Need Real Stats on AR15 Sales

[Welding Rod]

I am working on a proposal to set up and teach a community college class on AR15s... Safety, familiarization with the weapon, and so on.

As part of the justification for my proposal I want to include some reliable statistics pertaining to the sales numbers of AR. I would also like to be able to report that the gun is the most popular rifle sold in the US today if I can find a reliable source proving that is so.

Can anyone point me in the right direct to source some hard facts?

 

[hatt]

This link isn't the most informative. It appears to show that almost 1 out of every three long guns sold was an AR. Certainly the most sold specific design.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/201...-in-2012-ar-15-production-up-over-100-percent

 

[Librarian]

I don't believe the information is available.

A survey of selling dealers would be needed - AFAIK no official data collection has been made to provide that info.

 

[USAF_Vet]

Without federal registration of all long guns, it'd be impossible to tell how many new AR-15s get sold. Without universal back ground checks, it'd be impossible to tell how many AR-15s get transferred between private parties.

If we had either of those, I doubt the fed.gov would be too quick to publish it for anyone's access, probably just law enforcement.

 

[HammsBeer]

No hard stats, but one article said that production numbers from '86 to '07 there were 1.6 million manufactured. Based on pre '86 production and the explosive growth of AR's in the last few years, I'd guess there are probably well over 3 million in the U.S. That's at least one for every 100 people.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/20/assault_rifle_stats_how_many_assault_rifles_are_there_in_america.html

 

[USAF_Vet]

And those production numbers probably only count complete rifles, not virgin lowers and completed lowers sold as "other firearms".

 

[Captain33036]

I think a fairly recent TV documentary (America's Gun?) mentioned 800,000 sold per year. That figured might be from the manufacturers association.

Hope this helps

J

 

[Garrobo]

I have

bought 3 in the last months. Does that help

 

[Librarian]

Sales data may be available through the NSSF - http://nssf.org/research/

But they sell their info; you might write and ask if they would give you some aggregate data for the last few years.

 

[chris in va]

With the current admin in office, I'd hazard a guess that more AR's have been sold between 2007 and 2015 than all of 1986 and 2007.

 

[Onmilo]

There is an ATF spreadsheet located near the bottom of this article listing all known sales of AR15 new manufactured rifles up through 2010


http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/dec/17/how-many-ar15-rifles-sold

By adding these figures and dividing by two then adding this figure to the up to 2010 figure will give you a pretty accurate number of the totals sold since 2000. HTH

 

[X-Rap]

Since there are only a handful companies that actually make the lowers I would try and get a concise list of them and go directly to the source for their gross production numbers.
Not a perfect count but probably easier to nail down.

 

[Welding Rod]

Thanks for the tips. I also wrote NSSF and hopefully they will reply.

 

[MAKster]

No such data exists and I doubt there is any desire by any manufacturer or pro-gun group to collect such data. Many would perceive any such data collection as the first step towards government required reporting, registration, etc.

 

[Welding Rod]

I would think that it would be very desirable to know the numbers, provided they were high. It would show that there is a large group of people with an interest in maintaining their right to black rifles, that in spite of wide ownership they are almost never used in crime, and that they are one of if not the most "common use" firearms sold today (in reference to the "common use" language used in a recent favorable Supreme Court decision on hand guns).

However I can see a need to report to a government agency would be quite undesirable, and that there would be a well founded opposition to go that direction.

 

[newfalguy101]

Just as an aside, even if it is the most sold gun, doesn't in reality make it to most popular, there are hundreds, probably thousands of people who have picked up AR's simply because "they might not be able to later"

 

[USAF_Vet]

No such data exists and I doubt there is any desire by any manufacturer or pro-gun group to collect such data. Many would perceive any such data collection as the first step towards government required reporting, registration, etc.

However, if we had an accurate number of sales, i.e number of AR-15s in civilian hands, we can use that information against the Anti's and gun grabbers who claim its so dangerous. If we can accurately say (X) million AR-15s are in civilian hands, and only (Y) are used in crimes, then the percentage of ARs used in crimes is Z%, with Z being an extremely low number, blowing up their argument against the gun itself, and the ammo it uses.

 

[Librarian]

However, if we had an accurate number of sales, i.e number of AR-15s in civilian hands, we can use that information against the Anti's and gun grabbers who claim its so dangerous.

For crime purposes, the gun is fungible - that is, for crime purposes, in almost all cases, one gun is as good as another. Rather than focus on ARs in such a discussion, the argument works for guns in general.

We still don't know who has the guns, but the number of guns in civilian hands in the US is sort-of known, through BATF records of what has been manufactured, imported, and exported. War bring-backs would mostly be unknown, undiscovered smuggled weapons would be unknown, and unlicensed (and unreported) manufacture would be unknown.

The March, 2015 population of the US is about 320 million. The much-maligned Small Arms Survey suggested 270 million for 300 million population in 2007. The number of guns continues to increase - see ATF data Annual Firearms Manufacturers And Export Report; 1998 through 2011 are available.

Lott has some input on SAS data - http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.org/2014/03/comparing-murder-rates-across-countries/

And remember, True Believers cannot be swayed by facts or statistical inference.

 

[FrankCastleThePunisher]

It's been estimated for a long time that there are 100 million gun owners in the U.S. I believe it would be a fairly conservative estimate to say 10 percent of gun owners have AR rifles and a majority of those 10 percent own more than one AR rifle. I would guesstimate that there are well over 10 million AR rifles and probably closer to 20 million AR rifles in the U.S.

 

[MachIVshooter]

Really no way to have anything resembling an accurate figure.

Best you could maybe compile is the number of raw forgings and billet lowers that have been cranked out, but even that would be tough-especially with the number of boutique outfits doing billet lowers. "80%" lowers would have to be figured in, as you'd be off the mark by quite a bit I think if you only included complete weapons and lowers. But you'd also have to attempt to account for goofed "80% lowers", of which there is no shortage. These obviously did not turn into firearms.

I would venture that there are easily 5 or 6 million ARs in this country.

 

[CoalTrain49]

I thought the gun manufacturers had to report the serial numbers of every firearm produced to the ATF when it was shipped and to what FFL it was shipped to. By prefix the ATF would know how many were mfg'd but I doubt you could get the info.

I could be wrong.

 

[MachIVshooter]

I thought the gun manufacturers had to report the serial numbers of every firearm produced to the ATF when it was shipped and to what FFL it was shipped to.

Correct, but incomplete receivers are not firearms, and therefor not serialized. I've no idea what percentage of sales the "80%" receivers comprise, but it's not insignificant.

 

[MAKster]

I thought the gun manufacturers had to report the serial numbers of every firearm produced to the ATF when it was shipped and to what FFL it was shipped to. By prefix the ATF would know how many were mfg'd but I doubt you could get the info.

I could be wrong.

ATF does not know who manufacturers ship their guns to. When a gun is recovered at a crime scene ATF has to call the manufacturer and ask which distributer it was sold to.