Bernie Sanders on guns: what the evidence says · JRE #1330

What the evidence says 01 / RECORD

There is no official U.S. count of civilian-owned firearms, so estimates vary by methodology, but Sanders' figures fall within the range of credible estimates rather than being contradicted by them. On total guns, The Trace's ongoing analysis of ATF manufacturing, import, and export data, applying economist Philip Cook's standard 1% annual attrition rate for guns falling out of circulation, arrives at approximately 403 million guns in circulation, closely matching Sanders' approximately 400 million figure. Other rigorous estimates diverge: the Small Arms Survey put U.S. civilian-held firearms at 393 million as of 2017, while the Harvard/Northeastern National Firearms Survey, using owner-reported data, estimated a considerably lower 265 million in 2015. On assault weapons, there is no standardized legal or statistical definition, which is why estimates for that subset vary widely. PolitiFact fact-checked this same Sanders claim, made publicly around the time of this August 2019 episode, and rated it Half True, concluding that the 5 to 10 million figure is likely conservative (i.e., a plausible floor rather than an inflated number) but that no official count of assault-style weapons exists in either civilian or military hands. Overall, both figures are within the range of credible, if imprecise, estimates.