Upwards of 60% of Americans may possess guns, according to research from the Washington Examiner, a rise of almost 25% above previously widely reported figures.
According to the Examiner’s analysis, which was based on research from Rutgers University’s New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, up to half of those taking the survey who claim not to own a gun could actually be firearm owners.
Reason magazine published the study’s initial findings on July 5, 2023.
Reason cited Rutgers doctorate student Allison Bond as saying that the study allowed researchers to identify a group of persons who had previously been unwilling to confess to owning guns in past surveys.
Bond stated, “Some people are falsely denying handgun ownership, resulting in studies not adequately representing the experiences among all firearm owners in the United States.”
The term “false denials of firearms ownership” was used by the researchers to characterize people who may have concealed their gun ownership from earlier pollsters or surveys. They noted:
“First, such procedures would lead to underestimating gun ownership numbers and limit our ability to evaluate the relationship between gun availability and different outcomes connected to gun violence. Furthermore, these techniques would distort our perception of the demographics of gun ownership by emphasizing the traits of those who are more likely to reveal. Third, the very existence of a sizable population who fraudulently deny possessing firearms shows that efforts to promote firearm safety (such as secure weapon storage) may fall short of reaching populations in need.”
According to Stephen Gutowski of the Reload, who was quoted by The Examiner in response to the increased number of gun owners, “This is something that we may have expected for a long time. However, recent research has begun to quantify it in certain ways. In other words, according to the percentage they assigned, over half of those who stated they did not possess firearms meet the criteria for those who do, at least to a certain extent. That is a significant discrepancy. This would cause the number to soar from around 33% to the 60 percentage area.”
According to Mark Oliva of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who talked with Breitbart News on January 13, 2021, 434 million weapons were produced for private possession over the preceding 25 years.
Given that over 17 million weapons were sold in the United States in 2022 alone, that number has to be far higher at this time.
