An expansion in the arms trade is partly responsible for the upward revision. Two important sources of growth are increased spending by US civilians on small arms and their ammunition, and large-scale government purchases of military firearms and light weapons for international and national armed forces involved in fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Better information and more nuanced research methodologies have also played a role in refining the estimate.
The indicators are all there, yet the gun control proponents keep insisting this is a small number of hard core insurrectionist gun nuts fueling this by filling their underground bunkers with AK-47s and thousands of rounds of ammunition. That’s easier for them to accept that there has been a debate over gun control, and their side lost. Now we’re seeing the cultural implications of that loss.
It is kind of weird that they seek comfort in the former hypothesis.