The FBI violence stats for 2013 are out.

[benEzra]

9. No, gun ownership has been steady since the mid-1990s, while murders decreased 50%.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/Guns.aspx

What does change on short time scales is the willingness of gun owners to discuss a very private matter with some stranger who cold-calls you on the phone, claims to be taking a survey, and asks you if you own guns. Look at the two data points on opposite sides of the 1994 gun-control debacle; a thirteen point drop in one survey, and then back up to 42% where it's been for more than a decade now.

That doesn't mean that fifteen million households sold all their guns (or lost them in tragic boating accidents) in 1994 and then eight or ten million households bought them back a couple years later. What it demonstrates is that the more hostile the climate, the less inclined gun owners are to tell some random caller about what valuables they own and how they store them. I'm one of them; I talk about gun ownership here where I am relatively anonymous, but I damn sure won't tell some caller I don't personally know.

One thing some people also forget when looking at rates is that there are way more households than there used to be per capita, so the fact that per-household ownership rate is holding steady is actually growth in absolute numbers, as you know.