With the many high-profile shootings in the past several years, and homicide rates up from last year, it is an important time to examine the state of firearms in the United States.
Although a few data points are consistently collected, there is a clear lack of data on firearms in the US. It is impossible, for instance, to know the total number of firearms owned in the United States, or how many guns were bought in the past year, or what the most commonly owned firearms are. Instead, Americans are left to draw limited conclusions from available data, such as the number of firearms processed by the National Firearm Administration (NFA), the number of background checks conducted for firearm purchase, and the number of firearms manufactured. However, none of these metrics provide a complete picture because state laws about background checks and gun registration differ widely.
Policy has made government agencies hesitant to collect firearms data. The Dickey Amendment, passed in 1996, stipulates that no funds allocated to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control. According to the Congressional Research Service, the CDC subsequently limited its firearms-related research because “it learned further [budget] reductions were possible if the research continued.” The Firearms Owners Protection Act, passed in 1986, also specifically forbids the government from creating a national gun registry.
