There are about 533 million firearms in private hands in the United States of America in 2025. The current population is estimated at 343 million people. This gives a record number of 1.55 firearms for every person in the United States. The number of privately owned firearms in the United States is growing by 15-20 million firearms a year.
The number of firearms which are privately owned in the United States is not clear and obvious or easily measured. There has never been a registry of firearms for the United States. A national firearms registry is forbidden by law. There are partial state registration systems in a few states. Data on manufacture, importation, and exportation of firearms was not kept as a matter of record until after World War II.
Researchers Newton and Zimring pioneered the estimation of private firearms numbers in the United States. They researched the number of firearms manufactured, imported, and exported in the United States from 1899 through 1945 and estimated a total of 46.9 million modern firearms as of 1945. For the years 1946 to 1972, individual figures were calculated for each year. Shipments of firearms to the military were not included.
Gary Kleck, in his seminal work, Point Blank Guns and Violence in America, extended the work of Newton and Zimring through 1987, using data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). As of 1987, the total was over 198 million.
This correspondent has used the ATF numbers from 1988 to 2023 to reach a figure of over 530 million firearms in the private stock in the USA in 2025. The work was previously done through 2015. In the decade from 2015 to 2024, a combination of ATF numbers and estimates from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) were used. This resulted in an estimate of 516 million firearms in the private stock as of the end of 2024, with another three million added in the first three months of 2025.
The recent publication of Firearms Commerce in the United States Statistical Update 2024 gave access to the official numbers of firearms manufactured, imported, and exported in the United States for the last decade through 2023. These are definitive numbers reported as required by law to the ATF. These numbers were used to update the estimate of the firearms in the private stock given in March 2024. The official ATF numbers were calculated and added to the previous work done through 2015. The change in the estimate is a few million.
As of the end of 2023, the estimate was 513 million firearms. An estimate of firearm sales calculated by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, based on the NICS data, reported by the FBI, adds another 16.5 million in 2024. NICS data for the first four months of 2025 adds another five million.
The estimated total, as of the end of May 2025, is 533 million firearms in private hands in the United States of America.
The number is the cumulative addition of imports minus exports plus domestic manufacture. The number does not account for a reduction of the gun stock through illegal exportation, destruction, loss, or wear and tear. The numbers do not include illegal importation, military surplus sales to the public, or individual manufacture of firearms for private use. As many as 17 million firearms may have been sold as surplus to the American public. Such surplus arms are commonly seen at gun shows. Private manufacture of firearms for personal use is in a boom stage. It is impossible to know how many firearms are lost and gained from these sources. The unknown losses and gains offset each other to some extent.
The numbers are necessarily imprecise. The method of calculation was pioneered by Newton and Zimring in 1969, updated by Gary Kleck through 1987, and extended to 2023 by this correspondent, using official numbers as reported by the ATF.
The Small Arms Survey in Switzerland uses essentially the same method when estimating the number of privately owned firearms in the United States. The Small Arms Survey has not updated its estimates since 2017. Published in 2018, the Small Arms Survey estimated for the United States as of 2017 was 393.3 million privately owned firearms.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
