【Double Cross (1996)】

Just 3 percent of Americans own nearly half of all the guns in the country,Double Cross (1996) and there's at least one gun for every American adult, a new study has found.

Of the 265 million guns in the United States, 133 million are owned by just 3 percent of Americans, according to a forthcoming survey by Harvard and Northeastern University researchers. Its preliminary findings were released by The Guardian and The Trace Monday.

SEE ALSO: A week after Orlando shooting, four gun control bills fail in U.S. Senate

One of the most notable findings is that there are more guns out there, but a smaller fraction of Americans who own them. Since 1994, the percentage of Americans who own guns has gone down from 25% to 22%. But there are 70 million more guns in circulation, the survey's results show.

The 55 million Americans who own guns have an average of three firearms each, it finds, but there's also a group of so-called "super-owners." They are the 7.7 million Americans who own between eight and 140 guns.

Collectors, hobbyists and hunters make up some of these gun owners. However, the high number of guns they own are due to other factors also.

"The recent state of mass shootings has led some gun owners to purchase more guns," Adam Winkler, author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America and a researcher of gun control and constitutional law at the UCLA School of Law, told Mashable Monday.

The calls for gun control that usually follow these shootings can actually "push the gun owners to buy the gun that's about to be banned," Winkler said. He added that hard-line gun rights advocates may even purchase more firearms "as a political act."

Major surges in gun sales have followed President Barack Obama's calls for tighter gun control following the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy in 2012 and the San Bernardino attack in 2015, according to an analysis of federal data by the New York Times.

The Harvard and Northeastern study also found that most Americans say they own guns for self-defense.

Harvard survey: 63% cited self-defense as one of their primary reasons for owning a gun. https://t.co/noKZ7BDTBJ pic.twitter.com/aaBmoxKCAy

— The Trace (@teamtrace) September 19, 2016

Of the slight increase in women buying guns — up from 9 percent in 1994 to 12 percent today — most of them say it's for self-defense.

But experts say that trend doesn't make sense given the statistics on violent crime.

"The irony is that crime has been going down for 20 years," Winkler told Mashable. But with the rise in mass shootings in recent years, he said, the NRA-endorsed argument that it's safer to be armed during a shooting "becomes more appealing."

Harvard survey: In the last decade, gun sales have become completely untethered from crime stats. https://t.co/noKZ7BDTBJ pic.twitter.com/NvITGWF1L3

— The Trace (@teamtrace) September 19, 2016

Still, this perceived need for greater self-defense doesn't match up with reality.

“The desire to own a gun for protection — there’s a disconnect between that and the decreasing rates of lethal violence in this country," Matthew Miller, a Northeastern University and Harvard School of Public Health professor who co-authored the new study, told the Guardian. "It isn’t a response to reality."

The research also found that gun owners also more likely to be male, white, conservative and live in rural areas — a demographic profile Winkler described as "not surprising."

He said that as the American population becomes more racially diverse, more college-educated, and more urbanized, the country is "moving in a direction that supports more gun control." There's been a "powerful, well-financed" movement for gun control in recent years, he said, citing the largest gun control group, Everytown for Gun Safety, and its founder Michael Bloomberg.

"You are seeing some hardening in the gun debate," he said.

While there have always been single-issue voters for gun rights, Winkler said, the same couldn't be said for those in support of gun control. But the tide has turned since President Obama's speech following the Sandy Hook shooting that left 28 people dead in 2012. Since then, left-wing politicians and voters have been more vocal proponents of gun control.

"Democrats shied away from gun control before [Sandy Hook],"Winkler told Mashable. "And now [Hillary] Clinton is running on it."

Just last week, House Democrats pushed for a vote on gun laws that ultimately never happened.

.@HouseGOP, give us a #gunvote. What are you afraid of? #gunviolence #doyourjob pic.twitter.com/BEg4e4N45d

— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) September 14, 2016

By not allowing a #GunVote or debate, House leaders are failing the American people. If we do nothing, nothing will change. #NotOneMore

— Lois Capps (@RepLoisCapps) September 14, 2016

The need for new gun laws is difficult to measure since there's actually a freeze on federal funding toward research. In 1996, Congress passed the NRA-lobbied Dickey Amendment, which essentially stopped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from researching gun violence.

Many experts say this makes it difficult to examine and resolve a public health issue that leaves about 30,000 people dead each year.

For instance, the number of instances when a firearm is used defensively (but is not necessarily fired) has a huge range. "The data is so imperfect on that, that the predictions range from 80,000 to 6 million a year," Winkler said. "It's really a sign that we just don't have very good information on guns, how they're used, and what laws would reduce crime."

This lack of data makes the new Harvard and Northeastern study, set to be published next year by the Russell Sage Foundation, all the more monumental. Gun news outlet The Trace called it the "most authoritative assessment of American gun ownership in 20 years."