Gun ownership declining?? Can they be right?

[mosinnagantm9130]

Almost everyone I know either owns a gun, wants to own a gun, or wants to learn.

It's rare I find someone who doesn't fall into one of those three categories.

[fiddletown]

Almost everyone I know either owns a gun, wants to own a gun, or wants to learn.

It's rare I find someone who doesn't fall into one of those three categories.

How many people do you know?

The adult population of the United States is about 240,000,000. If you know 2,400 people, that's about 0.001% of the adult population of the United States.

[Librarian]

The General Social Survey is conducted by NORC, an independent research organization based at the University of Chicago, with money from the National Science Foundation. Because of its long-running and comprehensive set of questions about the demographics, behaviors and attitudes of the American public, it is a highly regarded source of data about social trends.

GSS is a pretty good source of data. Like Gallup, they disclose their questions and methodology. Here is their summary doc on gun ownership:: http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Repor...01972-2014.pdf, apparently the source for the articles today.

Question Wordings
Household and Personal Firearm Ownership:
Do you happen to have in your home (IF HOUSE: or garage) any guns or revolvers?
IF YES: Is it a pistol, shotgun, rifle, or what? CODE ALL THAT APPLY.
Do any of these guns personally belong to you?

Hunting:
Do you (or does your [husband/wife]) go hunting?

Police Permit:
Would you favor or oppose a law which would require a person to obtain a police permit before he or she could buy a gun?

Here's a 2013 article comparing the two: http://crimepreventionresearchcenter...gun-ownership/

[pterrell]

I believe everything I read on the internet.

[ElvenSoul]

No it's all about money! Do you know how many people the Anti Gun and Pro Gun Groups Employ?

Politics is a buisness! Abortion issue is over 40yrs old.

wake up suckers! They do not care which side wins as long as the money does not stop!

[Clee]

I believe Baghdad Bob wrote that article so its trustworthy.

[OttoLoader]

Whole lotta boating accidents going on.

[ScottyXbones]

Go to imperial valley on the opening day of dove season and then try and tell me hunting isn't popular

[oregonnative1968]

Who here would openly admit to a stranger in Chicago that you are a gun owner? They probably paid cash to thugs running the streets of the windy city to give them the answers they wanted.

[TKM]

Go to imperial valley on the opening day of dove season and then try and tell me hunting isn't popular

I couldn't get in.

[stix213]

The data may actually be accurate while they are leading to a misleading conclusion for two reasons.

* People distrust the government and distrust data gathering organizations in general, so many may not admit to gun ownership.

* More importantly though is the trend towards single parent homes. The key to the question is not if you own a gun, but if a gun is in the home. Most gun owners are men, but when women were more likely to live with men they would report a gun in the home when it was the man's gun. The trend toward single parenting and single females living alone increases the total number of households without increasing the number of actual gun buyers/owners. That alone would lead to a decrease in the number of households with a gun in the home reported.

In fact, if the number of gun owners is actually increasing, but the rate at which women are switching to single female homes is higher than the gun buyer increase rate, you would still see a decrease in the number of households with a gun in the home.

[Merc1138]

Probably not a good indicator as gun stores are closing left and right. Some dude on ARFCOM started one during the 2013 rush and had to close, due to slow sales.
Having said that, I thought I remembered that even as sales rise, it's usually the same people who buy multiple guns versus newer gunowners.

Really? Because just about every time I'm in a local gun shop, there's a person who is new buying something and it's generally fairly obvious with the clerk having to explain things.

Also, there are gun stores in CA that have closed. Some simply because the owner retired, others because there wasn't enough traffic to keep sales up.

Not including the chain stores, there are approximately 20 places to buy a firearm(shops, home FFL's, etc.) within about 45 minutes of where I live. One gun shop closed last year. I don't think that's an indicator of anything other than the market being competitive due to the fairly large number of gun shops in the area. Even if the guy on arfcom didn't have the number of shops in his area like I do(and honestly, a gun shop in my area is the last thing I'd ever consider for a business due to the oversaturation), a shop that opened up during the biggest rush of gun sales in US history closing once sales start to normalize is not an indicator of much other than not having a sound business strategy to compete with other places in the vicinity(for some that might mean the next shop is 5 minutes away, could be an hour).

1 shop closing is anecdotal at best, but in reality it's so marginal that it's really meaningless.

FFL's by state totals, let's simply look at FFL 01's.

https://www.atf.gov/sites/default/files/assets/FOIA/FFLs/2015/February/ffl_type_by_state_02102015.pdf

As of Feb 2015, there are 55,576.

https://www.atf.gov/content/firearms/firearms-industry/listing-FFLs

Feb 2014 54,402
Feb 2013 51,436
Feb 2012 49,027
Sep 2011(they don't have a figure from Feb listed) 48,676
Feb 2010(you have to sort the spreadsheet by ffl type), 47398

Does that look like a downward trend to you? That's ignoring numbers for pawnbrokers(ffl 02), C&R(ffl 03), etc. One guy on arfcom closing his shop is a meaningless blip in the grand scheme of things in this country, because if sales didn't support growth in the number of businesses, then that number should hold steady or decline. Yet even before the big rush after sandyhook, the number of FFLs had been increasing the couple of years prior that stats are readily available for.

[spamsucker]

Like I said, people lie to surveys. As an example, in the late 90's there was a survey run asking internet users about their jobs and income. The results were amazing if they were to be taken at face value. It appeared that over 90% of internet users were CEO's of their own company and earned over a million dollars per year. People lie on surveys.

If we wanted to do a proper bit of research we'd look at the California DROS system over the last 20 years and do a little data mining. The data could be easily sanitized so that only demographic data is processed. That would have a useful sample size and a fixed data set based on what has been legally done.

[DonaldBabbett]

Wishful thinking on their part. Have you noticed a drop in the numbers at gun stores, ranges, and shows? Its been the opposite for close to ten years.

The anti's publish this stuff on the premise of "one monkey follows the other". They know most, especially those that live by social media will want to do what is the "norm" or "popular" and follow what others do. Sort of gun control without the fight or the passing of new law.

They are creating a false "moral majority" as a gun-control weapon. They want the sheeple all to follow suit.

[geoint]

Probably not a good indicator as gun stores are closing left and right. Some dude on ARFCOM started one during the 2013 rush and had to close, due to slow sales.
Having said that, I thought I remembered that even as sales rise, it's usually the same people who buy multiple guns versus newer gunowners.

I dont think thats a good argument either. Back in Texas I bought almost all of my guns online because prices are just ridiculously cheaper. I shipped them all to a home based FFL who charged like a third of what a brick and mortar store wanted for a transfer.

Here in CA, transfers are higher across the board and you have to pay sales tax on out of state guns so the price difference between in store and online is greatly minimized. So here, I frequent LGS's when I find a good deal. But back in a free state, where you REALLY have to compete with online gun dealers, its a lot harder to sell to people who know what they are doing. If you cater to newbs and walk ins I guess you would do alright, but eventually those newbs will discover how much they can save by buying online and then you wont be seeing them again