Demographics of gun owners

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...Whether someone owns a gun is a more powerful predictor of a person’s political party than her gender, whether she identifies as gay or lesbian, whether she is Hispanic, whether she lives in the South or a number of other demographic characteristics.

It will come as no surprise to those with a passing interest in American politics that Republicans are more likely to own guns than Democrats. But the differences have become much more stark in recent years, with gun ownership having become one of the clearest examples of the partisan polarization in the country over the last two decades.

In 1973, about 55 percent of Republicans reported having a gun in their household against 45 percent of Democrats, according to the General Social Survey, a biennial poll of American adults.

Gun ownership has declined over the past 40 years — but almost all of the decrease has come from Democrats. By 2010, according to the General Social Survey, the gun ownership rate among adults that identified as Democrats had fallen to 22 percent. It remained at about 50 percent among Republican adults.

....White voters were substantially more likely to own guns than Hispanics or blacks. But white Republicans were more likely to own guns than white Democrats.

And based on demographic inertia, the differences seem likely to grow over time.

About 35 percent of Democratic voters age 65 and older reported having a gun in their home, against about 25 percent of those ages 18 to 29. But gun ownership rates bore little relationship to age among Republican voters, and were constant at about 55 percent among all age groups. That might suggest that gun ownership will continue to decline among Democrats while holding steady among Republicans, further increasing the partisan gap....

...In other respects, the profile of gun owners defies some of the stereotypes that urban liberals might assign to them. For example, despite President Obama’s comments in 2008 about voters who “cling to guns and religion,” the two qualities are not strongly correlated. Slightly more than 40 percent of voters who said they attended church weekly or more often reported having a gun in their home, about the same percentage as among those who attend religious services just a few times a month or a few times a year. And gun ownership rates are highest among the middle class, rather than the poor. Households making $50,000 to $100,000 per year were slightly more likely to own guns than those that made a little bit less or a little more. (However, gun ownership rates are inversely correlated with educational attainment.)...

...It might seem strange that ownership of a single household object is so strongly tied to voting behavior and broader political attitudes in America. But America is an outlier relative to other industrialized nations in its gun ownership rates. Whatever makes this country so different from the rest of the world must surely be reflected in the differences in how Democrats and Republicans see the nation.

... Men are three times more likely than women to personally own guns, representing one of the largest demographic differences in gun ownership, according to an analysis of Gallup polls from 2007 to 2012. Gun ownership also varies significantly by region, with Southerners more likely to own guns than those living in other regions of the United States. Marriage is also a strong predictor of gun ownership....

In addition to gender, Southern residence, and marital status, personal gun ownership also varies significantly by age, race, and political ideology.

Non-Hispanic whites (33%) are significantly more likely than nonwhites (22%) to own guns. Hispanics (18%) in particular show below-average gun ownership. Twenty-one percent of blacks own a gun.
Younger Americans (20%) are much less likely to own guns than older Americans. There are only minor differences among adults 30 and older by age group (ranging between 31% and 34%).
Gun ownership is much higher among those who are politically conservative (39%) than among those who are politically liberal (17%).

However, gender is by far the strongest predictor of personally owning a gun. A statistical model shows the odds of a man owning a gun are five times greater than the odds of a woman owning a gun, once the influence of other factors related to gun ownership is taken into account. Being from the South and being married are the next-most influential predictors; each is associated with 1.7 times greater odds of owning a gun than among those who are not married and among those who do not live in the South. Being Hispanic and being from the East are associated with lower gun ownership, but on a relative basis, these are the next strongest predictors of gun ownership, followed by race, ideology, and age....

...Notably, while Republican party identification is associated with higher rates of gun ownership -- 38% versus 22% for Democrats -- the statistical model shows party is a weaker predictor of gun ownership, once other factors are taken into account. In other words, higher rates of Republican gun ownership likely result more from the fact that men, Southerners, and married people tend to identify as Republicans than from something about being a Republican drawing one to owning a gun.

Given the results of the statistical model, it follows that the highest rate of gun ownership Gallup found among subgroups is for married Southern males....

...Gender is an important factor in predicting whether someone lives in a gun household -- a broader definition than personal gun ownership -- but it is not the most important one. Rather, being married is. Overall, 55% of those who are married live in gun households, compared with 31% who are not married. The statistical model shows married Americans are 2.5 times more likely to own guns than those who are not married, taking into account the effects of other factors. After marital status, the strongest predictors of having a gun in the household are gender and living outside the East -- Eastern residents are 1.7 times less likely to have a gun in the household than those living elsewhere. Race and Southern residence are also highly related to living in a gun household.

Two of the groups most likely to have a gun in the household are married Southern males (70%) and married Southern females (62%). Southern white males, at 66%, are also among the most likely to have a gun in the household.

There are lots of reasons for Americans to hate ObamaCare.
But gun owners should be especially concerned about this “Obamanation,” because it will allow the federal government to use our medical information to keep us from buying guns....

THE ANTI-GUN PINKOS ARE RESORTING TO:

• Condemning military heroes as unfit gun owners
• Using tragic events to peddle their anti-freedom wares.
• Forcing child indoctrination against gun ownership
• Fueling foreign disasters to invoke public sympathy against the Second Amendment
• Employing media broadcasts to infuse guilt and shame, targeting firearms owners
• Perverting the meaning of the Second Amendment by politically diseased politicians
• Persuading dirty judges to rule in a jaded manner on gun critical cases
• Vilifying gun shows as unsafe, illegal, dangerous and illicit.

THE ANTI-FREEDOM, ANTI-GUN MOB IS GROWING

…but we’re bigger and more powerful!
The United Nations agenda is pushing to disarm all Americans. Think about it: why would they do that? For POWER over the people. To make American citizens defenseless so when they put their commie conversion plans into action, we have no way to defend ourselves or to fight back!

The United Nations and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are moving forward with their plan to confiscate your guns...

.. the UN “is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there’s no doubt that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control.” Establishing the dates for the Arms Trade Treaty Conference is just the first step toward their plans for total gun confiscation....

I own several,I'm not a republican,but am a southerner.People like to give them as gifts at Christmas.Nothing is as festive as firearms under the tree.

As an european Aspie, I really need to ask: Is that sarcasm or for real? ^^

Well, not all gun owners are White male idiots. Some gun-owners are obviously highly intelligent females.

I don't know if I'm highly intelligent,I was not really interested in guns till the next door neighbor had a home invasion and had to physically take on the intruders.They really picked the wrong house,she hit one over the head with a wine bottle.The low lives were looking for drugs,she had been care taking her friend who had terminal cancer.They thought they would find pain pills,she walked in her house to find the cretins going throgh her deceased friend's stuff.It takes the cops a good thirty minuets to get here so it just seemed like a good idea to have a gun.There was also a rabies epidemic,and sometimes bears get in the yard.They took out my raspberry patch one night.

I knew a guy who was a US exchange student in Israel who more or less fit in due to the fact that he was from Arizona where carrying guns was commonplace. He told me that when he was in Israel, he regularly carried a Colt 1911, except for when going to the Mall or someplace that had a weapons check counter. --All you did was check whatever you were packing at the counter when you entered, and claimed it again when you left.

I own several,I'm not a republican,but am a southerner.People like to give them as gifts at Christmas.Nothing is as festive as firearms under the tree.

What's not said though, is that unlike America, people in Arabic countries like Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as well as Israel are generally packing full auto assault rifles and submachine pistols like AKM's and Uzi's, while in America most of the firearms owned are of the single shot variety.

I knew a guy who was a US exchange student in Israel who more or less fit in due to the fact that he was from Arizona where carrying guns was commonplace. He told me that when he was in Israel, he regularly carried a Colt 1911, except for when going to the Mall or someplace that had a weapons check counter. --All you did was check whatever you were packing at the counter when you entered, and claimed it again when you left.

In the chart above, though, gun ownership in Israel is a LOT lower than in the USA. Gun ownership in Palestine is even lower.