> now Americans already own a lot of guns and shoot each other a lot Your analysis of the data may vary, but: Between 1998 and 2019, there have been more than

> now Americans already own a lot of guns and shoot each other a lot Your analysis of the data may vary, but: Between 1998 and 2019, there have been more than 391,897,875 background checks for gun purchases in the U.S.[1]. It is unknown which of those were for rifles; it is also unknown what percentage of those background checks were for multiple firearm purchases in a single transactions. The AR-15 is the most popular rifle by far, so it seems entirely plausible that there are perhaps vastly more than 100 million AR-15's in private ownership in the U.S. (An interesting point is that it is rather unlikely that most people would be so unwise as to advertise ownership.) (Of note, there is no legal definition of assault rifle, and the "AR" in AR-15 stands for Armalite, one of the first manufacturers of the AR-15.) In total, less than 400 killings (including murders, self-defense, suicide etc) per year committed with all types of rifles[2]. (In fact, more people are killed each year with blunt objects like clubs, hammers, etc.) Those who wish to increase ownership of handguns would do well to note that many, many people in the U.S. own handguns for personal defense, and a very tiny fraction are used for killing in any given year. By far the largest handgun numbers are from people taking their own lives, and most of the others are from criminal activities, typically in large cities. Those criminal activities are committed by people who, by definition, do not obey the law. This is obviously a politically fraught topic; just wanted to provide some actual, if somewhat surprising, data. Again, your analysis and politics may vary, but that's the data. 1. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf/view https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_mo... 2. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...