03 March 2012

American household gun ownership is declining


The numbers and the trend surprised me too.  The graphs are derived from data obtained in the General Social Survey (website here).  There is discussion of the significance and implications at Think Progress, via The Dish.

27 comments:

  1. After watching the movie you linked to the other day about police brutality in the US, it seems to me we should all own guns and skip the 911 call.

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    1. Sorry, but I fail to see the connection.
      You call the police because your neighbour is having a drunken party that's getting out of control, the police don't handle it properly - so you shoot someone?

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    2. Wow. In what world is a noisy neighbor a good reason to call 911? The original poster specifically mentioned "skip the 911 call".

      A 911 call is supposed to be for a life-threatening situation. If that threat is from an intruder, the sad truth is that the police will probably arrive to late.

      If you have a noisy neighbor problem, why not be civilized simply ask them to keep it down? If you must get the police involved, don't call 911, call the non-emergency number. No matter how badly you need your beauty sleep, that is NOT a 911 emergency. And of course it isn't a reason to resort to violence, with or without a gun.

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    3. Yeah - I originally wrote noisy party and realised it didn't express the sort of thing I meant which is why I changed it.

      What I had in mind was what used to happen in some of the less salubrious parts of London I've lived in - parties that overflow into the street with happy people throwing milk-bottles[1] across the road at each other and smashing car windows.

      [1] UK - glass milk bottles.

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    4. An example for you...
      A court of Appeals declared " police do not have a duty to provide police services to individuals":
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

      If those girls had guns instead of relying on others, they might have been saved from 14 hours of horrifying, inhuman acts against them.

      Watch the full movie that Stan linked to only part of ("The Largest Street Gang in America). Of course, I wouldn't paint everyone with this broad brush, but there is a significant issue, as evidenced by the behavior we see time and again from TSA agents.

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    5. You can "prove" almost anything you want to by using specific examples - we all know about the uncle who smoked twenty a day and lived to a hundred - but it's irrelevant. You might as well say that you know of someone who died because they couldn't release their seatbelt, therefore no one should use seatbelts.
      What utter rot.
      What matters is the overall safety. In the UK, which has strict gun laws, we have a gun murder rate of 0.12/100,000 and an overall murder rate of 1.45/100,000. The US figures are 2.97 and 4.55 (both sets from 2000, ours have gone down significantly since then, I don't know about the US rates).
      You will probably find some way to draw a different conclusion to mine, and there I'm content to let the matter rest.

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  2. Not disagreeing with the study, but I am a bit surprised to see the chart. It seems to conflict with several news reports I have heard recently that mention an increase in gun sales in the last couple of years.

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    1. Hah! Guns are legally sold in the US and ilegally brought to Mexico, Afghanistan, Iran, you name it.

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    2. A lot of people that buy guns have multiple, multiple guns. It gets kind of ridiculous, they end up with a small armory. That is probably the biggest factor in the increase. A lot of people thought it was going to be harder to buy guns with Obama as president, so they started snapping them up.

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  3. Conservatives like to point out that crime has decreased as poverty has increased the last several years. They say the only explanation can be the increase in gun sales. Is it just that fewer gun owners are buying more guns?

    I don't think criminals are sitting at home fearing an armed populace.

    Jim in Maine

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  4. @Timothy Benefield:
    Not necessarily. This is 'households with guns' Given that a house has a gun, the average number of 'guns per household' is 4.4 (googleable). It is possible that most of the increase in gun sales is due to people that already have guns.

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  5. I'm surprised that roughly 32% of households have guns - that seems very high in my experience. But then, I think my dad has a .22 rifle in the attic that he hasn't used since he was a kid. There's no ammo for it in the house, and I'm not sure how many family members even know it's there. But I guess my family's among that number too. Growing up, none of my friends' families were gun enthusiasts or hunters, but I guess a number of them could have had an old rifle tucked away somewhere too. I'd be curious to know what percentage of households have a gun and ammo where the owner can get to it within two minutes.

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  6. I haven't seen any data, but I would guess that the decline is due to a decline in hunting as a household sport. When I was growing up in rural Upstate New York, most of my high school classmates hunted, and it was even common for a good percentage of the class to be absent on opening day of hunting season. Friends still living in the area tell me that this has definitely become a thing of the past and that relatively few hunters remain.

    I would not be surprised to see data supporting my guess that while overall gun ownership has declined, the ownership of personal defense firearms has increased.

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  7. I can't imagine anyone lying about their gun ownership on a survey. Especially with dot gov's increasingly friendly attitude towards gun owners.

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  8. Mel V. may have a point. I own a handgun, but it's the .38 that my grandfather carried when he was in the cavalry. It'll get handed down to one of my nephews when I'm gone (he's in the Air Force and does not, so far as I know, currently own a personal firearm).

    I can't ever see carrying it for protecion. It's a fine weapon and I was allowed to use it on the pistol range when I was a Marine, but it's also one of those old long-barreled models and a little bulky.

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  9. I own a pistol, a small rifle, and oh dear an assault rifle. All of mine were bought from private individuals because I am of the Red Dawn generation. No records for me.

    Zombies are coming.

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    1. Of course, anything you post on the internet is easily traced by interested parties. If somebody wanted, they could get your IP address and cross-link that to your ISP, who could then be compelled to identify your internet account (public internet terminals may be a bit safer, though at our library we must sign in to use them, so again identifiable)

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  10. I suspect that the decline may have something to do with urbanization. When one lives on a farm a gun is a useful tool. You can shoot dangerous or terminally ill animals. In addition you have sufficient land to use it for recreation without fear that shooting tin cans in your back yard will injure a neighbor.

    Once you move to a city it becomes more of a luxury. You can still use it for personal protection, but that need doesn't often arise. In order to use it you need to pack it up, go to a shooting range, and likely pay a fee.

    Add on the original cost of the weapon and I can see how it would be less appealing to the younger more city-based generations.

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    1. This is a good point.

      Growing up in Alaska, there were places that it was very wise to carry a weapon when going out for a while. Where I was raised, there were bears, wolves, and a prison all within a few miles. Moose and coyotes were numerous as well, but they only posed a danger when there was something wrong with the animals.

      Living in rural (farmville) Nebraska, I'd say virtually every farmer has several weapons as it is a very useful tool. Less so in the "larger" cities in the area.

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  11. Well this article suggests that hunting is in decline.
    http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-12-19-hunting-decline-new_N.htm

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  12. I would love to see statistics on gun ownership correlated to years of education. I suspect that those with more education are less likely to have guns.

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    1. that's real smart.........lol

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    2. @Barbwire, you may be right but possibly because education = wealth = safer neighborhoods...

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    3. I think this is laughable. I'm a graduate student in health care living in a large metropolitan area, and many of my classmates have guns. I don't own one, but I've considered buying one recently. I was actually surprised to see that many of my classmates who tend to be socially liberal enjoy going to the gun range to squeeze off a few rounds.

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  13. I'm not sure if this survey was taken in an urban area or gucci neighborhood, but it sure ain't declining in the circle of aquaintenes I have!

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  14. I'm not surprised by this. As younger generations become more liberal so does the majority's view of gun policy and ownership.

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  15. I suspect it has more to do with people's willingness to respond truthfully to a survey. If some stranger came to my door or called me on the phone, told me they were taking a poll, and asked me if I had guns, I wouldn't tell them if I did. I suspect what may really be happening is more people are buying guns (the increase year over year in national instant check volume and gun mfg sales info suggest increase) because they feel increasingly concerned about the stability of the country's economy and are becoming less trustful of the government overall. Therefore they probably aren't too keen on declaring gun ownership.

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