How many guns does the average American own?
In this article, you’ll learn about:
Let’s dig into these gun ownership statistics.
The average gun-owning American owns 4.38 guns.
Only 32% of Americans say they own guns.
Meaning that 106.2 million people own guns in America.
This means that the average gun owner has 4.4 guns in America.
Considering ALL Americas, the average American owns 1.4 guns.
The average American owns 1.17 unregistered guns and 0.02 registered guns.
The average American owns the following amount of guns:
# of Guns Owned | % of People |
---|---|
1 | 32% |
2 - 4 | 37% |
5+ | 29% |
Let’s look at how many guns the average American owns by age:
Age Group | Gun Owner | Lives In Gun Household |
---|---|---|
18 - 29 | 22% | 38% |
30 - 49 | 35% | 45% |
50 - 64 | 32% | 45% |
65+ | 36% | 48% |
Higher-income groups are more likely to own guns than lower-income groups.
Income Group | Gun Owner | Lives In Gun Household |
---|---|---|
$100,000+ | 38% | 55% |
$40,000 to $100,000 | 34% | 51% |
<$40,000 | 25% | 31% |
Level Of Education | Gun Owner | Lives In Gun Household |
---|---|---|
Postgraduate | 26% | 36% |
College graduate only | 35% | 50% |
Some college | 34% | 48% |
No college | 31% | 41% |
There are 393.3 million guns in America.
The number of guns in America grows at a rate of 3.7% per year.
Some of the gun ownership statistics this section covers are:
There are 99.6 million registered gun owners in America.
Roughly 30% of Americans own a gun.
This data gets pulled from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
The gun ownership rate has increased significantly over the past 5-10 years.
Gun sales have grown at an average of 5.4% over the past 20 years.
40.5 million guns were purchased during the pandemic.
Read More: Gun Violence Statistics
Year | Number Of Guns Purchased (Millions) |
---|---|
2000 | 7.5 |
2001 | 7.8 |
2002 | 7.4 |
2003 | 7.4 |
2004 | 7.7 |
2005 | 8.0 |
2006 | 8.4 |
2007 | 8.8 |
2008 | 9.6 |
2009 | 10.2 |
2010 | 10.0 |
2011 | 11.5 |
2012 | 14.5 |
2013 | 15.5 |
2014 | 13.7 |
2015 | 14.8 |
2016 | 16.2 |
2017 | 14.5 |
2018 | 13.5 |
2019 | 13.5 |
2020 | 21.6 |
2021 | 18.9 |
2022 | 14.6 |
21.6 million guns were sold in 2020 in America.
There are 393.3 million guns in circulation in the US.
The number of guns in circulation based on firearm type is:
The most common firearms are handguns.
Most common types of guns:
Firearm Type | % Of People That Own This Gun Type |
---|---|
Handguns | 72% |
Rifles | 62% |
Shotguns | 54% |
We can calculate the number of guns in America over time.
We know how many guns are in America today.
And we know how many guns were sold each year (393.3 million).
Year | Number Of Guns In America |
---|---|
2000 | 144.1 |
2001 | 151.9 |
2002 | 159.3 |
2003 | 166.7 |
2004 | 174.4 |
2005 | 182.4 |
2006 | 190.8 |
2007 | 199.6 |
2008 | 209.2 |
2009 | 219.5 |
2010 | 229.5 |
2011 | 240.9 |
2012 | 255.5 |
2013 | 271.0 |
2014 | 284.7 |
2015 | 299.5 |
2016 | 315.7 |
2017 | 330.1 |
2018 | 343.6 |
2019 | 357.1 |
2020 | 378.7 |
2021 | 393.3 |
2022 | 393.3 |
There are 1.01 billion guns in the world.
Here is how the ownership of guns in the world is broken down:
There is 1 gun for every 8 people based on the world population.
Let’s look at some statistics about the number of gun owners in the US.
There are 77.5 million registered, legal gun owners in America.
But only Registered guns make up 1.89% of the guns in America.
America has 1.21 guns per capita in the US.
For every 100 people in the US, there are 120.5 guns in America.
Most common types of guns for men:
Most common types of guns for women:
Gun ownership in the US varies depending on where people live.
Rural areas have the highest gun ownership rates.
While people living in the cities have the least amount of guns.
Southern states have the highest rate of gun ownership.
Those who live in the north own a gun at a rate that’s 44% of the south.
The south has a gun ownership rate that’s 225% higher than the north.
Texas has the most registered guns at 1,006,555.
Florida has the 2nd largest amount of registered guns at 518,725.
It’s estimated that Texas has 52,960,968 unregistered guns.
This takes into account the number of registered and unregistered guns.
This table looks at the number of guns purchased in each state last year.
State | Guns Sold By State |
---|---|
Texas | 1,624,677 |
Florida | 1,422,294 |
California | 1,096,943 |
Pennsylvania | 1,019,744 |
Tennessee | 700,084 |
Ohio | 655,772 |
Michigan | 648,752 |
Virginia | 620,267 |
Missouri | 601,604 |
Alabama | 593,790 |
Indiana | 568,539 |
Illinois | 545,849 |
Colorado | 536,628 |
Washington | 504,401 |
Georgia | 495,897 |
Wisconsin | 479,426 |
Arizona | 479,269 |
Oklahoma | 395,286 |
New York | 383,059 |
Oregon | 374,575 |
Minnesota | 374,056 |
Louisiana | 373,524 |
Kentucky | 366,137 |
South Carolina | 326,070 |
Mississippi | 305,468 |
North Carolina | 300,107 |
Arkansas | 244,326 |
New Jersey | 224,853 |
Maryland | 209,139 |
Kansas | 207,888 |
West Virginia | 202,854 |
Idaho | 197,744 |
New Mexico | 190,418 |
Utah | 160,587 |
Montana | 149,751 |
Nevada | 146,330 |
New Hampshire | 141,943 |
Massachusetts | 141,488 |
Maine | 125,921 |
Connecticut | 119,179 |
South Dakota | 98,736 |
Alaska | 90,843 |
Wyoming | 79,218 |
North Dakota | 74,850 |
Delaware | 66,355 |
Iowa | 63,957 |
Vermont | 53,682 |
Rhode Island | 41,893 |
Nebraska | 31,310 |
District of Columbia | 4,934 |
Hawaii | 33 |
For this section, we know three things:
We can estimate how many guns the average American adult owns in each state.
State | Total Registered Guns | Registered Guns Per Capita | Total Unregistered Guns | Unregistered Guns Per Capita |
---|---|---|---|---|
Alabama | 194,920 | 0.04 | 10,316,395 | 2.03 |
Alaska | 28,237 | 0.04 | 1,494,480 | 2.02 |
Arizona | 258,691 | 0.04 | 13,691,558 | 1.87 |
Arkansas | 133,981 | 0.04 | 7,091,119 | 2.34 |
California | 406,360 | 0.01 | 21,507,132 | 0.54 |
Colorado | 149,382 | 0.03 | 7,906,237 | 1.33 |
Connecticut | 74,874 | 0.02 | 3,962,804 | 1.10 |
Delaware | 6,092 | 0.01 | 322,427 | 0.32 |
Florida | 518,725 | 0.02 | 27,454,195 | 1.24 |
Georgia | 304,124 | 0.03 | 16,096,158 | 1.47 |
Hawaii | 9,280 | 0.01 | 491,156 | 0.33 |
Idaho | 76,425 | 0.04 | 4,044,893 | 2.14 |
Illinois | 144,749 | 0.01 | 7,661,029 | 0.60 |
Indiana | 157,546 | 0.02 | 8,338,327 | 1.22 |
Iowa | 54,178 | 0.02 | 2,867,441 | 0.89 |
Kansas | 69,850 | 0.02 | 3,696,902 | 1.25 |
Kentucky | 108,833 | 0.02 | 5,760,128 | 1.27 |
Louisiana | 152,061 | 0.03 | 8,048,026 | 1.72 |
Maine | 21,396 | 0.02 | 1,132,411 | 0.83 |
Maryland | 136,257 | 0.02 | 7,211,579 | 1.15 |
Massachusetts | 45,138 | 0.01 | 2,388,987 | 0.34 |
Michigan | 109,835 | 0.01 | 5,813,160 | 0.57 |
Minnesota | 129,825 | 0.02 | 6,871,157 | 1.19 |
Mississippi | 80,712 | 0.03 | 4,271,788 | 1.44 |
Missouri | 113,351 | 0.02 | 5,999,249 | 0.97 |
Montana | 36,678 | 0.03 | 1,941,231 | 1.76 |
Nebraska | 43,261 | 0.02 | 2,289,645 | 1.15 |
Nevada | 119,007 | 0.04 | 6,298,600 | 1.98 |
New Hampshire | 72,433 | 0.05 | 3,833,611 | 2.76 |
New Jersey | 102,228 | 0.01 | 5,410,550 | 0.58 |
New Mexico | 122,968 | 0.06 | 6,508,241 | 3.06 |
New York | 92,191 | 0.00 | 4,879,329 | 0.24 |
North Carolina | 222,166 | 0.02 | 11,758,425 | 1.11 |
North Dakota | 30,975 | 0.04 | 1,639,392 | 2.05 |
Ohio | 208,661 | 0.02 | 11,043,655 | 0.93 |
Oklahoma | 103,368 | 0.03 | 5,470,886 | 1.37 |
Oregon | 97,474 | 0.02 | 5,158,938 | 1.19 |
Pennsylvania | 348,167 | 0.03 | 18,427,191 | 1.41 |
Rhode Island | 4,887 | 0.00 | 258,651 | 0.23 |
South Carolina | 119,205 | 0.02 | 6,309,080 | 1.21 |
South Dakota | 64,666 | 0.07 | 3,422,532 | 3.80 |
Tennessee | 151,536 | 0.02 | 8,020,240 | 1.14 |
Texas | 1,000,655 | 0.03 | 52,960,968 | 1.77 |
Utah | 118,408 | 0.04 | 6,266,897 | 1.86 |
Vermont | 9,451 | 0.01 | 500,206 | 0.77 |
Virginia | 423,707 | 0.05 | 22,425,244 | 2.56 |
Washington | 165,534 | 0.02 | 8,761,102 | 1.11 |
West Virginia | 50,963 | 0.03 | 2,697,283 | 1.51 |
Wisconsin | 95,430 | 0.02 | 5,050,757 | 0.85 |
Wyoming | 142,247 | 0.25 | 7,528,608 | 12.99 |
Wyoming has the most guns per capita.
Wyoming has:
Here is the number of people that own guns in each political party:
Some interesting statistics come from this:
This data is based on some math.
There are 154.6 million people who vote.
Then, we know that the breakdown of voting per party is:
We calculate how many people there are in each party.
And we calculate how many people in each party own a gun.
The top reasons for gun ownership in America were for:
The majority of gun owners cite multiple reasons for gun ownership.
But “protection” was the main reason for owning a gun.
65% of men said that protection was the #1 reason.
While 71% of women cited protection as the reason for gun ownership.
We pulled our data on firearm ownership statistics from sources, like:
Our data covers topics like:
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