While semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 are a major flashpoint in the gun control debate and are often the focus of attention following mass shootings, there are only about 20 million assault rifles in the United States, a fraction of the estimated 400 million guns in the country.
According to former FBI agent Brad Garrett, handguns account for the most gun murders in the U.S.
Handguns were used in 62% of the nation’s gun murders in 2019, FBI data shows. Data from 2020 has not yet been published.
According to a 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, handguns were the most common type of gun possessed by federal and state prisoners. About 18% of the prisoners said they possessed a handgun, and 2% or less possessed a rifle or shotgun.
Despite public perception, more mass shootings where four or more victims are killed are carried out with handguns as opposed to long guns, according to Garrett.
Handguns generally fall into two categories: 1. revolvers, which are “wheel guns” that hold about six rounds of ammunition, and 2. semi-automatic type handguns, which have smaller sizes that hold roughly seven to eight rounds, and larger ones with about 15 to 16 rounds, according to Garrett.
Handguns are appealing because they’re easy to conceal, easy to access around the house and many people, women in particular, tend to feel most comfortable using them, Garrett said.
Of the 10,258 gun murders in the U.S. in 2019, handguns were used in 6,368 of them, according to FBI data.
These numbers may not be exact due to a lack of gun violence research, said Daniel Flannery, a professor at Case Western Reserve University and the director of the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education.
The “sheer availability” of handguns is behind their popularity, Flannery said.
In 2019, 3.6 million handguns were manufactured in the U.S., Flannery said. Only about 150,000 were exported that year, while another 2.5 million handguns were imported, he said, citing data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates said that 90% of the prisoners who had a gun during their crime didn’t get it from a retail source.
“It’s way easier to get a handgun than it is to do just about anything else in this country,” Flannery said. “Our background check is woefully inadequate.”
“We really only put any kind of boundaries on federally licensed gun dealers,” he said, who are the only ones who “have the capacity to conduct a background check, whether it be at their store or when they are present at a gun show sale.”
All other private sales involve sellers who either don’t have the ability to conduct a check or don’t have “a system that is comprehensive and timely and thorough as a check system,” Flannery said.