{"id":1987070,"date":"2023-07-31T17:01:01","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T21:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gun-ownership-is-probably-far-more-widespread-than-we-thought\/"},"modified":"2023-07-31T17:03:03","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T21:03:03","slug":"gun-ownership-is-probably-far-more-widespread-than-we-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gun-ownership-is-probably-far-more-widespread-than-we-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Gun ownership is likely more common than previously believed."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgun-ownership-is-probably-far-more-widespread-than-we-thought%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1987070&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<figure>\n      <\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Gun owners are not what you might call sharers.<\/strong> And, so, it\u2019s always been difficult to gather good data on the number of firearm or firearm owners in the\u2062 United States.<\/p>\n<p>These days, anti-gun groups like to make the highly \u200cdebatable claim that fewer \u2062Americans own guns, they \u200djust \u200down more\u2062 of them. The most-repeated guess is that\u200c there are around 400 million guns in American\u2064 hands. Many rightly\u2063 suspect that this is a significant\u200b underestimation. Whether it is 400 million or 500 million, there is no evidence of a noticeable decrease in gun-owning households.<\/p>\n<p>As unreliable as polling is, it\u2063 has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/no-one-markets-a-movie-better-why-ryan-reynolds-is-the-movie-star-we-need\/\" title=\"No One Markets A Movie Better: Why Ryan Reynolds Is The Movie Star We Need\">remained remarkably consistent<\/a> in one area. According \u200bto Gallup, gun ownership \u2063per household in 1961 \u200d <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/1645\/guns.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">was<\/a> at 49 percent. By 1993, it was at 51 percent, despite numerous social changes, including a population movement from rural\u200c areas, the sharp decrease\u2062 in hunting as the national pastime, and\u2064 the proliferation of laws meant to inhibit ownership. In\u200d 2013, household\u2063 ownership was at around 45 percent \u2014 fluctuating\u2062 somewhere\u200c in the mid-40s for the next decade.<\/p>\n<p>Is Gallup\u200d undercounting the overall percentage? Probably. A new <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s00127-023-02515-y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a> from New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at Rutgers (<a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2023\/07\/05\/the-ranks-of-gun-owners-grow-and-so-does-their-resistance-to-scrutiny\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">h\/t J.D. Tuccille<\/a>) \u200bfinds that a significant percentage of firearm owners \u201cmay not feel \u200dcomfortable disclosing their ownership status.\u201d\u2064 The study maintains \u2063that many\u200c of those \u201cidentified as potentially falsely denying firearm ownership\u201d are women living alone in urban environments.<\/p>\n<p>This makes sense. I\u2019m not sure how many people realize that the \u200bpandemic era <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/the-pandemic-era-saw-historys-biggest-and-most-diverse-spike-in-gun-ownership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">saw<\/a> the largest,\u2064 and most\u2064 diverse, spike in gun ownership\u200b in American history. Millions of \u2063Americans felt helpless in the \u2064face of rising crime and states that could (or would) not protect them. Around\u200d <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/national-security\/3960527-americans-bought-almost-60-million-guns-during-the-pandemic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">5 percent<\/a> \u2064 of all Americans purchased a gun for the first time during \u2062the Covid\u2063 pandemic. And those new gun\u2062 owners, according to background checks, \u2063were far more diverse than previous gun buyers, with around 69 \u2064percent of first-time buyers being minorities and 85 percent \u200cbeing\u200c under 45 years old. Around half of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.norc.org\/NewsEventsPublications\/PressReleases\/Pages\/one-in-five-american-households-purchased-a-gun-during-the-pandemic.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">all<\/a> \u200d those new gun \u200cpurchasers during that\u2062 time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/women-are-nearly-half-of-new-gun-buyers-study-finds-11631792761\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">were likely women<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As many\u200c gun owners reside\u2063 in areas where the practice is viewed as anti-social and unsafe, it \u200dmakes \u2064sense to see more false denials. Others, the study says, are nervous to admit they have guns because they\u200b believe the government\u200c is trying to\u2064 restrict or take their \u2063firearms. They are correct.<\/p>\n<p>The study largely frames the problem of \u200cunderreporting as a \u2063roadblock to interacting with new gun owners and teaching them safety procedures. That seems to be a\u2063 convenient way to make\u200c the study politically palpable. Because legal gun owners, notwithstanding cultural depictions of them as a bunch of reckless yahoos, are quite conscientious about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/anafaguy\/2023\/03\/02\/most-american-gun-owners-keep-a-weapon-unlocked-study-finds\/?sh=1b34c11c7ac6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">safety<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Also, please keep lying to\u2063 pollsters about your guns. It\u2019s none of their business.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<div>\n<p>David Harsanyi is a\u2063 senior\u200b editor at The Federalist, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/its-joe-biden-not-tommy-tuberville-who-brought-the-culture-war-to-the-military\/\" title=\"Joe Biden, not Tommy Tuberville, initiated the military 'culture war'.\">nationally\u200c syndicated columnist<\/a>, a Happy Warrior columnist at National \u2063Review, and author of five books\u2014the most recent, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eurotrash-America-Reject-Failed-Continent\/dp\/0063066017\/\">Eurotrash: Why America\u2064 Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent<\/a>. Follow him on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/\">@davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div data-image data-amount=\"5\">\n<h2>Popular<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thefederalist.com\/#\"><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thefederalist.com\/#\"><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thefederalist.com\/#\"><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thefederalist.com\/#\"><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thefederalist.com\/#\"><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>claim by anti-gun groups is that fewer Americans own guns, but those who do own more firearms. Gathering accurate data on the number of firearm owners in the United States has always been challenging due to the reluctance of gun owners to share information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":1987071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1987070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1987070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1987071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1987070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1987070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1987070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}