The population of the US is about 250 million people, that's about 70 people per square mile. About 45-50 million of those people are under the age of 18, therefore do not really count as potential firearm owners (BTW, we prefer the term "firearm" as opposed to "gun". Guns are usually artillery pieces and are mounted on something). So, we have a population of 200-205 million potential firearm owners. According to the BATF, about 60-65 million people own firearms, about 1 in every 3 people. Of those, about 30-35 million people (about half the firearm owners) own handguns, or better than 1 in 7 people.
Total firearms in the US is estimated at 230 million, or enough to arm every adult in the US. Of these, about 75 to 80 million (about 1/3) are handguns.
Based on these numbers, we know the average firearm owner has 3 or 4 firearms. The averge handgun owner owns 2 or 3 handguns.
Pretty big numbers?
Ok, lets take a look at firearm related deaths.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, there are about 1,300 accidental deaths in the US due to firearms every year. We often express statistics as occurrances in every 100,000 people. This is something on the order of 0.5 deaths per 100,000.
Let's compare that with:
-- motor vehicles (16 per 100,000 or about 40,000 deaths)
-- fatal falls (5 per 100,000 or about 12,500 deaths)
-- poisonings (about 4 per 100,000 or about 10,000)
-- drowning (1.5 per 100,000 or about 3750)
-- and choking (about 1 per 100,000 or 2500 deaths).
So firearms, while potentially dangerous, are not a major contributor to accidental deaths. You are 3 times more likely to drown than to be accidentally shot and killed. Also, since 1930, fatal firearm accidents fallen about 1/2. This despite the population doubling and firearm ownership quadrupling. Pretty impressive safety record. (All the above statistics are from the National Center for Health Statistics (NHCS))
Now, lets talk murder. Here we turn to the FBI for numbers. According to the FBI, there were 18,209 murders in the US in 1997. Of these, they have information on 15,289. Lets look at the weapons used:
-- Firearms = 10,369 (handguns = 8,104)
-- Knives or cutting instruments = 1,963
-- Blunt objects = 702
-- Hands, feet, etc = 964
-- Poison = 6
-- Exploxives = 8
-- Fire = 134
-- Narcotics = 38
-- Drowning = 34
-- Strangulation = 223
-- Asphyxiation = 87
-- Other = 761
So firearms were used in about 68% of all murders, about 2/3. Clearly, firearms are very lethal if intentionally used to kill someone. But still the rate of murders with firearms is about 4 per every 100,000 people, or about the same as fatal accidental poisonings and less than fatal accidental falls.
Now let's look to violent crimes, again using FBI UCR data for 1997:
-- There were about 1.6 million violent crimes (includes murder, rape, robbery, and assault). Of these, about 27% were commited with firearms; knives and cutting instruments came to about 15%; other weapons totalled 28%; hands, feet, etc. was 30%. So while 2/3 of murder are accomplished with firearms, only about 1/4 of all violent crime involves a firearm. According to the NCVS, however, firearms are only used in about 8% of all violent crime.
Now we turn to the third area of firearm related deaths--suicide. According to the NCHS again, there are about 31,000 suicides every year. That is about 12.4 per 100,000 people. Pretty high rate. Pretty scary stuff. About 18,000 of those deaths involve firearms or about 60% of all suicides; a rate of about 7.2 per 100,000. This rate is higher than any accidental death rate EXCEPT motor vehicles.
So, there you have a pretty big picture of the "firearm problem" in the US. Now, lets take a look at the positive side:
-- According to both private and government studies (Kleck and the NSPOF), firearms are used defensively about 2 million times every year.
-- An estimated 15% of these uses definitely saved a life (300,000 lives or a rate of about 120 per every 100,000 people), and another 15% probably saved a life (another 300,000 lives). The majority of these incedents involved handguns.
-- In better than 90% of these incedents no shots were fired.
Pretty impressive? You bet! Studies using numbers from the FBI/DOJ have also shown that a person armed with a firearm is anywhere from 25% to 75% more likely to escape unharmed from a violent crime than an unarmed person (it varies based on the crime).
Firearms are the predominate weapon for hunters (about 28 million people hunt every year, about 11,200 per every 100,000 people). Only about 90 fatal firearm accidents occur in hunting each year.
So we have some pretty strong numbers on the plus side.
Let's crunch some numbers using the BATF,NCHS, and UCR figures:
-- Annual crime uses of firearms = less than 0.2% of all firearms owned. (less than 0.4% of handguns)
-- Annual suicide uses of firearms = less than 0.008% of all firearms owned
-- Annual murder uses of firearms = less than 0.004% of all firearms owned
-- Annual accidental deaths with firearms = less than 0.0006% of all firearms owned
Some other interesting points to ponder:
-- Strict firearm laws have had no impact on suicide rates in Canada, England, Japan, or Australia.
-- Strict firearm laws have not reduced violent crime in Canada, England, or Australia.
-- All the countries people tend to compare the US with when it comes to firearm related deaths had low rates BEFORE they enacted their laws.
-- According to a DOJ study, 20% of all firearms recovered in Washington DC (where firearms are illegal) are home made.
-- "Assault weapons" were being used in about 1% of crimes BEFORE the current restrictions were put in place.
-- Only one legally owned machine gun has ever been used in a crime and that was by a cop.