Even if there were 5 million net new gun owners (which your source doesn't even begin to indicate), that would be less than +2% of the adult population, which would be within the year-to-year noise in any of the data series on gun ownership. It wouldn't cast even the slightest bit of doubt on the long term trend, which is clear in every long term data series on the issue.

And, of course, 5 million first time gun buyers aren't the same as 5 million new gun owners, much less 5 million net new gun owners, (that is, after accounting for gun owners who died or—voluntarily or not—stopped owning guns; and the died part is more significant than you might think, as gun ownership is significantly lower in the sub-50 age cohorts than the 50-64 and 65+ cohorts; just by naive estimation considering only age, deaths in the 50+ cohort alone would reduce the count of gun owners by something like 1.3 million, and in all age categories by about 1.4 million)

> just by naive estimation

This isn’t a serious critique. It’s some guesswork and assumptions on your part.

If someone has done a real analysis that produces results similar to yours, it would be helpful for you to link to it.

> This isn’t a serious critique.

Thar counting new buyers isn't the same as counting net change in gun owners is a serious critique. That people, including gun owners, do in fact die is a major part of that.

I'm quite up front that I wasn't proposing that the calculation was more than a very simplistic estimate of the number that assumes gun owners don't have substantially different mortality risk than other people of the same age, but the number wasn’t the important part of the critique, the fact that the argument about increase in gun owners completely ignores all sources of reduction—deaths, people voluntarily stopping being gun owners, people involuntarily stopping being gun owners was the critique.

Also the fact that even if the 5 million was net new gun owners, it wouldn't actually mean much in the overall trend.

Still not serious:

1. The increase in new gun owners is a change of direction.

2. The fact that most of the new gun owners are in previously unrepresented groups shows this. I.e. it can’t be just noise.

3. If you are claiming it is an artifact caused by neglecting deaths or people becoming non-gun owners, you need a real analysis, otherwise you are just introducing unsubstantiated FUD about the methodology. Like I said, and you have essentially agreed - not a serious critique.

4. How do you know that if there are 5 million net new gun owners it is not part of a change in the trend? That is a naked assertion that evaluates to simply ignoring the data that would indicate a change.

I will share the anecdote that I know people who work at shooting ranges, and they say that they have been completely innudated with new shooters.

That simply wouldn’t be the case if it were just an artifact of the numbers.

It’s worth pointing out that if there is any correctness to the idea that the mass of gun owners trends older and so are dying and the trend is towards new gun owners trending younger, then the upward trend would be stronger than the numbers show and would be masked rather than negated.