Every where I look there’s a number of about 300 million firearms in the possession of US citizens. My gut says that number is low. Articles like this suggest that the number must be higher. Guns don’t age like cars.
‘A friend of mine’ who went 55 years of his life without one just bought two guns this month.
[And then lost them in a tragic boating accident]
The store owner was happy he was making a ton of money- even expanded his store open hours temporarily.. but he said he was worried about what would happen to his business AFTER
Does anyone here shoot a 410? Is reloading those shells much cheaper? (I know they are very expensive to begin with, for some reason)
How do 410 shotgun shells compare with .45 bullets? (cost wise) the one gun ‘my friend’ bought is made to shoot both.) [I mean if he hadn’t lost them in the tragic boating accident]
That's funny you should mention it. A relative of mine recently found his cache of weapons. They are hand-me-downs. Some of them are VERY VERY old. 1873 Winchester for instance. There is an M1 Garand in the mix. They are in pretty good condition for the most part. But we are taking them to a gun smith to have them tuned up and ready to shoot. We suspect most have not been fired since at least the 1960s.
To get to your point, however, in a demanding position, I'd run a cloth or two down that M1, jam that loaded steel clip in it and give it a try.
Add a dozen or so weapons to those previously lost in statistics to old age. We are bringing these weapons back up to specs (just for fun and family treasures of course). They will be battle ready...er... I mean ready for the range in about a month. I'll keep these family heirlooms in tip top shape from now until I pass them on.
Too true. Even my cheap Mosin-Nagant throws the lead pretty well for a beat-up 71-year-old.
My gut concurs with yours. I think the 300m number is just the firearms they know about.
There's a mountain of hardware that's totally off the radar. For example, I wonder how many AK parts kits have been imported over the years and subsequently turned into functioning rifles?
Just after Christmas, I was waiting while my car was being serviced at a Firestone shop. My car was the only one in the service bay, so two other mechanics busied themselves by working on something over by the shop's hydraulic arbor press. Finally I saw one of the guys holding what I recognized as a sheet metal AK receiver. There were six of them lined up on the workbench.
That 300 million number was correct——— about a decade ago. Since then nearly every year has been a record year for new gun production with 2012 producing over 14 million new ones. As I’ve noted before, there are more privately owned firearms in the US population than there are in the rest of the world combined, including all the other militaries. And it’s OK with me if Walmart bails from the gun bidness-—they’ve done it before and we all survived. They’ve never been serious about servicing guns, just cherry picking the market for a few popular models and do more harm than good with respect to regular gun dealers.
yep, I’d say .. probably 85% of all guns made and sold in the US since 1900 are still out there somewhere, being sold to others or handed down to the next generation.
Every person I know you owns guns owns... LOTS of guns.
300 million gun estimate is WAY low, I’d gun closer to a billion.
Recent numbers I have seen are 315 million firearms.