America has almost as many guns in civilian hands as there are people in the country but those weapons are owned by a small group of people, surveys show.
Just a quarter of the population is believed to own the estimated 310million weapons currently in circulation, with the average gun owner having three firearms.
But astonishingly just three per cent of Americans, or 7.7million people, are thought to own half of the nation’s firearms.
America has anywhere up to 310 million guns in civilian ownership, surveys show, but only around a quarter of citizens own a weapon, while just three per cent of people are though to possess half of all firearms
Stephen Paddock was a member of that 3 per cent group – police found he owned 47 guns, 23 of which he brought to Las Vegas to carry out his massacre
That statistic reemerged after Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock was found to own an arsenal of 47 firearms, 23 of which were found in the hotel room from which he carried out his massacre.
The data was revealed in a 2015 survey by Harvard and Northwestern University, which showed members of this group have an average of 17 guns each.
The highest number of guns found by a single owner in the survey was 140.
While the data makes for alarming reading, it largely relies on self-reporting because there is no federal requirement for guns to be registered, and many states allow purchases without a licence or permit.
Americans are thought to own around half of all weapons in civilians hands in the world, though rates of ownership have declined over the years
This means the conclusions could be skewed because the underlying data sets are incomplete.
In 2013 the Pew Research Center estimated that there could be between 270 million and 310 million in civilian ownership in the US.
If true, that would mean Americans own roughly half of all the guns in civilian hands anywhere in the world, and enough to arm virtually every man, woman and child in the country.
In that same survey 37 per cent reported having a gun in their house, while 24 per cent said they owned that weapon.
That represents a large drop from 1973 when the General Social Survey found that 49 per cent of Americans had a gun somewhere in their home.