[marktwain]

Your estimates of firearms numbers are quite good. Here are the facts and graphics to back them up:

Over the fifteen years that have been recorded, there have been 1.685 NICS checks for each additional firearm added to the private stock in the United States.  Multiplying the NICS check numbers (provided monthly by the FBI) by .5934 gives us a good approximation of the firearms added.

At the end of 2013, the private firearm stock in the United States is estimated at 363.3 million firearms.  16 million were added in 2013.   According the the FBI figures, the NICS checks for 2014 were 20.969 million.  That would be another 12.44 million firearms added in 2014.

In the first seven months of 2015, there were an additional 12.067 million NICS checks.  Another 7.16 million firearms were added.  Continuing that rate for the whole year would bring the total to 12.277 million added in 2015.

At the end of 2015, the stock should be at 388+ million firearms.  Given the current trend, another 12 million or more firearms will be added in 2016, bringing the total stock to 400 million+ firearms by the end of the Obama presidency.

http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2015/09/us-will-reach-400-million-private.html

[Ancesthntr]

Thanks for the website - I had seen the analysis, but lost track of where it was...and it is useful to totally shock the anti-gunners with this information. Many of them seem to think that it is only about 10 million “gun nuts” with an AR, plus a bunch of old farmers and ranchers. Well, not quite, there are MANY others, and the number of guns available to give to the unarmed is simply astounding.

I do take a bit of issue with “Over the fifteen years that have been recorded, there have been 1.685 NICS checks for each additional firearm added to the private stock in the United States.” That doesn’t seem right - that would imply that a lot of the NICS checks deny people the ability to legally buy a gun, and certainly doesn’t include a LOT of people who are able to buy a gun simply by flashing a valid carry license (hence no NICS check, but one or more new guns).