A U.S. report released by the Department of Justice states that “In the past two decades alone, firearms manufacturers in the United States have produced more than 139 million handguns, including 11.3 million produced in 2020 alone.” During the same period, the United States imported 71 million firearms and exported only 7.5 million, numbers that reflect the vast amount of firearms available in the country, which contributed to the escalation of gun violence, killings, and suicides.

In fact, the firearms sector has grown exponentially over two decades, according to the report, as the number of gun manufacturing companies operating in the United States has increased from 2,222 companies in 2000 to 16,936 companies in 2020. In turn, the annual production of firearms for commercial sale jumped from 3.9 million in 2000 to 11.3 million in 2020, with that number peaking in 2016 at 11.9 million.

The report shows that if Americans preferred semi-automatic weapons, which were used in many mass shootings, then the vast majority of them bought 9mm semi-automatic pistols, cheap, accurate, easy to use and similar weapons that the police use it.