In 1945, the population of the United States was around 140 million people, and those Americans owned an estimated 45 million guns, or about one gun for every three people. By 2023, the population of the United States stood at just over 330 million people, and according to historical data from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the number of guns produced and imported for the US market since 1899 exceeds 474 million firearms. Even assuming some of those guns have broken or been destroyed or illegally exported, there are easily more guns than people in the United States today. How and why the number of guns rose so precipitously in the US since World War II is our story today.
Joining me to help us learn more about guns in the United States in the second half of the 20th Century is Dr. Andrew C. McKevitt, the John D. Winters Endowed Professor of History at Louisiana Tech University and author of Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Johnny Get Your Gun,” composed by Monroe H. Rosenfeld and performed by Harry C. Browne, in New York on April 19, 1917; the audio is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a Hi-Standard ad from 1957.

Additional sources:

“How Many Guns Are Circulating in the U.S.?” by Jennifer Mascia and Chip Brownlee, The Trace, Originally posted March 6, 2023, and Updated August 28, 2023.

“The Mysterious Meaning of the Second Amendment,” by James C. Phillips and Josh Blackman, The Atlantic, February 28, 2020.

“Timeline of Gun Control in the United States,” by Robert Longley, ThoughtCo, updated on January 08, 2023.

“Do Black People Have Equal Gun Rights?” by Charles C. W. Cooke, The New York Times, October 25, 2014.

“Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West,” by Matt Jancer, Smithsonian Magazine, February 5, 2018.

“The NRA Wasn't Always Against Gun Restrictions,” by Ron Elving, NPR, October 10, 2017.

“How NRA’s true believers converted a marksmanship group into a mighty gun lobby,” by Joel Achenbach, Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz, Washington Post, January 12, 2013.

“Opinion: The reality of gun violence in the US is bleak, but history shows it’s not hopeless,” by Julian Zelizer, CNN, April 1, 2023.

“Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of 1968,” by Franklin E. Zimring, The Journal of Legal Studies 4, no. 1 (1975): 133–98.

“Remarks Upon Signing the Gun Control Act of 1968,” by President Lyndon B. Johnson, The American Presidency Project.

“The Inside History of How Guns Are Marketed and Sold in America,” by Olivia B. Waxman, Time Magazine, August 19, 2022.

“The Supreme Court will hear a case that could effectively legalize automatic weapons,” by Ian Millhiser, Vox, November 3, 2023.


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