Gun Control – Dismantled
Ownership is demographically diverse:
45.7% of validated gun owners are female, 25.6% do not identify as White (alone), and the gap in ownership rates between White Americans (34.6%) and Black Americans (33.0%) has narrowed to less than two percentage points.
The survey finds that 37.6% of gun owners have used a firearm to defend themselves, their property, a family member, or a member of their household, and it estimates that guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 2.2 million incidents per year.
In most defensive incidents no shot was fired (76.3%), about half (50.8%) involved more than one assailant, and in 70.6% of incidents respondents report that the defensive use was successful, such that no crime remained to be reported to the police.
8.4% of defensive incidents were directed against animal threats rather than criminal threats.
Separate from these self-defense incidents, 34.7% of gun owners reported that the mere presence of a gun has deterred criminal conduct.
A majority of gun owners (70.0%) indicate that there are some circumstances in which they carry a handgun for self-defense.
We estimate that approximately 33.6 million gun owners (39.3% of those aged 21 and over) are “public carriers” who are permitted to carry and carry at least sometimes.
The average gun owner owns about 5.2 firearms, and handguns are the most common type of firearm owned (91.6% of owners).
50.5% of gun owners – approximately 44.5 million adults – report that they currently own magazines that hold more than 10 rounds (approximately 539 million such magazines in total), and 88.0% of these owners cite a defensive purpose for owning them.
25.0% of gun owners currently own an AR-15 type rifle, 12.9% currently own other similarly styled semi-automatic rifles, and 30.0% – approximately 26.4 million adults – currently own at least one firearm in one of these two categories, with approximately 40 million AR-15 type rifles and 20 million other similarly styled rifles owned in total.
Overall, Americans own approximately 461 million firearms, consisting of approximately 208 million handguns, 154 million rifles, and 99 million shotguns.