By Dave Workman
With the release of the 2025 update of Firearm Import and Export Data by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), and its annual roundup of National Instant Check System (NICS) data for 2025, the underlying message is clear: Gun ownership is very much “alive and well” in the U.S.
NSSF’s Import/Export report covers data from 2023, which includes this stunning revelation: The estimated total number of firearms in civilian possession from 1990 to 2023 was 506.1 million, even though there was a 15.4 percent decrease in firearms production from 2022 to 2023.
And here is one piece of information which could rock the political and legal arguments regarding the regulation of so-called “assault rifles,” defined by NSSF as “modern sporting rifles,” or “MSRs.” Since 1990, according to the NSSF, there are more than 32 million MSRs in circulation, which translates to “in common use” in anyone’s vocabulary.
“Certain political figures continue to rail against and restrict the free exercise of Second Amendment rights and do so at the peril of ignoring these law-abiding citizens who are voting with their wallets,”
said Mark Oliva, NSSF managing director for Public Affairs. “Gun ownership continues to grow even as we see falling crime rates. These Americans are, quite literally, investing in their personal safety and freedom.”
MSR production, according to NSSF’s new report, decreased 46.2 percent from 2022 to 2023. However, “This increased the estimated amount of MSRs produced (since 1990) by 4.5 percent from 30.7 million to 32 million,” NSSF said.
One other revelation in the 2025 production report is that, “In 2023, 13,574,653 total firearms were made available for the U.S. market, which includes firearms that were domestically produced plus those imported, minus exported firearms. Of those, 8,176,535 were handguns, 3,899,907 were rifles and 1,498,211 were shotguns.”
With that data in mind, the notion that the U.S. could ever ban private firearms ownership becomes wishful thinking at best. Even narrowing down such a proposal to modern semi-auto rifles would be impossible, with tens of millions currently in circulation.
The year 2025 ended with December’s NSSF-adjusted monthly NICS background check report showing 1,587,049 background checks related directly to firearms transactions. For the entire year, the NSSF-adjusted NICS check figure of 14,612,314 reflects a decrease of 4.1 percent compared to the 15,239,011 figure for annual 2024, NSSF said.
“The fact that nearly 1.6 million background checks were conducted in December for the retail sale of a firearm demonstrates that Second Amendment rights are critically important to Americans,” NSSF’s Oliva said. “There were over 14.6 million background checks for the sale of firearm through the entire year. This is an undeniable fact that lawful gun ownership is a valued and treasured right exercised by tens of millions of Americans daily.”
