ON GUNS IN USA: Federal background checks up 300 percent

Federal gun background checks were up 300 percent on Monday, March 16, compared to the same day a year before, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group. [Newsweek] The surge strained the gun background check system in several states, leading to delays. [The Trace].



*The article below appeared March 11, 2015.  I thought the rise in gun sales due to the pandemic COVID-19 prompted a reevaluation of who really controls gun policy in the United States of America.



GunPolicy.org, Sydney School of Health, University of Sydney, Australia, estimates that by 2012 there were 310,000,000 guns owned by private citizens in the United States of America.  

In its latest published figures the Federal Bureau of Investigation claims there were 21,000,000 background checks performed on gun purchases in 2013. CNN reported last year that in 2013 more than 5,500,000 guns were imported into the United States.  It is, therefore, probably safe to assume the number of guns estimated by the Sydney School of Health is on the low side.   

The United States Census Bureau estimates there are approximately 320,486,000 people living in the USA currently; about 26% of those are under age 18.  In the United States one must be at least 18 to own and register a gun. One could extrapolate from these numbers that there are only about 237,158,000 Americans eligible to own a gun in the "land of the free and home of the brave."

In an Associated Press report on the 2014 General Social Survey, a trend survey conducted regularly by NORC, an independent research group out of the University of Chicago, surveyors found that only 22% of Americans own a gun and only 32% live in a household where a gun is owned.

I am not a mathematician, but I did pay attention in grammar school. If only 22% of Americans own guns, a grand total of 70,507,000 people own those 310,000,000 weapons.  

Taking NORC's survey a step further, since only 32% of Americans claim to live in a home that has a gun, 48,000,000 people live alone with about 4.4 guns in their possession.  Why?  

They are not protecting a family; they live alone! And, the survey found that only 15% of Americans hunt, so that cannot be the reason for gun ownership. It means 41,000,000 Americans own guns for no other reason than to feel safe in their loneliness? 

In the report cited earlier by CNN, 16,238 homicides were committed in the United States in 2011, 68.2% by firearms...or more than 11,000. 

As we listen, news report after news report, to a lead statement that begins, "Today a lone gunman...." perhaps we need to add one question to gun registration forms.  

The new question?   "Do you live alone?"