A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by a journalist from the Voice of Russia, a Russian state-owned broadcaster, on topic of how many guns exist in the USA. They have just published an English language article based on the interview.

Just for the record, the title of the english-language article they published ‘I don’t believe anyone, including the government, about how many guns there are’ – US Gun Expert is a slightly mistranslation of what I said. What I said was all estimates published by the BATFE and the NRA are out of date and no longer accurate. I can see how my words translated into Russian and then translated back into English might be inadvertently misconstrued. If the BATFE or the NRA did an in-depth study on how many guns exist in the country, I would believe them.

In 2011 an extra 11.4 millions guns were either manufactured or imported into the USA. This excludes military firearms. The often quoted number from 10 years ago of 300 million guns (“one gun per person”) can no longer be correct.  I expect the number today is 400 million+, or 1.25+ per person in the country.

What do you think?