Guns in the USA by the numbers: about 120 per 100 residents

This page collects numbers only, all from official or academic sources and each with its year: how many guns there are estimated to be in the USA, how many background checks the FBI runs at the point of sale, what the CDC's health statistics show on deaths, how gun violence has developed over the long run and how many Texans hold a license to carry. The judgment is yours.

This page collects numbers only, all from official or academic sources and each with its year: how many guns there are estimated to be in the USA, how many background checks the FBI runs at the point of sale, what the CDC's health statistics show on deaths, how gun violence has developed over the long run and how many Texans hold a license to carry. The judgment is yours. What you yourself may do as a foreign national is covered on the sister pages: the federal framework in Gun ownership in the USA as a foreigner, the rules for visa holders in Guns on a visa, buying as a permanent resident in Buying a gun with a green card and the Texas license in Texas gun license. One rule applies to all of them: whether you may buy or own a gun depends on your status and your state, and it should be checked before every purchase.

Coming from Europe, many people react to these numbers with astonishment, sometimes with unease, sometimes with curiosity. All three reactions are understandable. The numbers themselves are more sober than the debate around them, and that is exactly how they are presented here.

1What gets counted, and what doesn't

The most important number is the one that doesn't exist. There is no official register of all guns and their owners in the USA, and federal law forbids creating one. 18 U.S.C. § 926(a) prohibits any rule from establishing a system for registering firearms, firearm owners or firearm transactions, or from centralizing dealers' records with any federal or state agency. Dealers keep their own forms.

What does exist are three kinds of numbers. First, estimates of the total stock, which researchers derive from various data sources. Second, administrative figures generated by a transaction: checks at purchase, licenses issued. Third, health and crime statistics, which count deaths and violent crimes. Each of these answers a different question, and none replaces another. None of the federal agencies whose data this page uses publishes a figure for the share of households with a gun or for the number of shooting ranges, so we leave both out.

2How many guns: about 120 per 100 residents

The most widely cited estimate comes from the Small Arms Survey, a research project at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. For the end of 2017, it estimated about 857 million firearms in civilian hands worldwide, roughly 393.3 million of them in the USA. That is about 120.5 guns per 100 residents, the highest figure of any country in the study. For comparison, the study lists 15.8 million guns for Germany and 19.6 per 100 residents, 30.0 for Austria and 27.6 per 100 residents for Switzerland.

Two things belong with this number. It is an estimate, not a count, and it explicitly includes both legal and illegal guns in private hands. And it is not spread evenly: more guns than people does not mean every American owns one. The study also shows how the stock is growing: according to data from the ATF, the federal firearms agency, civilians in the USA acquired at least 122 million new or imported guns between 2006 and 2017.

3Checks at purchase: the FBI's NICS

Anyone buying from a federally licensed dealer is checked through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the NICS. It has been running since November 30, 1998, and on December 18, 2024, according to the FBI's annual report, it processed its 500 millionth check. In 2024, a total of 28,097,205 firearm-related checks ran through the system, 9,757,644 of them at the FBI's NICS Section and 18,339,561 at state agencies.

Of the checks handled by the FBI itself, 94.7 percent were approved and 1.1 percent, or 110,505, were denied. 4.2 percent remained open, delayed or canceled. In 91.87 percent of cases the decision was immediate. The FBI reports the enhanced checks for buyers under 21 separately: 161,634 in 2024, of which 95 percent were approved and 1,497 denied.

A check is not a sale. States that act as a Point of Contact for the NICS also use the system for permits, such as state permits to acquire a handgun. The number of checks is therefore a measure of transactions, not of guns sold.

The FBI's report also includes figures on how the system itself performs. In 2024, the NICS was available 99.87 percent of the time. 9,005,796 of the checks handled by the FBI, or 92.3 percent, ran through NICS E-Check, the online process in which the dealer submits the request without a phone call. For buyers under 21, since the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act the FBI also searches state agencies for juvenile justice and mental health records. According to the report, of the 1,497 denials in this group, 453 would likely not have happened without this additional inquiry, because the decisive information was not previously available to the NICS. For this, federal law under § 922(t) allows a review of up to ten business days instead of the usual three.

4Why checks are denied

The most common reason for an FBI denial has been the same for years, and 2024 was no different: a conviction for a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). That accounted for 49,665 of the 110,505 denials. Next come a pending indictment, use of controlled substances and fugitive status.

Of interest to immigrants is the immigration status category under § 922(g)(5). It covers foreign nationals without lawful status and visa holders without an exception, and in 2024 it accounted for 4,511 denials. For non-citizens, according to the FBI's report, the NICS Section checks with ICE, the immigration enforcement agency, whether the person is lawfully present in the USA. What lies behind this is explained in Guns on a visa.

Who runs the check depends on the state. According to the annual report, in 2024 the FBI ran checks itself for dealers in 31 states, the District of Columbia and the territories, Texas among them. 15 states, including California, Florida and New York, handled all checks themselves, three more handled only those for handguns, and Nebraska checks state handgun permits.

5Deaths: what the CDC counts

US cause-of-death statistics are kept by the National Center for Health Statistics at the CDC, the federal health agency. For 2024 it counts 44,447 firearm deaths, or 13.1 per 100,000 residents. Of these, 27,593 were suicides (8.1 per 100,000) and 15,364 were homicides (4.5 per 100,000). The remaining roughly 1,500 cases fall into other categories of the statistics, such as accidents and deaths of undetermined intent; we calculated this difference from the CDC's three figures.

Two ratios follow from the same numbers. About 62 percent of firearm deaths in 2024 were suicides. And of all 20,162 homicides that year, about 76 percent were committed with a firearm. Both are calculations based on CDC data, not metrics published by the agency itself.

6The long view: what the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows

The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics traces how gun violence has developed over decades in its report covering 1993 to 2018. Over that period, the firearm homicide rate fell by 41 percent, from 8.4 to 5.0 per 100,000 people aged 12 and older, with a low of 4.0 in 2014. The rate of nonfatal firearm violence fell by 76 percent, from 7.3 to 1.7 per 1,000 people aged 12 and older.

On average across those years, the report found that 71 percent of all homicides were committed with a firearm, and most firearm violence involved a handgun. The report ends with 2018; for the years after that, the CDC figures above are the more recent source, using their own method. That is why the two series can't simply be joined together.

The reference populations differ too. The Bureau of Justice Statistics counts homicides per 100,000 people aged 12 and older and nonfatal violence per 1,000 people aged 12 and older, and its nonfatal violence data come from the National Crime Victimization Survey. The CDC counts per 100,000 residents of all ages. For 2014 to 2018, the report gives a nonfatal firearm violence rate between 1.1 and 1.8 per 1,000 people.

7Texas: licenses to carry

One administrative figure says a lot about everyday life in Texas: the number of active licenses to carry. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety's annual report, as of December 31, 2025, exactly 1,416,121 people held an active License to Carry, and 3,787 instructors were certified. There were 1,626,242 license holders at the end of 2020, 1,657,917 at the end of 2022 and 1,539,876 at the end of 2024.

Since September 1, 2021, adults aged 21 and older in Texas who are not prohibited from possessing a firearm may carry a handgun without a license. No agency counts how many do; the license figure only captures those who chose the voluntary route. What that route looks like is covered in Texas gun license, and where the license is valid outside Texas in Concealed carry and reciprocity.

8How to read the numbers

Every figure on this page has a year, a source and a method, and the three belong together. The stock estimate dates from the end of 2017, the background checks and deaths from 2024, the long view of violence ends in 2018, and the Texas licenses run to the end of 2025. Compare them and you are comparing different things. If you want to know how life in America feels day to day, our guide Safety in the USA offers another perspective, and our guide Freedom in the USA explains what guns stand for to many Americans.

For your own situation, these numbers don't matter. What matters is your immigration status and your state, and you check both before any purchase.

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In short

• There is no official gun registry in the USA; federal law prohibits one. The number of guns is known only from estimates.
• The Small Arms Survey estimated that at the end of 2017 there were around 393 million guns in private hands, 120.5 per 100 residents; for Germany 19.6, for Austria 30.0 and for Switzerland 27.6.
• In 2024, 28,097,205 checks ran through NICS; of the checks handled by the FBI's NICS section, 1.1 percent were denied, most often because of a criminal record.
• The CDC counted 44,447 firearm deaths in 2024, including 27,593 suicides and 15,364 homicides.
• At the end of 2025, exactly 1,416,121 people in Texas held an active License to Carry.

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