Demographics of American Gun Ownership

[CharlesHarris]

https://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/full/10.7...017.3.5.02

American gun owners overall tend to be from a particular demographic profile: more male, older, whiter, rural, and southern.

Handgun only gun owners, by contrast, tend to come from different demographic groups, as summarized from the report linked above.

Women are nearly twice as likely as men to own only handguns (42% to 22%), Blacks are more than twice as likely and Hispanics nearly twice as likely as whites to own only handguns (57% to 38% to 20%), and those who live in urban areas are more than twice as likely as rural folks to own only handguns (40% to 15%).

Other interesting findings are political liberals are nearly twice as likely as political conservatives to own only handguns (36% to 20%), and (not shown) those who did not grow up with a gun in the home are more than twice as likely as those who did to own only handguns (44% to 20%).

Related: Gary Kleck, Florida State University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, December 7, 2017

Abstract
Levine and McKnight claim that the slight increase in "gun exposure" following the Sandy Hook mass shooting caused a huge increase in fatal gun accidents. This paper explains why the conclusion is unwarranted, and the authors' methods were inappropriate.

Keywords: gun accidents, gun sales

JEL Classification: K42

Suggested Citation:
Kleck, Gary, Cherry-Picking Spikes in Gun Sales: Comment on Levine and Mcknight (2017) (December 7, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3084699

[Mortblanc]

Now let me ask CH....

Have you ever been polled about your gun ownership?

And if you did was your answer an honest one?

I do not trust the polls, the people that do the polling, nor do I believe anything they report.

I never tell a pollster anything that would be connected to my opsec, and the number and disposition of my firearms is part of that.

No one that might give or might be forced to supply any of that information to an official source is going to get an honest answer.

[CharlesHarris]

MB, you are correct, but academics might think they actually learned something...

[Skean Dhude]

The reputable poll firms factor that in somehow but lately the public are misleading them more and more.

The important bit is that despite the polls being less accurate and people lying to them they are still used to make policy and many of the sheeple actually still believe them, although like the media, it is a reducing number.

[Pete Grey]

I enjoy being questioned in the street as it is anonymous and you can be as daft or controversial as the mood takes you, never tell the truth, what p**ses me of are the telephone survey calls, “we do not answer questions on the phone, thank you goodbye” is the polite reply, but by the third call the answer tends to be rather rude.