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30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 1:11 pm
by AlanM
This was found not too long ago in the DemocraticUnderground Gun Control & RKBA (Group).
30 years of gun sales, or graphics showing gun control effort's unintended consequences
A couple of months ago, when I had some free time, I dipped a toe into some of the BATFE's sales data on guns. Today, having lots of free time (avoiding the shopping frenzy and distracting myself from some personal issues) I went deeper into the ATF's data and crunched some numbers. I subtracted exports and added imports, and got a slightly newer version of the report (data goes to 2015, not 2013).
There are download links for the author's spreadsheet (data and graphs) in both .xls and .ods forms.
I downloaded the .ods and it loaded perfectly into LibreOffice calc.

Re: 30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2017 1:34 pm
by AlanM
Today I took the spreadsheet and produced the totals.

For the 30 years 1986-2015:
Total firearms manufactured in US minus exports: 140,926,142
Total firearms Imported: 63,198,884
Total firearms added to US supply lines: 204,125,026

Re: 30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2017 9:38 pm
by Javelin Man
Then shouldn't gun crimes be off the charts?

Re: 30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:47 am
by AlanM
Javelin Man wrote:Then shouldn't gun crimes be off the charts?
Not according to John Lott.
And I tend to believe him and his statistical analyses.
They show just the opposite, violent crime against people is decreasing however property crime stays the same or increases.

Re: 30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:19 am
by JustaShooter
AlanM wrote:
Javelin Man wrote:Then shouldn't gun crimes be off the charts?
Not according to John Lott.
And I tend to believe him and his statistical analyses.
They show just the opposite, violent crime against people is decreasing however property crime stays the same or increases.
I think you missed his sarcasm.

Re: 30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:32 am
by AlanM
I pulled the data for total guns added to supply chain for the years 1999-2015 (the years for which there is full year data for both the above and NICS) and compared them to the FBI NICS totals.

Code: Select all

	        Annual	     NICS 
	        Totals	     Checks
1999	  4,899,709	  9,138,123
2000	  4,860,127	  8,543,037
2001	  4,278,242	  8,910,191
2002	  4,974,432	  8,454,322
2003	  4,743,928	  8,481,588
2004	  4,990,376	  8,687,671
2005	  5,324,990	  8,952,945
2006	  6,049,974	 10,036,933
2007	  6,611,145	 11,177,335
2008	  7,012,766	 12,709,023
2009	  9,024,109	 14,033,824
2010	  8,231,258	 14,409,616
2011	  9,603,883	 16,454,951
2012	 13,117,046	 19,592,303
2013	 15,889,189	 21,093,273
2014	 12,317,729	 20,968,547
2015	 12,841,741	 23,141,970
		
TOTALS 134,770,644	224,785,652
If I recall correctly there are some states that are using NICS for checking the national crime records of Concealed License/Permit holder to see if they need to have them revoked.
This would inflate the NICS stats and not reflect true sales.
Also not all legitimate checks result in a sale and some percentage result in purchase of multiple firearms.

Re: 30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:47 am
by Javelin Man
JustaShooter wrote:
AlanM wrote:
Javelin Man wrote:Then shouldn't gun crimes be off the charts?
Not according to John Lott.
And I tend to believe him and his statistical analyses.
They show just the opposite, violent crime against people is decreasing however property crime stays the same or increases.
I think you missed his sarcasm.
:) 8)

Re: 30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 9:36 am
by AlanM
Well, he DID forget to hold up his sarcasm sign.
Image

Image

Re: 30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 9:42 am
by evan price
I've been throwing around the figure of 350 million civilian owned guns in the USA, one for every person in the country.
Now bear in mind that many gun enthusiasts own more than one gun. I myself have at least two.

There's really no easy way to know for certain how many guns exist but suffice it to say we are the largest armed population in the world.

Just this Black Friday atf did over 200k nics checks.

A quick Google-fu shows that's a respectable armed forces. It's right on par with Germany, Italy, North Korea entire armed forces...
Well above many nation-states...
In ONE DAY.

Re: 30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 12:14 pm
by Javelin Man
evan price wrote:I've been throwing around the figure of 350 million civilian owned guns in the USA, one for every person in the country.
Now bear in mind that many gun enthusiasts own more than one gun. I myself have at least two.

There's really no easy way to know for certain how many guns exist but suffice it to say we are the largest armed population in the world.

Just this Black Friday atf did over 200k nics checks.

A quick Google-fu shows that's a respectable armed forces. It's right on par with Germany, Italy, North Korea entire armed forces...
Well above many nation-states...
In ONE DAY.
This needs to be reminded to North Korea before they start getting any more ideas.

Re: 30 years of FBI gun sales stats(with trends)

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 1:26 pm
by Brian D.
AlanM wrote:
If I recall correctly there are some states that are using NICS for checking the national crime records of Concealed License/Permit holder to see if they need to have them revoked.
This would inflate the NICS stats and not reflect true sales.
Kentucky does this, twice or maybe four times (?) a year. Back before I knew that, I would read media reports that stated 'Kentucky is the number one state in firearms sales' and it didn't make sense. Sure, Bud's Guns in Lexington stays busy both in store and online, but come on now.

As you state, Alan, it's hard to get a grasp of what the numbers really mean, with such variables.