By Dave Workman
An estimated 88 million American adults own approximately 461 million firearms, with handguns being the most popular (208 million), while there are some 40 million AR-15 type rifles and another 20 million “similarly styled rifles” in private ownership, according to a new report on the “second wave of the National Firearms Survey.
Authored by Prof. William English at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University and released just days ago, the 76-page report contains some eye-opening information which just might have bearing on a pair of Second Amendment cases known as Viramontes v. Cook County (Illinois) and Grant v. Higgins (Connecticut) are up for argument before the U.S. Supreme Court sometime this fall.
Based on the estimates, there can be no doubt that modern semiautomatic rifles—demonized for decades as “assault weapons” by the gun prohibition lobby and its allies in the media and Congress—are “commonly owned.”
There is much more to the new report. According to the abstract:
- Approximately 33.6 million gun owners (39.3% of those aged 21 and over) are “public carriers” who are permitted to carry and carry at least sometimes.
- The average gun owner owns about 5.2 firearms, and handguns are the most common type of firearm owned (91.6% of owners).
- More than 50 percent (50.5%) of gun owners – approximately 44.5 million adults – report that they currently own magazines that hold more than 10 rounds (approximately 539 million such magazines in total), and 88.0% of these owners cite a defensive purpose for owning them
- Twenty-five percent (25.0%) of gun owners currently own an AR-15 type rifle, 12.9% currently own other similarly styled semi-automatic rifles, and 30.0% – approximately 26.4 million adults – currently own at least one firearm in one of these two categories, with approximately 40 million AR-15 type rifles and 20 million other similarly styled rifles owned in total.
- Overall, Americans own approximately 461 million firearms, consisting of approximately 208 million handguns, 154 million rifles, and 99 million shotguns.
- An estimated 37.6% of gun owners have used a firearm to defend themselves, their property, a family member, or a member of their household, and it estimates that guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 2.2 million incidents per year.
The report “summarizes the main findings of the second wave of the National Firearms Survey, conducted in July and August of 2026,” English writes. “Like the first wave, which was fielded in early 2021, this survey aims to provide the most comprehensive assessment of firearms ownership and use patterns in America to date, and it does so with a sample large enough to make well-powered, statistically informative inferences within individual states.”
According to this “second wave” report, the initial survey back in 2021 was downloaded more than 18,000 times and the abstract was viewed at least 150,000 times, attracting “considerable scholarly and public attention.”
This new report clarifies some information that was questioned first time around five years ago. At the time, “critics speculated that some first-wave respondents, particularly women, may have answered ownership questions on behalf of their household rather than themselves.” This new report “forecloses this interpretation: the detailed ownership questions now instruct respondents explicitly to ‘only count’ items “that you personally own, not that other family members may own.”
Also this time, the survey respondents were asked whether they currently own magazines capable of holding more than ten cartridges, not whether they had ever owned such magazines.
Defensive Use
The new report also breaks down the defensive use of firearms. According to new document, “For each reported defensive incident, respondents now indicate the approximate age at which the incident occurred and whether the defensive use succeeded in averting a crime (or was directed against an animal threat).” This age data, English explains, “enables us to investigate how reports of defensive incidents over a lifetime should be allocated across years and age cohorts, while the outcome data contributes to longstanding debates regarding how defensive gun uses are reflected in crime statistics.”
As noted above, the new report still arrives at a figure of more than 2 million defensive gun uses annually, which refutes arguments from the gun prohibition lobby that such incidents do not happen as frequently as previously estimated. Here is the breakdown provided in the new report”
- 37.6% of gun owners, or approximately 33.1 million adult Americans, have used a gun in defense of themselves, their property, a family member, or a member of their household.
- In most cases (76.3%) the gun is not fired.
- Gun owners engage in approximately 2.2 million defensive uses of firearms per year.
- The majority of defensive gun uses take place outside of the home (74.6%).
- About half of defensive gun uses involve more than one assailant (50.8%).
- Handguns are the firearm most commonly used in defensive incidents (74.0%), followed by rifles (16.4%) and shotguns (9.6%).
- In70.6% of defensive incidents, the defense was successful, such that no crime remained to be reported to the police; 8.4% of defensive incidents were against animal threats.
- The median age at which reported defensive incidents occurred was 29, and 45.8% of reported incidents occurred within approximately the past five years.
Today, there are more states with permitless—so-called “constitutional”—carry (29 states) where no license or permit is required to carry a defensive sidearm. As a result, the number of licensed individuals has declined slightly, to some 20 million. However, this is still a sizeable number of American citizens who are licensed to carry and who can exercise reciprocal carry rights in other states.
Gun Owner Demographics
A section of the new report details gun owner demographics, and it may raise some eyebrows, although it tends to confirm what industry and the firearms community have been saying for years. Here’s the breakdown:
- 32.7% of adults in the U.S. are estimated to own a firearm, totaling approximately 88 million adult gun owners.
- 54.3% of validated gun owners are male, 45.7% are female.
- 33.0% of Blacks own firearms, a rate within two percentage points of Whites (34.6%).
- 31.3% of Hispanics own firearms.
- 23.0% of Asians own firearms.
- 38.9% of men and 26.8% of women own firearms.
“In sum,” the report says, “firearms ownership has continued to grow, and firearms owners are more diverse than ever.
“With raked weighting employed for gender, state, race, and age, and with gun owners validated by the two-stage rule described above, we find that 32.7% of U.S. adults age 18 and over own a firearm (95% Confidence Interval, 32.2%– 33.2%),” the report notes. “Restricting the sample population to those age 21 and over, who face fewer restrictions on purchasing firearms, 33.3% own firearms (95% Confidence Interval, 32.9%– 33.8%).”
The “second wave” report is jammed with these and other details, and should be very useful to firearms rights activists and advocates as the fight over Second Amendment right continues. If, as gun rights advocates predict, the Supreme Court hands down an affirmative ruling on modern semiautomatic rifles and pistols being protected—presumably nullifying bans in several states in the process—the fight will then move to such issues as concealed carry reciprocity/recognition across state lines, the constitutionality of permit-to-purchase laws, training requirements (i.e. “competency testing”) in order to buy and own firearms, and perhaps even sooner: the constitutionality of waiting periods.
Workman is editor-in-chief at TheGunMag.com
