Americans vastly overestimate the number of gun owners in the country by a range of 13 to 23 percentage points, according to analysis in The Washington Post.

Though there is no concrete number of gun owners in the U.S., research by both gun rights and gun control groups puts the range at 20 to 30 percent of Americans who own at least one gun, the Post reports.

However, survey respondents put the overall number at 43 percent. Further, nearly 1 in 5 thought that 70 percent of Americans own at least one gun, the Post reports.

There's even a term for those who overestimate the size of minority populations - political innumeracy.

The correlation is that those who overestimated the percentage of gun owners tended to oppose laws restricting gun ownership, the Post reports.

"These exaggerated perceptions of gun ownership may make it easier for legislators to pass laws expanding gun rights," write the researchers, Mark Joslyn and Don Haider-Markel from Kansas University.

"After all, if most constituents own a gun — and more will do so in the future — then supporting gun rights makes political sense. And these overestimates might even influence Americans’ beliefs about whether they themselves should buy a gun. After all, if you think most people own one, shouldn’t you be prepared as well?" write Joslyn and Haider-Markel.