Informal survey:
1 - Are you a Type 01, 02, 07, or 08?
2 - Ballpark - what percentage of your non-NFA transfers are "new additions to the inventory of civilian-owned firearms" vs. "not new additions"?

Why I'm asking: research ideas for new articles.

Example stat:
2017 Small Arms Survey  - In America, there are an estimated 1.205 civilian-possessed firearms per resident.
US Census 2017 (March 1) - 324,342,783.
2017 estimated total firearms in civilian possession = 390,833,054.
Combined estimate of NCVS Firearm Crime incidents + NVSS Firearm Homicides = 432,023 total gun crimes in America 2017.
Conclusion: an estimated 0.11% of civilian guns are used in crimes; 99.89% of civilian guns are not used in crimes.
Discussion: some guns are used in multiple crimes, therefore the percentage of civilian guns used for crime is less than 0.11%. etc. Guns don't cause crime. etc.
Maybe this is a good stat to use when confronting the "guns cause crime" BS.
Thoughts?

Anyway, back to the main question:
I got to thinking about US population growth vs. NSSF-adjusted NICS counts (the best available representation of annual domestic civilian gun sales).

In 2017, U.S. pop increased by 2.146 million, there were 13.967 million NSSF-adjusted NICS transfers.
In 2018, U.S. pop increased by 1.798 million, there were 13.116 million NSSF-adjusted NICS transfers.
In 2019, U.S. pop increased by 1.592 million, there were 13.199 million NSSF-adjusted NICS transfers.

If all the transfers represented new guns sold into the civilian-owned market for the first time, you could estimate that the civilian gun inventory is growing 6 or 8 times faster than the population.

But that's not the case.
A percentage of the transfers is for "used" guns, perhaps better described as transfers of guns not being added to the inventory of civilian guns for the first time.
Ex.: If Joe trades 2 old guns to a dealer while buying one new gun, then next week the dealer sells the old guns to 2 different buyers, you have 3 transfers but only 1 addition to the national inventory of civilian guns.

Since NICS does not track old vs. new status of transferred guns, there's no way to present a statistic comparing population growth to civilian gun ownership growth.
I'm not sure there is even a good reason to try.

But I'm still curious:
As a licensee, do you have a feel for your annual percentage of "this is a new addition to the civilian gun inventory" vs. "not a new addition" transfers?

Thx.

PS - I'm sure you guys already know, but Covid March 2020 was the biggest NICS month ever: 2.375 million NSSF-adjusted NICS transfers.

Normally about 90%.  This year so far, 50%.

<----01FFL/SOT

87% of my transfers are Title I firearms.
Of those, 75% are new.

I give little credence to the FBI NICS stats as a means of correlating firearm sales. Twenty five states have a state firearm permit that serves as an exemption to the NICS check. At least 80% of my transfers are to Texas LTC/CHL holders. (meaning no NICS on them)

NICS doesn't track stats on how many guns, just buyer/transferees.

Thanks for the replies!

1 - It is helpful to have FFL Type.

2 - Tom's extra info is valuable: approx 80% of his transfers require no NICS because the gun goes to a permit holder. I should improve the survey. See the next post.

3 - NSSF-adjusted NICS is the proprietary "adjusted" NICS count maintained by NSSF.
It excludes NICS permit checks and re-checks, which makes it a somewhat more accurate representation of gun sales.
It excludes sales that don't require a check because the buyer is a permit holder, which makes it a less accurate representation of gun sales; it understates sales.

The NSSF stat still has value, and is widely accepted as a reasonable or best-available indicator of approximate sales, trends.
Example: The 2019 value is 13.2 million transfers. Not 46,000. Not 70,000,000. That has meaning.
The 20 year trend is "up and strong," which also has meaning.

http://www2.nssf.org/l/127421/2019-02-15/3q9fpt

https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/NSSFAdjustedNICSMonthlyHistory.pdf

TLDR version:

1 - What is your FFL Type?

2 - What state?

3 - Ballpark, what percentage of your non-NFA transfers represent a "new gun added to the number of civilian-owned guns",
vs. what percentage "recycle a gun that was already in circulation" ?

4 - Ballpark, what percentage of your "new addition to American-owned guns" sales are made without NICS because buyer is a permit holder?

Thanks!

TLDR version:

1 - What is your FFL Type?  07

2 - What state? Kentucky

3 - Ballpark, what percentage of your non-NFA transfers represent a "new gun added to the number of civilian-owned guns",
vs. what percentage "recycle a gun that was already in circulation" ? about 50/50.

4 - Ballpark, what percentage of your "new addition to American-owned guns" sales are made without NICS because buyer is a permit holder? less than half.

1 - What is your FFL Type?  01FFL/03SOT

2 - What state?  Washington

3 - Ballpark, what percentage of your non-NFA transfers represent a "new gun added to the number of civilian-owned guns",
vs. what percentage "recycle a gun that was already in circulation" ?  90% New, 10% Used.

4 - Ballpark, what percentage of your "new addition to American-owned guns" sales are made without NICS because buyer is a permit holder? 0%.  WA requires a NICS check on every purchase/transfer, even permit holders.

If I had to guess I'd say somewhere around 40%

I have a fair number of collectors who use me.

Then there's the SAFE act which requires a dealer for private transfers. Every gun in both categories is obviously a used gun.

So I'm pretty comfortable with that 40% number

I'm in NYS, so we have the hardest permit in the country to get,but it doesn't act as an exemption to NICS because Albany doesn't want to make anything about owning a gun easier for the gun community

I don't know if you're looking at it, or whether it would be useful but the ATF publishes an annual statistical report on firearms commerce. Here's 2019:

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/report/2019-firearms-commerce-report/download

To find more years, and see other reports go to the ATF's data page: https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/data-statistics

Yep, ATF publishes that report annually, thx.