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> in a period when both the population and number of guns owned by it increased by very roughly 50% An increase in the number of guns owned is deceptive. The p

by extra88 11y ago

> in a period when both the population and number of guns owned by it increased by very roughly 50% An increase in the number of guns owned is deceptive. The percentage of Americans who own a gun and the percentage of households that contain a gun have been decreasing, I think from about half of households in the seventies to about a third today (NRA point to different research that shows less of a decline). The number of guns owned has increased because some people who already have a gun buy more, sometimes many more.

hga 11y ago
I've run the numbers on the claim you're repeating, and they would have us existing gun owners owning armories worth $100,000 on average if true (note the raw numbers, of new guns and their values, are easily available from Pittman Robertson Act tax collection reports, check out the ATF or NSSF if you want to duplicate my work on the $100K average estimate). We in the gun community believe it is much more likely that the willingness of Americans to honestly answer a random voice on the phone asking us if we own guns or having one in our household varies depending on the Zeitgeist, and that's been bad for a long time until, again, turning around only recently. This seems to be driven by 9/11 and the government's feckless domestic response to it, and the increasing ability of Americans to carry concealed, especially in combination with a rapidly aging population. WRT the latter, the vast majority of those in my Missouri concealed carry class were older types, middle aged at minimum. With Wisconsin and Iowa moving to shall issue voluntarily, and Illinois forced by the courts, we're down to only 7 slave states, and in many populous California counties it's allowed (Massachusetts towns too, but it's a small state). And 2 more states have been added to no licence required Constitutional Carry in the last few days, WV and Idaho; we're pretty sure this is resulting in a lot of first time gun owners, and this has really taken off since the last time I believe those estimates were made. The numbers are amazing to this gun owner who grew up when that was generally impossible; 8 million licenses nationwide 2 summers ago, 12+ in the last accounting a few months? ago, Texas just passed 1 million, Pennsylvania hit that long ago, etc. etc. etc. That said, new immigrants don't tend to be gun owners, but it doesn't take long for us to lead them down the path of temptation ^_^.

by extra88 11y ago

hga 11y ago

I've run the numbers on the claim you're repeating, and they would have us existing gun owners owning armories worth $100,000 on average if true (note the raw numbers, of new guns and their values, are easily available from Pittman Robertson Act tax collection reports, check out the ATF or NSSF if you want to duplicate my work on the $100K average estimate). We in the gun community believe it is much more likely that the willingness of Americans to honestly answer a random voice on the phone asking us if we own guns or having one in our household varies depending on the Zeitgeist, and that's been bad for a long time until, again, turning around only recently. This seems to be driven by 9/11 and the government's feckless domestic response to it, and the increasing ability of Americans to carry concealed, especially in combination with a rapidly aging population. WRT the latter, the vast majority of those in my Missouri concealed carry class were older types, middle aged at minimum. With Wisconsin and Iowa moving to shall issue voluntarily, and Illinois forced by the courts, we're down to only 7 slave states, and in many populous California counties it's allowed (Massachusetts towns too, but it's a small state). And 2 more states have been added to no licence required Constitutional Carry in the last few days, WV and Idaho; we're pretty sure this is resulting in a lot of first time gun owners, and this has really taken off since the last time I believe those estimates were made. The numbers are amazing to this gun owner who grew up when that was generally impossible; 8 million licenses nationwide 2 summers ago, 12+ in the last accounting a few months? ago, Texas just passed 1 million, Pennsylvania hit that long ago, etc. etc. etc. That said, new immigrants don't tend to be gun owners, but it doesn't take long for us to lead them down the path of temptation ^_^.