Over a million guns a month

In the first eight months of this year there have been a minimum of 9,076,205 guns purchased by U.S. citizens. This is over one million a month.

Details here.



Okay. Now that everyone has at least one lets start working on at least one pistol, rifle, and shotgun for everyone.


It’s not stunning. It’s what most people who have researched the issue expect. More Guns, Less Crime.


6 thoughts on “Over a million guns a month

  1. Mr. Huffman,

    While I subscribe to Dr. Lott’s conclusions, it seems a bit premature to point to increased sales without a corresponding increase in crime as debunking the positive correlation between guns and crime. Specifically (as I understand it) there is on average a 10 year lag between initial purchase of a gun and it being used in a crime. It will be several years before these guns end up in criminal hands-if they do at all.

    Here in Buffalo, NY we get a really good storm every few years, and 9 months later we get a mini baby boom. I would not, 1 week after the storm, declare there to be no correlation between nookie sessions and birth rates because the birth rate did not spike immediately.

    You have an excellent blog, and are one of our leading apologists-I’m just trying to do my small part to keep our arguments free from problems, however minute.

  2. God and my creditors know I’ve done my part. I’ve got that slacker McThag beat at least.

  3. LC Scotty; We don’t need apologists as we have nothing for which we need apologize. Maybe you’re thinking of the other guys. It is the anti-rights camp that needs the steady supply of apologies, though I doubt it will help them a great deal come trial time. I don’t know; maybe they can claim some form of the Nuremburg Defense in some cases, but it didn’t work too well the first time around, did it?

    Since American gun ownership has been on the rise for decades, while violent crime has been on the general decline for decades, I tend to think of the incubation theory as wanting at best. Wanting and assuming.

    Then there are the demands for a three-day waiting period on the other hand, which ask us by implication at least to believe that people first decide to kill, and only then seek a gun with which to do the job. Which is it then– ten years with a gun, or is the decision to kill made prior to gun ownership? If it’s ten years, which particular, wholesale violations of basic rights are justified? If on the other hand it is the first sign of tension between any two otherwise normal individuals in the presence of mere gun availability that will result in instant death at the pull of a trigger, then which specific, wholesale, willful violations of basic rights are justified? What if it’s both? Worse yet, what if Americans had had general access to firearms since the very founding of the republic? What then? I shudder to think.

    Should we no longer endeavor to punish only the guilty in this country? Are we going instead after the whole lot based on (very thoughtful of course) statistical analysis? When did we take that vote? Which constitutional amendment was that?

  4. Shawn: darn good question. This is a point I’ve seen elsewhere (don’t have time to find cite), that estimates of guns in circulation in America have been floating around for a while and have been pretty stable, for the simple reason that they keep getting quoted forward. The real number may well be higher.

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