{"id":76498,"date":"2022-01-25T14:17:51","date_gmt":"2022-01-25T20:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=76498"},"modified":"2022-01-25T14:17:51","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T20:17:51","slug":"76498","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=76498","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Data shows there\u2019s more diversity at a gun range than a university faculty lounge<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cGun-ownership in America is diversifying, because of safety fears,\u201d says a headline over at\u00a0The Economist<\/i><\/a>. As those of us in the Second Amendment community have known for a while, the sociopolitical climate since the start of the pandemic \u2013\u00a0egregious<\/a>\u00a0criminal<\/a>\u2013coddling<\/a>\u00a0behavior<\/a>\u00a0by the<\/a>\u00a0state<\/a>, releasing\u00a0dangerous prisoners<\/a>\u00a0because of COVID<\/a>, nationwide\u00a0\u201cfiery but<\/a>\u00a0mostly peaceful<\/a>\u201d riots,\u00a0rising<\/a>\u00a0violent<\/a>\u00a0crime<\/a>,\u00a0looting<\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0shoplifting<\/a>,\u00a0hate crimes<\/a>,\u00a0falling trust in<\/a>\u00a0law enforcement<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 contributed to a sudden surge in gun purchases by groups historically not inclined to own them.\u00a0The Economist<\/i>\u00a0reported the following:<\/p>\n

Of the 7.5m Americans who bought firearms for the first time between January 2019 and April 2021\u2014as gun-buying surged nationwide\u2014half were female, a fifth black and a fifth Hispanic, according to a recent study by Matthew Miller of Northeastern University and his co-authors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The 7.5 million number may well be a low estimate;\u00a0one estimate from the NSSF<\/a>\u00a0is that there were 8.4 million new gun owners in\u00a02020 alone<\/i>. As I\u2019ve\u00a0written before<\/a>\u00a0in these pages, adding up numbers for 2020 and the first half of 2021 points to a potential\u00a011.6 million first-time gun owners<\/a>. The team here at Bearing Arms has\u00a0written a lot<\/a>\u00a0about growing<\/a>\u00a0diversity in the<\/a>\u00a0Second Amendment community<\/a>. We see this not only in data collected nationally and over the long-term, but also experience it first-hand at gun ranges. (As an immigrant who grew up without guns and didn\u2019t touch one well into his adult life, I\u2019m living proof of this demographic shift myself.)<\/p>\n

However, diversity is a whole lot more than ethnic bean counting or about the superficial differences \u2013 religion, sexual orientation, etc. \u2013 among us. What counts the most, in my opinion, is diversity of thought and opinion, and the ability to express those freely without the fear of retaliation or retribution. This is where I think gun owners are\u00a0simply outstanding<\/i>; respect for individual freedom, for not treading on someone else lest our freedoms be tread upon, appears to come naturally to lawful gun owners. There is\u00a0some data<\/a>\u00a0on political<\/a>\u00a0diversity<\/a>\u00a0among gun owners. Anecdotally speaking, the gun owners at my local club cover the gamut from traditional blue-collar tradesmen to Ph.D. holders, from the MAGA coterie to Medicare-for-All supporters.<\/p>\n

Contrast that with a typical university faculty lounge and the difference is night and day. There is\u00a0hard data<\/a>\u00a0showing<\/a>\u00a0how limited<\/a>\u00a0diversity<\/a>\u00a0is among<\/a>\u00a0university<\/a>\u00a0faculty<\/a>. They may look different, have different national origins or sexual orientations, but politically they are incredibly alike. There\u2019s also plenty of publicly available data that shows how faculty donations to candidates for office is\u00a0overwhelmingly<\/a>\u00a0left-wing<\/a>. Consider these recent examples:\u00a096% at Harvard University<\/a>,\u00a097% at Yale University<\/a>, and\u00a098% at Cornell University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Intolerance of divergent viewpoints<\/a>\u00a0to the point of active discrimination is\u00a0shockingly high<\/a>\u00a0among university faculty who themselves take advantage of academic freedom when they\u2019re in hot water for expressing something unpalatable to the taxpaying public. Those in the conservative minority outgroup keep their mouths shut and their heads down and go about their business\u00a0for<\/a>\u00a0fear of<\/a>\u00a0retaliation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the Ivory Tower, the broad diversity among gun owners means that gun control will have a harder time in the future. The Economist makes the below conclusion based on sales numbers and gun control polling:<\/p>\n

The broadening tent is good for manufacturers and bad for gun-control advocates. Owners are more politically active around gun issues than non-owners. Already it may have had an effect. According to polling by Gallup, in 2021 support for stricter laws dropped by five percentage points, to its lowest in seven years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s a reason to celebrate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Data shows there\u2019s more diversity at a gun range than a university faculty lounge \u201cGun-ownership in America is diversifying, because of safety fears,\u201d says a headline over at\u00a0The Economist. As those of us in the Second Amendment community have known for a while, the sociopolitical climate since the start of the pandemic \u2013\u00a0egregious\u00a0criminal\u2013coddling\u00a0behavior\u00a0by the\u00a0state, releasing\u00a0dangerous … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,24,8,29,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-rights","category-rkba","category-safety","category-self-defense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76499,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76498\/revisions\/76499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}