As an addendum to my earlier post on the number of firearms in the US:
In 1997, the National Institute of Justice estimated that there were 200 million guns in private hands. (pdf not stored on this website alert)
From The Trace, which is hardly a right wing source:
According to historical ATF data, more than 465 million firearms have been produced for the U.S. market since 1899. This figure includes imports from foreign gunmakers but excludes exports by domestic gunmakers.
So the ATF thinks that 265 million firearms have been manufactured and imported since 1945? I don’t think that those numbers are accurate at all. The ATF claims that from 2013 to 2021, there were only 100 million guns introduced into the US market. We KNOW that there were 250 million NICS checks performed in that same time period. Are we to believe that the same 44 million gun owners went to a gun store and sold every gun in the nation 3 times over? That math just doesn’t add up.
The Federation of American Scientists took the numbers that The Trace used, and decided that there are 350 million firearms in the United States. They are estimating that 20,000 privately made firearms were added to the total in 2021. The estimate that less than 40,000 PMFs were made since 2016. We know that number is low, because law enforcement has reported recovering more than that many in the past 4 years alone.
No one has any idea how many firearms are in the US, but I am certain that however many there are, there are far more of them than the government and press think there are.
In comments, there was reference to JWR’s piece on gun confiscations, and a part of it bears quotation:
Rather than meeting the police one-at-a-time on their doorsteps, I predict that resisting gun owners will employ guerilla warfare strategy and tactics to foil the plans of the gun grabbers:
1.) They will successfully hide the majority of their banned guns. This is just what many Europeans did, following World War II. There are perhaps a million guns in Europe that were never registered or turned in, after the war. Particularly in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Spain, and Greece, there is still massive noncompliance. It has now been 73 years since the end of WWII. So the gun registration noncompliance in Europe is now multi-generational.
2.) They will form small, fully independent “phantom” resistance cells. This is commonly called leaderless resistance. Such cells are very difficult to detect or penetrate. These resistance cells will carefully choose the time and location of their attacks, to their advantage.
3.) They will individually target the legislators who voted for unconstitutional gun ban legislation. This will make it almost suicidal for these legislators to return to their home districts.
4.) They will individually target any outspokenly anti-gun police chiefs.
5.) They will target all BATF agents and FBI HRT agents–first with intimidation, and then with targeted killings.
6.) They will pillage or burn down the facilities where confiscated guns are being stored and destroyed.
7.) They will anonymously phone in false police reports about gun control advocates. (This is commonly called “SWATing.”)
8.) They will use time-delayed explosives, time-delayed incendiaries, time-delayed bursting toxin containers, cell phone-triggered IEDs, computer program worms and viruses, and long-range standoff weapons to minimize the risk of being detected, apprehended, or killed. Likely targets will be Federal buildings, courthouses, SWAT training facilities, police training ranges, and especially the private residences of anyone deemed to be a gun-grabber.
9.) They will use anonymous re-mailers and VPN to encourage others to resist by forming their own leaderless resistance cells.
10.) They will begin a War of Attrition on the Door Kickers, with tactics such as these:
A.) Ambushing SWAT vehicles while in transit, rather than waiting for the SWAT teams to set up raids.
B.) Ambushing individual SWAT team members at unexpected times and places–most likely at their homes.
C.) Sabotaging SWAT vehicles, most likely with time-delayed incendiaries.
D.) Targeting SWAT teams or individual team members while they are at home, in training, or when attending conventions.
E.) Harassing and intimidating individual SWAT team members and their families. The systematic burning of their privately-owned vehicles and their unoccupied homes and vacation cabins will be unmistakable threats.
11.) They will individually target “gun control” advocates, organizers, and group leaders.
12.) They will individually target the judges that issue gun seizure warrants.
13.) They will individually target journalists who have vocally advocated civilian disarmament.
14.) Some owners of M1 Carbines, AR-15s and HKs in the resistance movement will convert them to selective fire. (They will assume: “Well, if it is now a felony to possess a semi-auto, then what is the harm in making it a full auto?”)
15.) They will be willing to wage an ongoing guerilla warfare campaign using both passive and active resistance until the collectivists relent. This would be something like “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland, but on a larger scale, with greater ferocity, and with far more weapons readily available. Unlike the IRA, which had to import arms, all of the the firearms, magazines, and ammunition needed for any American resistance movement are already in situ. It is noteworthy that the agreed “Decommissioning” the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was delayed for more than five years because of their remaining caches of arms, which by then included only around 1,000 battle rifles!)
The only flaw that I see in JWR’s claims is to note that the resistance is not targeting the families of the gun grabbing cops, politicians, and journalists. The cops will shoot and target the families of gun owners. It is a common tactic of the police to threaten the families of their intended targets with child services taking their kids. Don’t think for a second that the families of gun grabbers will be off limits. While Mr Door Kicker is off raiding a gun owner’s house, or Corporal Drone Pilot is putting a Hellfire into the front door of the Second Amendment Foundation’s headquarters, someone will be at the grabbers’ houses, killing off their families.
Civil wars are always ugly. One like this will be no different.
