Topline
The United States manufactured or imported just over 24.4 million AR-15 and AK-style guns—which are often known as assault rifles or modern sporting rifles—from 1990 to 2020, a firearm industry group estimated Wednesday, with a record number added in 2020, as Democratic lawmakers call to ban the sale of the popular weapons amid the mounting toll of mass shootings carried out with them.
A customer looks at a custom made AR-15 style rifle at Davidson Defense in Orem, Utah, on February … [+]
Key Facts
The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates the United States imported or manufactured a record-breaking 2.8 million AR-15 and AK-style rifles in 2020 alone (NSSF subtracted exports to other countries from its figures).
It’s a sizable jump from NSSF’s last recorded figures, which estimated almost 20 million of these rifles were in circulation in the United States as of 2018.
Manufacturing figures for AR-15 and AK-style rifles, minus exports, have exploded in recent decades, from fewer than 100,000 annually in the late 1990s—when many of those firearms were prohibited for civilian use under the 1994-2004 federal assault weapons ban—to more than 1 million every year since 2015.
NSSF’s figures include semi-automatic rifles produced for both civilian and police use, but exclude firearms used by the military, NSSF spokesperson Mark Oliva says.
Tangent
The number of guns in circulation keeps growing every year. A record-breaking 22.8 million total firearms were sold in the United States in 2020, the consulting firm Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting estimated, part of a rapid spike in sales many experts have linked to the Covid-19 pandemic and the presidential election. Monthly firearm sales have slowed down since then, but are still well above pre-pandemic levels.
Key Background
The United States is widely believed to have more guns in civilian hands than any other country on Earth, with some estimates pegging the number of firearms in circulation at slightly over or under 400 million—greater than the total U.S. population. Many of those firearms are handguns, but AR-15-style rifles are particularly controversial because they’ve been used in many of America’s worst mass shootings—and because many critics and doctors say they can be more lethal than other guns. Several states have passed assault weapons bans, and Democrats are pushing for a nationwide prohibition on AR-15s and other semi-automatic guns that are defined as assault weapons, an idea that was left out of last month’s gun control bill amid GOP opposition. However, firearm groups say AR-15s are popular because they’re easy to use and offer light recoil, and argue a ban would have a limited effect on gun crime—which typically involves handguns rather than rifles—while arbitrarily snagging law-abiding owners.
Contra
If Congress passes an assault weapons ban, the sheer number of AR-15-style guns already in circulation could pose a challenge since existing gun owners likely wouldn’t be required to give up their firearms. Some gun control advocates have suggested tightening ownership rules for semi-automatic rifles already in circulation or buying some guns back from their owners, but gun control opponents say criminals could ignore these initiatives.
Further Reading
U.S. Mass Shootings Hover Near Record-Breaking Levels (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/07/20/record-28-million-ar-15-and-ak-style-rifles-entered-us-circulation-in-2020-gun-group-says/