of shocking statistics in this report. First, the study shows between 300,000 and 600,000 are stolen every year. That is nearly 1,000 per day if you just take the low end of the estimate and, at the high end, it is enough to provide a firearm for every instance of gun violence each day for an entire year. The study also found that 3% of American adults own half of the guns. That equates to nearly 8 million people owning over 130 million guns, or an average of over 16 guns for each one of those 8 million.