Posted on 09/19/2013 9:25:15 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
In the wake of Monday’s Navy Yard shooting, Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., addressed national and civic security. Holmes, the nonvoting delegate to Congress representing the District of Columbia, praised the quick police response, but she also noted that no one is entirely insulated from criminal acts.
"We understand that in an open and democratic and free society, you cannot make yourself impenetrable, especially when there are more guns than there are people in the United States today," she said in a press conference.
Are there really more guns than people? We wanted to dig into the data.
Let’s pin down the easy number: population. The U.S. Census Bureau puts the 2010 population at 308.7 million people. We can get even closer with their nifty population clock, which on the day we checked it estimated a population of nearly 317 million, based on migration, birth and death rates.
Now that we have a frame of reference for Norton’s comparison, let’s move to the question of the number of civilian guns in the country, a murkier subject. As we’ve noted, federally sponsored gun research is scarce.
Most of the available studies are estimates. Since most states don’t register guns or license owners, there’s no concrete thing to count, said Jon Vernick, co-director of the Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.
This June, at President Barack Obama’s request, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report rounding up what we know about firearm ownership and usage. It offered a 2007 estimate of 294 million guns, but with a pretty hefty caveat:
"Basic information about gun possession, acquisition, and storage is lacking," the report read. "No single database captures the total number, locations, and types of firearms and firearm owners in the United States."
The National Rifle Association usually describes the number as "approaching 300 million," spokesman Andrew Arulanandam wrote in an email.
Daniel van Hoogstraten, Norton’s spokesman, pointed us to a Congressional Research Service study that goes with a slightly higher ballpark: 310 million as of 2009. He made the case that gun proliferation in the country has been increasing at a quick enough rate to exceed the population. While that’s an interesting theory, we found no evidence to back it up.
Since the CRS number is from 2009, the closest apples-to-apples comparison we can make is using the U.S. Census population from 2010. So that's about 310 million guns to 308.7 million people. Again, we can't get a firm grip on how much the guns number has changed since then, but the population has gone up by almost nine million, according to the Census estimate.
Our ruling
Norton claimed there are "more guns than there are people in the United States." There’s no way to know for sure how many guns there are, given the available data. The highest credible guns number we saw was 310 million, which bests the 2010 population by over a million. But it falls short of the 2013 population estimate. We don't have any reliable gun surveys to approximate 2013 numbers. There's a chance Norton is right, but the available evidence isn't definitive. We rate Norton’s claim Half True.
But there WEREN’T more guns out than people in the Navy Yard. That’s WHY so many were shot and killed.
They may be wacko, but they know how to pick their targets.
To paraphrase a famous quote, "Why do I shoot up no-gun zones? Because that's where the guns aren't."
And yet, the shooter was the only armed person in the Navy Yard.
There are more brains in a gnat’s ass than there are in all the Congressmen in Washington DC, that includes non-congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton.
Since the country is apparently awash in firearms, I guess it’s time to buy more stock in Winchester, Remington and Ruger. I’ll bet the anti-gun politicians are doing just that, because they know their babble is scaring people into buying more heat.
Add me to the list. Proud new owner of a Sig Saur 2022 in .40
Eleanor does *not* appear to be Ed’s progeny. Trixie has some explaining to do.
If so then certainly every American should have a gun.
http://extranosalley.com/?p=195
Most people that have looked at manufacturing, import and export figures, with a more reasonable attrition rate usually come to a fig more along the lines of 600 million like the person in the link I posted.
It's an interesting estimate -- if 300 million guns have been produced in the US since WW2, add in the imports -- (about 1:2 is the ratio in my own safe) add in "survivors" from pre-WW2 production and "bringbacks" from WW2 -- 500-600 million or more firearms in the US is not an unreasonable estimate.
I've been arguing for years that trying to control guns in the US with legislation is like trying to control a hurricane with rolls of paper towels. No matter how many more you add, it's just not going to work.
If you use all three names - people will think you are really smart.
I used to say that too, but the WWII Garand that just joined us might have offed a kraut or two.
The gun isn't saying...
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