6 thoughts on “Even The British Papers are Noticing”

  1. Just to play devil’s advocate …. isn’t it possible that fewer people are owning guns, but that those people are buying more firearms per person than in the past?

  2. It’s possible, but polling is showing more people reporting that they own firearms now than previously. So either more people are becoming gun owners, or more people feel OK about revealing to other people that they are gun owners.

    If I had to guess, it’s probably a bit of both. I think the Democrats dropping gun control from their agenda is probably making a lot of liberal Democrats who own guns not sheepish to admit it.

    1. Also factor in the nationwide sweep of shall issue and constitutional carry state laws plus a graying population; there’s reasons for more people to own guns, between the former making them much more useful and the latter making them more needed.

      At my Missouri CCW required class the middle aged and older wildly outnumbered the younger attendees.

      Then again Missouri respects any other license, is expensive ($100 + class then $50 every three years) and wasn’t available to those under 23 until sometime this year. Therefore a lot of people have out of state licenses or so I was told by county’s deputy who handles this. If you’re older you’re more likely to be able to afford the cost, perhaps want to appear better having residential license (the usual suspects whine about this when the opposite comes up) and the licensing requirements are a near superset of most other states’ (biggest omission seems to be a NICS check for mental health issues, which is as I understand is why we don’t have reciprocity with Wisconsin).

      This also has a lot to do with the re-normalization of gun ownership in the US, which almost certainly has affected survey response results as noted.

  5. Two questions:

    1. How many gun owners do you know who own fewer guns than they did one year ago or five years ago?

    2. How many gun owners do you know who own more guns than they did one year ago or five years ago?

    Does that help you to understand?

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