The share of American households owning at least one firearm has remained relatively steady since 1972, hovering between ** percent and ** percent. In 2023, about ** percent of U.S. households had at least one gun in their possession. Additional information on firearms in the United States Firearms command a higher degree of cultural significance in the United States than any other country in the world. Since the inclusion of the right to bear arms in the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, firearms have held symbolic power beyond their already obvious material power. Despite many Americans being proud gun-owners, a large movement exists within the country in opposition to the freedom afforded to those in possession of these potentially deadly weapons. Those opposed to current gun regulation have sourced their anger from the large number of deaths due to firearms in the country, as well as the high frequency of gun violence apparent in comparison to other developed countries. Furthermore, the United States has fallen victim to a number of mass shootings in the last two decades, most of which have raised questions over the ease at which a person can obtain a firearm. Although this movement holds a significant position in the public political discourse of the United States, meaningful change regarding the legislation dictating the ownership of firearms has not occurred. Critics have pointed to the influence possessed by the National Rifle Association through their lobbying of public officials. The National Rifle Association also lobbies for the interests of firearm manufacturing in the United States, which has continued to rise since a fall in the early 2000s.

Firearms background checks for the USA for 2012 (Jan-Nov) and since 1999.These statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS. They do not represent the number of firearms sold. NICS is used by Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to instantly determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms or explosives. Before ringing up the sale, cashiers call in a check to the FBI or to other designated agencies to ensure that each customer does not have a criminal record or isn't otherwise ineligible to make a purchase. More than 100 million such checks have been made in the last decade, leading to more than 700,000 denials. More information on NICS - http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics Some really useful informations such as the rate of checks per 1000 people. All data is provided by state. Downloaded from the Guardian Datablog - http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/dec/17/how-many-guns-us and then joined to USA States data http://geocommons.com/overlays/21424. Gun data originally from FBI http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics. GIS vector data. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2012-12-17 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-21.