I’ve been having some fun with numbers these past couple of weeks on my Light Over Heat YouTube channel, trying to figure out how many American adults own how many AR15-style rifles.
Of course, no one really knows. But I am trying to make some educated guesses based on the data that is available. In Light Over Heat #121, I gave some estimates. Then following the posting of that video, the gun violence reporting initiative, The Trace, provided some additional data I used to update the estimates once again in Light Over Heat #122.
Some bottom line, minimum estimates on AR-15s from round 1:
- At least 1 in 20 American adults (5%) own them, i.e., at least 12.5 million people.
- At least 1 in 5 gun-owning adults (20%) own them.
- There are at least 23 million in circulation, and probably closer to 28 million or more.
More details in Light Over Heat #121.
This week, The Trace estimated that there are 392,000,000 million guns in circulation in the U.S. Based on that total gun stock, there are at least 27 million in circulation, owned by at least 16 million American adults.
See the calculations in Light Over Heat #122.
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