There are about 533 million firearms in personal palms in the USA of America in 2025. The present inhabitants is estimated at 343 million individuals. This provides a file variety of 1.55 firearms for each particular person in the USA. The variety of privately owned firearms in the USA is rising by 15-20 million firearms a yr.
The variety of firearms that are privately owned in the USA is just not clear and apparent or simply measured. There has by no means been a registry of firearms for the USA. A nationwide firearms registry is forbidden by regulation. There are partial state registration techniques in a couple of states. Knowledge on manufacture, importation, and exportation of firearms was not saved as a matter of file till after World Conflict II.
Researchers Newton and Zimring pioneered the estimation of personal firearms numbers in the USA. They researched the variety of firearms manufactured, imported, and exported in the USA from 1899 by means of 1945 and estimated a complete of 46.9 million trendy firearms as of 1945. For the years 1946 to 1972, particular person figures had been calculated for every year. Shipments of firearms to the navy weren’t included.
Gary Kleck, in his seminal work, Level Clean Weapons and Violence in America, prolonged the work of Newton and Zimring by means of 1987, utilizing knowledge from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). As of 1987, the whole was over 198 million.
This correspondent has used the ATF numbers from 1988 to 2023 to succeed in a determine of over 530 million firearms within the personal inventory within the USA in 2025. The work was beforehand accomplished by means of 2015. Within the decade from 2015 to 2024, a mixture of ATF numbers and estimates from the Nationwide Immediate Felony Background Test System (NICS) had been used. This resulted in an estimate of 516 million firearms within the personal inventory as of the tip of 2024, with one other three million added within the first three months of 2025.
The current publication of Firearms Commerce in the USA Statistical Replace 2024 gave entry to the official numbers of firearms manufactured, imported, and exported in the USA for the final decade by means of 2023. These are definitive numbers reported as required by regulation to the ATF. These numbers had been used to replace the estimate of the firearms within the personal inventory given in March 2024. The official ATF numbers had been calculated and added to the earlier work accomplished by means of 2015. The change within the estimate is a couple of million.
As of the tip of 2023, the estimate was 513 million firearms. An estimate of firearm gross sales calculated by the Nationwide Taking pictures Sports activities Basis, based mostly on the NICS knowledge, reported by the FBI, provides one other 16.5 million in 2024. NICS knowledge for the primary 4 months of 2025 provides one other 5 million.
The estimated whole, as of the tip of Could 2025, is 533 million firearms in personal palms in the USA of America.
The quantity is the cumulative addition of imports minus exports plus home manufacture. The quantity doesn’t account for a discount of the gun inventory by means of unlawful exportation, destruction, loss, or put on and tear. The numbers don’t embody unlawful importation, navy surplus gross sales to the general public, or particular person manufacture of firearms for personal use. As many as 17 million firearms might have been offered as surplus to the American public. Such surplus arms are generally seen at gun reveals. Personal manufacture of firearms for private use is in a growth stage. It’s inconceivable to know what number of firearms are misplaced and gained from these sources. The unknown losses and positive factors offset one another to some extent.
The numbers are essentially imprecise. The tactic of calculation was pioneered by Newton and Zimring in 1969, up to date by Gary Kleck by means of 1987, and prolonged to 2023 by this correspondent, utilizing official numbers as reported by the ATF.
The Small Arms Survey in Switzerland makes use of primarily the identical methodology when estimating the variety of privately owned firearms in the USA. The Small Arms Survey has not up to date its estimates since 2017. Revealed in 2018, the Small Arms Survey estimated for the USA as of 2017 was 393.3 million privately owned firearms.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a navy officer, was on the College of Wisconsin Pistol Group for 4 years, and was first licensed to show firearms security in 1973. He taught the Arizona hid carry course for fifteen years till the aim of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has levels in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Division of Protection after a 30 yr profession in Military Analysis, Improvement, Testing, and Analysis.
