« 2nd Amendment CLE for attorneys | Main | Federal judge strikes down ban on receipt by those under felony indictment »
Interesting survey on gun ownership
Covering 54,000 American adults, making it the largest survey to date. There have been studies (where states had registration, or some other means of documenting whether a specific person had a firearm) that found telephone surveys come in somewhat low, by about 10% I seem to remember. Still, the findings of this one have several relevances.
32% of American adults reported owning a gun.
It estimates that firearms are used in self-defense 1.67 million times a year, supporting Gary Kleck's big study. Half of those occurred outside the home, on the owner's property, and a quarter occurred off his property, supporting the "bearing" of arms being important. In 81% of the cases, no shot was fired, again supporting Klick's study.
56% carry at least sometimes, and 35% with some frequency.
Nearly half own magazines holding 10 or more rounds, and 30% have owned an AR-15 or similar rifle. That works out to 25 million Americans owning 44 million of that style of rifle. This is important since the Supreme Court has said that the 2A protects "arms in common use at the time." (I think that's incorrect, BTW. The common use idea comes from the bumbled decision in US v. Miller, where Justice McReynolds simply said that when the militia were called out they were expected to bring arms in common use. That's a description, not a legal test, and one that reflects Miller's focus on militia use, which the Court threw over in Heller, McDonald, and now Bruen).
UPDATE: I should have said the indications were that surveys came in about ten points low, so 32% should actually be 42%. About ten percent of respondents who provably owned a gun would deny it. There's probably a further bias in that "declined to answer" is more likely with someone who has a gun than with someone who doesn't.
One really interesting finding was that one survey asked, of people with multi-person households, if anyone in the household had a gun. Then they split it by whether they spoke to a woman or a man on the telephone. There was a big difference, with women far more likely to say there were no guns. It seems unlikely that men were so successful at having hidden guns unknown to their ladies when they were living together, but beyond that, the survey-takers had no real explanation.
8 Comments | Leave a comment
I was not pleased with Scalia's tossing aside the militia use. It is my opinion that we should have any arms that the police have at the least, given the historical usage of the militia as a police force.
This. There is really no "safe" answer to gun ownership questions. You put a target on your back whichever way you answer. I would just hang up or shut the door without comment.
Stock response to every "survey": "I'm sorry, I don't answer questions. Thanks for your time. Have a good day."
I will never be counted in a survey, so add one more to the error rate. None of their business and they aren't paying for my time, my cell rate, or my Internet access.
And don't even THINK about ignoring all the prohibition signs at the entries to our development and show up at my door so you can fill your little squares and make money.
By 10% do you mean the number 10% of all respondents which would increase actual gun owners by the following equation, 32% + 10% which would yield 42% ?
Or is 10% of total of those saying they are gun owners which would make it 32% + 3.2% yielding 35.2%?
Note: I too, do not answer surveys and especially gun ownership surveys.
"It seems unlikely that men were so successful at having hidden guns unknown to their ladies when they were living together ..."
As long as we can keep the ladies (and poll takers) believing this, everything will be fine.
That is the problem with surveys: you need to ensure that the population is representative, and then that they are answering truthfully.
When I was doing my PhD of course we studied survey construction but it is hard to do under the best of circumstances but with such a topic it is impossible. I do not answer surveys in general especially if they are by telephone. If you are serious you do it by mail and even then many people will not answer much less give you honest answers. I lie all the time because I sure do not trust them.
I'd submit that this (or any) survey greatly underestimates gun ownership and usage.
I certainly would never respond in the affirmative to any of these types of questions from some unknown interviewer. I keep my gun ownership information private even from many relatives and friends.