Report: Nearly 400 Million Civilian-Owned Guns in America

A report published this month found civilians in the United States own almost 400 million guns, outpacing every other civilian population, police, or military force in the world. The Small Arms Survey estimates there are 393,300,000 civilian-owned firearmsin the United States. The survey, performed by the Graduate Institute of Geneva, estimated the United States military has about 4.5 million firearms. It put the number of firearms owned by police throughout the United States at just over 1 million. That means American civilians own nearly 100 times as many firearms as the U.S. military and nearly 400 times as many as law enforcement. Federal Bureau of Investigation background check records suggest that civilians bought more than 2 million guns in May alone, which means civilians purchase more than double the number of firearms owned by police departments. The number of gun-related civilian background checks in May and April, at over 4.7 million, is greater than the number of firearms currently owned by the American military. (Read more)

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