Previous data may have underestimated the percentage of Americans that own guns. In a recent study, researchers found that based on their answers to a variety of other questions, a group of individuals appeared as though they might be falsely denying firearm ownership when directly asked by researchers.
“It might be that some folks own firearms illicitly and they don’t feel comfortable really telling anybody that they own firearms,” said Allison Bond, a doctoral student at Rutgers University and the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, who led the study. “It may also be that there’s a distrust between the researchers that are conducting research and the firearm-owning community really speaking to the need for cross-discipline efforts to reduce firearm injury and death.”
Millions of Americans who had never owned a gun purchased a firearm during a 2 1/2-year period that began in January 2019, before the pandemic and continued through April 2021. Some 22 million guns were sold in 2020, 64% more than in 2019.
Bond notes new information in her research, not only on gun ownership, but in changing demographics. “So often people think of white, middle-aged or older men living in rural environments as firearm owners. We’re starting to see women own firearms more and racial and ethnic minorities owning firearms more.”
