{"id":7246,"date":"2016-01-19T18:48:35","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T18:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/?p=7246"},"modified":"2016-01-20T22:42:43","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T22:42:43","slug":"since-2010-gun-stores-have-grown-4-7-times-faster-than-the-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/since-2010-gun-stores-have-grown-4-7-times-faster-than-the-population","title":{"rendered":"Since 2010, the Number of Gun Sellers has Grown 4.7 Times Faster than the Population"},"content":{"rendered":"
Written by BuildZoom’s Chief Economist Dr. Issi Romem and Jack Cookson<\/span><\/h6>\n

There are many, many gun sellers in the United States. In fact, there are more than five times as many gun sellers as Starbucks<\/span><\/a><\/span> locations, and four times as many as McDonalds<\/span><\/a><\/span> restaurants. Not impressed?\u00a0The number of gun sellers in the country is about the same as the number of elementary schools<\/span><\/a><\/span>, and is about half the number of gas stations<\/span><\/a><\/span>. The staggering number helps explain how 23 million guns <\/span><\/a><\/span>were sold in the US <\/span>in 2015 alone \u2013 approximately one new gun for every thirteen Americans.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We used public data<\/span><\/a><\/span> on gun sellers – i.e. unique business locations of licensed gun dealers – to see how their number and geography has changed in the past few years. What we found was shocking. <\/span><\/p>\n

As of January 2010, there were 53,753 gun sellers in the US, which add up to 17.4 gun sellers for every 100,000 people. By December 2015 that number had jumped to 63,585, or more than 19.8 gun sellers per 100,000 people. That\u2019s an increase of 13.8 percent in just under six years.<\/span><\/p>\n

If that\u2019s not enough to rock you, consider this. From January 2010 to December 2015, the US population increased by 3.9 percent, but over the same period the number of guns stores increased by 18.3 percent. That means the number of gun sellers grew 4.7 times faster than the population!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We knew the US was flush with gun sellers, but we didn\u2019t realize the number was growing so fast.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"population_seller_bar_edit\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The following map shows the increase<\/strong> in the number of gun sellers per capita by state (for a map of gun sellers per capita, as opposed to the increase thereof, see here<\/span><\/span><\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/a>There are two important takeaways from the map:<\/span><\/p>\n