Are there more US hunters than worldwide military personnel? By most measures, no
Delta Theta Sigma fraternity brothers Tom Kirby, left, Ryan Bostdorf, center and Matt Bosley hunt for deer together on Penn State University farm land in State College, Pa., Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008. Some online are claiming that hunters in the U.S. outnumber military personnel worldwide. By most measures, this is wrong — but there are different ways to slice the numbers. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
CLAIM: There are more hunters in the U.S. than the world’s armies combined.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: Partly false. Around 14.4 million people hunted in the U.S. last year, but there could be as many as 25-30 million hunters if you account for those who don’t hunt every year, experts told The Associated Press. By contrast, data shows that there were 43.3 million active duty and reservist military personnel worldwide in 2022, although this number drops to 20.8 million if only active-duty troops are counted as making up “the world’s armies.”
THE FACTS: A meme being shared by gun-rights groups on social media suggests there are so many hunters in the U.S. that they could take on the world’s combined military might.
“American hunters outnumber the world’s armies..combined,” reads text over the shadow of a moose as seen through a gun sight. “And they’re all snipers.”
But by most measures, this claim is wrong — although there are different ways to slice the numbers.
Approximately 14.4 million people in the U.S. hunted in 2022, according to Mark Duda, the founder and executive director of Responsive Management, a research firm which studies natural resource and outdoor recreation issues.
Duda cited a 2022 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey, not yet released publicly, which was conducted by NORC, an independent social research organization at the University of Chicago. These figures include people who hunted without licenses, which is legal under certain circumstances that vary from state to state.
The number of hunting licenses purchased in 2021 — the most recent data available from the Fish and Wildlife Service — is slightly higher at 15.9 million, but some people buy multiple licenses if they hunt in different states.
However, there are plenty of people in the U.S. who don’t hunt every year, a fluctuation known as “churn rate.”
Lincoln Larson, an associate professor at North Carolina State University who studies natural resources management and conservation, said that rate is probably about 20-25%. Based on that, he estimated there are around 20-25 million hunters in the U.S.
Duda similarly put this estimate at a maximum of 30 million.
Comparatively, the International Institute for Strategic Studies reported in its 2023 assessment of the world’s military capabilities that there were about 43.3 million active duty and reservist troops worldwide the previous year — significantly higher than top estimates of U.S. hunters.
The gap closes, however, when only the approximately 20.8 million active-duty military personnel are included in “the world’s armies.”
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.