Gun Industry, Gun Lobby,  and NRA: Research

The Brady Center’s Gun Industry Watch has released 9 reports providing key insights into the workings of the gun industry, gun lobby and the NRA and mapping out areas for reform. Click here to see these reports.

Title: Small Arms Survey: Guns and the City

Publication date: August 28, 2007

What does it say? The Small Arms Survey has been done annually since 2001.  The purpose of the survey, which is funded in part by the Swiss government, is to describe the “global geography” of small arms (i. e., firearms and light weapons).  The United States topped the list of countries in terms of guns per 100 people at 97.0 per 100 people, with a total estimate up to 290,000,000 firearms.   

How can I use it? This statistic is in line with past estimates of gun ownership in the United States.  What is changing in the United States is the concentration of guns per household.  The percentage of American households with a gun has been steadily declining, (from a high of 54 percent in 1977 to 34.5 percent in 2006).   Many households simply add a fifth, sixth, tenth gun to their collection. The saturation of the legal market for guns in the United States is one motivator for the gun industry to avoid common sense gun laws, which will reduce its ability to make money off the diversion of guns into the illegal market.

Citation: Graduate Institute of International Studies.  Small Arms Survey: Guns and the City (Geneva, Switzerland: 2007)


Title: The U. S. Gun Stock; Results from the 2004 National Firearms Survey

Publication date: February 2007

What does it say? This study updates a similar 1994 study and provides information on the size, composition and demographic distribution of the privately held firearm stock in the United States.  Gun ownership is becoming more concentrated in fewer households, with higher numbers of guns per household.  Gun owners in 2004 reported an average of 6.9 guns per owner compared with 4.1 per owner in the 1994 study, and the higher average number of guns is attributable to people in the “four or more guns” category adding even more guns to their collections.  In fact, 20 percent of the gun owners possessed about 65% of the nation’s guns. In addition, handguns account for a larger percentage of all firearms in 2004 than in the 1994 study (40 percent vs. 34 percent).  Sixteen percent of American adults reported owning at least one handgun. Handgun owners are most likely to own their handguns for self-protection.  People who own only handguns are as likely to live in urban as rural environments.  A consistent finding from the 1994 study is there is a “gender gap” in the reporting of household firearms and the number of guns.  Married women report lower levels of household gun ownership and report fewer guns than married men.

How can I use it? This study documents that the vast majority of all U. S. firearms (65 percent) are owned by only 20 percent of gun owners (or 5 percent of all adults, calculation by Brady Center).  Increases to the numbers of guns in circulation since 1994 appear to be totally accounted for by people with 4 or more guns adding more guns to their collections. We should provide this fact to advocates, elected officials and the general public to make the case that a small minority of Americans are gun consumers. 

Citation: L Hepburn, M Miller, D Hemenway, “The U. S. Gun Stock: Results from the 2004 National Firearms Survey,” Injury Prevention 13 (2007): 15-19