Arkady
President
A debate I've found myself having repeatedly here is about whether household gun ownership is up or down. This debate comes about because gun enthusiasts would like to attribute the decline in murder rates since the early 1990s (and particularly during the Obama years) to a rise in gun ownership. It's problematic for them that there were big improvements in the Clinton and Obama years, but not in the Bush years, so they're looking for a way to attribute the improvements to gun owners.
This is a shaky looking argument right off the bat since there's a well-known trend for regions and countries with lower gun ownership to have lower murder rates (e.g., compare Western Europe to the US, or compare the Northeast to the South). But the first question is whether gun ownership is even up.
The data suggests gun sales are up. However, that doesn't tell us whether it's a few people buying a lot of guns, or an actual increase in the share of the population that's armed. So, I thought I'd lay out the evidence for people to consider:
(1) A CBS news poll going back to 1978 says that the percentage of households with guns has been falling substantially.
(2) A gallup poll shows that gun ownership has declined 12 points since the early 1990s.
(3) Polling the the General Social Survey shows substantial declines in gun ownership both by individual and by household.
Conservatives will usually respond to this consistent poll result by saying that people have just grown more likely to hide their gun ownership from pollsters over the years (those conservatives don't tend to identify any plausible reason why poll respondents would have been more comfortable telling pollsters about their guns in the gun-control-favoring 1990s than today, but give them a break, they're desperate).
So, in answer to that, here are some other stats that don't rely on poll responses, each of which is consistent with what we'd expect to see if fewer households had guns than in the past:
(1) Homicides against intimates and against other family members both show the same trend since 1980: those killers have been getting gradually less likely to use a gun and more likely to use other weapons. See Figures 25a and 25b. This is consistent with the idea that when domestic situations get murderously violent, these days, people are less likely to have a gun close at hand than in the past.
(2) The share of suicides that use guns has been declining for decades, from 57% back in 1980 to 50% most recently. That's consistent with the idea that when people get suicidally depressed, these days, they're less likely to have a gun close at hand than in the past. Conservatives will be tempted to associate this with our current opioid crisis (with the idea that more junkies now opt to off themselves with overdoses). However, the shift occurred gradually over time, and had already started showing up back when opioids were out of fashion.
(3) Accidental firearm deaths have been falling for many years, even as the population grows. In the same sense that we'd expect fewer people to be killed by horses if fewer homes had horses than in the past, the decline in accidental firearm deaths is exactly what we'd expect to see if firearms were actually becoming less common in homes. Conservatives will be tempted to attribute this to firearms being made safer these days, or to the proliferation of safety tips on the Internet, or something like that. But the decline in firearm accidents has been much swifter than the decline of motor vehicle accidents, despite there having been considerably more advancement in mandated safety improvements for cars (and a faster attrition rate for older, less safe cars), and there's at least as many safety tips on the internet about driving.
The data is pointing pretty consistently in the same direction. All the pollsters who are tracking this say gun ownership is down, and the pattern of data we see with regard to domestic homicides, suicides, and accidents is all exactly the pattern we'd expect to see if fewer people had guns readily at hand than in the past.
As for why gun ownership is down, that's an interesting question. I think it's largely demographic. The share of Americans living in rural areas has plummeted: it's down from 26.3% in 1980 to just 19.3% today. That's about a 27% decline in the proportion of Americans in rural areas. That has coincided with an extremely rapid decline in the popularity of hunting. In 1970 there were over 40 million hunting licenses issues, compared to just 12.6 million today. Keep in mind the population has grown by 59% even as the hunting population has declined by 69%. So, the proportional prevalence of hunting is a tiny fraction of what it was. As more Americans find themselves living in settings where there not much use for guns, and where there are tighter gun regulations, more just aren't bothering with them.
This is why the NRA has transformed from a sportsman's association focused on hunting, to a political propaganda outlet focused on making white people afraid of "those people." The way to grow gun sales, in the face of them becoming less useful, is to appeal to stockpilers to buy as many as they can afford (and then some).
Anyway, I doubt this will put the question of what is happening to gun ownership rates to bed. As with pretty much anything that's political, this is a matter of faith for conservatives, and so evidence is entirely beside the point. But the evidence is clear. Not only do the polls agree about declining ownership, but the wider data picture is just what we'd expect to see based on that decline.
This is a shaky looking argument right off the bat since there's a well-known trend for regions and countries with lower gun ownership to have lower murder rates (e.g., compare Western Europe to the US, or compare the Northeast to the South). But the first question is whether gun ownership is even up.
The data suggests gun sales are up. However, that doesn't tell us whether it's a few people buying a lot of guns, or an actual increase in the share of the population that's armed. So, I thought I'd lay out the evidence for people to consider:
(1) A CBS news poll going back to 1978 says that the percentage of households with guns has been falling substantially.
(2) A gallup poll shows that gun ownership has declined 12 points since the early 1990s.
(3) Polling the the General Social Survey shows substantial declines in gun ownership both by individual and by household.
Conservatives will usually respond to this consistent poll result by saying that people have just grown more likely to hide their gun ownership from pollsters over the years (those conservatives don't tend to identify any plausible reason why poll respondents would have been more comfortable telling pollsters about their guns in the gun-control-favoring 1990s than today, but give them a break, they're desperate).
So, in answer to that, here are some other stats that don't rely on poll responses, each of which is consistent with what we'd expect to see if fewer households had guns than in the past:
(1) Homicides against intimates and against other family members both show the same trend since 1980: those killers have been getting gradually less likely to use a gun and more likely to use other weapons. See Figures 25a and 25b. This is consistent with the idea that when domestic situations get murderously violent, these days, people are less likely to have a gun close at hand than in the past.
(2) The share of suicides that use guns has been declining for decades, from 57% back in 1980 to 50% most recently. That's consistent with the idea that when people get suicidally depressed, these days, they're less likely to have a gun close at hand than in the past. Conservatives will be tempted to associate this with our current opioid crisis (with the idea that more junkies now opt to off themselves with overdoses). However, the shift occurred gradually over time, and had already started showing up back when opioids were out of fashion.
(3) Accidental firearm deaths have been falling for many years, even as the population grows. In the same sense that we'd expect fewer people to be killed by horses if fewer homes had horses than in the past, the decline in accidental firearm deaths is exactly what we'd expect to see if firearms were actually becoming less common in homes. Conservatives will be tempted to attribute this to firearms being made safer these days, or to the proliferation of safety tips on the Internet, or something like that. But the decline in firearm accidents has been much swifter than the decline of motor vehicle accidents, despite there having been considerably more advancement in mandated safety improvements for cars (and a faster attrition rate for older, less safe cars), and there's at least as many safety tips on the internet about driving.
The data is pointing pretty consistently in the same direction. All the pollsters who are tracking this say gun ownership is down, and the pattern of data we see with regard to domestic homicides, suicides, and accidents is all exactly the pattern we'd expect to see if fewer people had guns readily at hand than in the past.
As for why gun ownership is down, that's an interesting question. I think it's largely demographic. The share of Americans living in rural areas has plummeted: it's down from 26.3% in 1980 to just 19.3% today. That's about a 27% decline in the proportion of Americans in rural areas. That has coincided with an extremely rapid decline in the popularity of hunting. In 1970 there were over 40 million hunting licenses issues, compared to just 12.6 million today. Keep in mind the population has grown by 59% even as the hunting population has declined by 69%. So, the proportional prevalence of hunting is a tiny fraction of what it was. As more Americans find themselves living in settings where there not much use for guns, and where there are tighter gun regulations, more just aren't bothering with them.
This is why the NRA has transformed from a sportsman's association focused on hunting, to a political propaganda outlet focused on making white people afraid of "those people." The way to grow gun sales, in the face of them becoming less useful, is to appeal to stockpilers to buy as many as they can afford (and then some).
Anyway, I doubt this will put the question of what is happening to gun ownership rates to bed. As with pretty much anything that's political, this is a matter of faith for conservatives, and so evidence is entirely beside the point. But the evidence is clear. Not only do the polls agree about declining ownership, but the wider data picture is just what we'd expect to see based on that decline.
