Hacker News Reader

The number of background checks should roughly track non-military firearm sales. There were 2.4m of those in March 2017 per the FBI [1]. (No, this doesn't speak directly to your question about manufacturing levels, but this does roughly track how many firearms are available for transfer.)

So yeah, there are more than enough guns in America to support this level of smuggling.

1 - https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_mo...

There are more guns in the US than residents. 2k/day is peanuts.

...except these are going to a very small group of people? And very likely not collectors or hunters.

in texas you can go on armslist.com and buy guns from individuals in a face to face sale. The only paper trail is your contact through armslist. no doubt they are taking advantage of this as well as having mules to legally buy the firearms.

Beretta, who currently supplies the standard issue M9A1 handgun for the US Marine Corps, considers their military sales to be approximately 2% of total gross, so they're definitely doing more in civilian sales than military.