Friday, March 13, 2015

Guns in America: While ownership falls, sales remain strong

The big challenge for me looking at these numbers is that you have to be confident that people are going to report their gun ownership accurately,” said Samuel Bieler, research associate at the independent and non-partisan think tank Urban Institute in Washington. “And I think it’s an open question as to whether if a gun owner is already suspicious of someone’s motive for collecting firearm information, whether they’d be willing to do that,” he added. There are also Gallup surveys that point to spikes in gun ownership in recent years. “There’s enough noise and enough countervailing explanations that to me, the jury is really still in some ways out on the full amount of gun ownership,” said Mr. Bieler.

14 comments:

billo said...

I think the thing that explains part of the difference between the Gallup and the GSS survey is that the former measures ownership by *individuals* and the latter by *households.* I suspect the changing face of the American household has something to do with it. An extended family of 10 living in the rural south with each member owning a firearm counts as "1" in the GSS survey while 10 hipsters living in 7 households in NYC count as 7. Thus, between those two cohorts, you would have 1/8 of "households" in the GSS poll but 1/2 of "people" in the Gallup poll.

the Plinker said...

"The Obama administration is widely regarded as pro-gun control, but they haven’t actually accomplished anything.”

Yet.

Anonymous said...

I don't know anyone who will tell the truth to somebody who calls them at random. Could also be a potential burglar.

Anonymous said...

In the climate we're living in now-a-days you'd have to be a damn fool to go mouthing off to anyone what you own or don't own. Why would anyone, give anyone any information about anything at all? Everyone's screaming about their privacy; well use the privacy you do have and shut up..

prambo said...

Hmmmm.......have to go with Anon #1 on this - answering questions about anything that would be considered "personal" info to a random phone survey is certifiably stupid.

Regardless of whether it's firearms ownership or support for restroom equality for the LGBT "Community", it's nobody's business and against all rules of PerSec.

All they know about about me is my ability to very artfully string together nasty and vulgar invective in a way that is truly awful, while being completely pertinent.

Anonymous said...

I guess that they would have to cross that hypothetical Rubicon to "see what is inside", eh?

All else is mere conjecture, spin and projection.

TimeHasCome said...

Fifty years ago you proudly displayed your firearms . Every kid in shop class built the proverbial gun rack,I did. Now you hide all your firearms in the gun safe and tell no one .
Now gun owners are on par with pedophiles in this hyper feminized society . I bought a near new Glock 35 for $400 from a man that his wife would not come home from the hospital with her first child until he got the gun out of the house.

AJ said...

Gun ownership isn't dropping, only the number of people answering in the affirmative to a pollster is dropping.

Galaxie_Man said...

Not an item for discussion except among my closest associates, and even then only I know the exact details about what I may or may not own.

My wife is in for a big surprise upon my demise.

Anonymous said...

The method is simple.

Ask people if they own a gun.

Ask them if they would answer in the affirmative if they owned a $1000 piece of jewelry and someone called and asked if they owned any pieces of $1000 jewelry.

The first divided by the second gives you the proportion of people that actually own guns. Simple.

Of course, only the BATFU and Team Fed really know for sure who's buying the guns and which are repeat buyers vs first time buyers. They probably have the best idea.

Anonymous said...

When the hack media reports one rifle, one shotgun, and two pistols as an "arsenal", it is wise to keep one's information to ones self. Nowadays. all information is sold to aggregators, and never goes away.

Millenials are discovering this when they are denied jobs, because a potential employer sees them in an image on Zuckerberg's site with a beer bottle or a joint.

Anonymous said...

If that, (one rifle, one shotgun and two pistols), is the criterion for "huge weapons cache", I'm in deep shit. That's me times twenty. You'ld have to stupid to answer ANY stranger's questions about how many guns you have...if any!

Anonymous said...

The fact that .22LR is still hard to find tells me that there are far more folks out at the range practicing, sending more lead down range than ever!

So the liberal news that fewer folks have guns in their homes just makes me laugh. People are just wising up as to how to answer such a stupid question. That's what I plan to do. If somebody, some stranger, asks me if there are guns in my home, I'm gonna say "God no! Are you crazy! I have CHILDREN in my home!"

Sometimes, (and I have taught my young sons this), you just have no choice but to lie when 'certain' questions are asked about private family matters.

It's good that the left thinks that gun ownership is on the decline. It just means they will be even more dumb founded when the majority of the country appears out side the doors to the capital building armed to the teeth, telling them they are "fired from their jobs with the peoples government and are under citizen's arrest for blatant constitutional violations".

Anonymous said...

Actually, March 14, 2015 at 12:50 AM, ther's a way around that too. I buy all my guns from a private, one of a kind gun dealer who works out of his home. My CHL means he DOES NOT have to make any phone calls to approve my purchase. And the record of the sale stays in his possession.

Some day, Ill tell you guys some very funny stories about how poorly he treats ATF agents when they come do a 'random' inspection of his records.