The face of gun ownership has never been as cut and dried as the stereotypes of the older, conservative, religious, White, male, rural owner would have you believe. Less traditional gun owners include urban, liberal, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning), and women. Additionally, all these groups are making up a larger proportion of new gun owners every year.
In 2022 a total of 46% of households reported having a gun across all demographic groups (according to americangunfacts.com). Over 30% of individual Americans report personally owning a gun and an even larger 36% report being potentially open to buying a gun in the future. The clearest path, nationally, to protecting civilian gun ownership is focusing on this third of Americans that are open to gun ownership and bringing them into the fold.
According to the most recent data, the demographics of gun ownership are becoming more diverse every year. Of those that own a gun, 58% are men and 42% are women. The percentage of women gun owners has been rising and continues to increase, as 50% of new gun purchases in 2021 and 2022 were made by women.
Regarding ethnicity, 34% of Whites own guns, 28% of Hispanics, 25% of Blacks, and 19% of Asians. Again, amongst these groups, the largest growth is a 58% increase in Black first-time purchases since 2020. Geography still plays a role with 58% of those living in rural communities owning guns, 41% in suburban areas, and 29% in urban areas.
Those identifying as at least Republican-leaning are more likely (44%) to own guns compared to those reporting Democrat-leaning (20%). But those Democrats that do own guns are almost 20% less likely to support restrictive bans on civilian ownership and the use of firearms. Finally, 19% of individuals identifying as LGBTQ also report owning a firearm and this percentage has also been increasing in recent years.
Although the data does support many gun owners fitting the old stereotypes, there are many other gun owners that do not conform to this mold. Additionally, year after year, gun ownership is becoming more diverse, and this process has only been accelerated in the past few years. Especially among first-time gun owners, there are more owners coming from diverse backgrounds both demographically, politically, and geographically.
These trends may be less evident in rural areas, but as I instruct classes at a downtown firearms training academy in Indianapolis, IN the White, male, Republican is the minority in most of our classes. Additionally, regardless of background, everyone in our firearm fundamentals classes report similar reasons driving their decision to buy a gun: personal and family safety. Similar findings are coming out of national surveys.
Based on these changes in who is buying guns and taking classes, the old assumptions about gun owners are no longer a safe bet. Although politically many of the new owners are more likely to label themselves as Independents (36%) than Democrats (20%), there is greater diversity on all metrics in today’s owners.
Due to these factors and feedback from our students (we run 8-9 classes, weekly averaging ~50 students a week), we have removed politics from our classes and only focus on the legal use of force by civilians. Our goal is to ensure newer owners feel welcome and have a safe and effective experience in learning to shoot. Although many of our instructors have strong political opinions (including issues of access to firearms) many of our students do not want a political discussion. They have already made a leap into gun ownership and want to be supported in learning the needed skills to store, carry, and if needed, use a firearm for legal self-defense.
National polls show that gun owners of any political persuasion are less likely to endorse restrictions on civilian ownership and the use of firearms. Based on that, we have chosen to only focus our training on ensuring new owners feel comfortable coming into our facilities and practicing with their guns.
The data strongly suggests that the easiest way to change someone’s politics on firearms is to make sure they have a positive experience and remain owners. My own personal experiences have suggested the best way to alter someone’s opinions regarding firearms is simply to encourage them into a positive shooting experience.
Who should we focus our time and efforts on?
We all have limited time and resources to devote to helping people take the steps needed for responsible gun ownership. Buried within the statistics presented earlier is the flip side of the equation. If 66% of Americans either personally own or are thinking about owning a firearm,
that also means 34% cannot see themselves ever owning a gun.
Fortunately, most of the time I am mainly dealing with individuals that have already taken the first step and bought their first gun. However, having worked in more liberal fields (academia) for a significant portion of my life, I have also had many conversations with individuals who do not own a gun, are generally anti-civilian ownership, and are surprised when they find out I do own them.
It may sound callous, but in such situations, I have devised a metric to decide if I want to invest time and effort in changing their minds. I try to quickly determine if they are in the third of Americans who are open to one day owning a gun. In these cases, I rarely try to engage their political beliefs. My goal, if they are open to it, is to just get them to a range to have a safe experience. When they are open, I am currently averaging about an 80% success rate at setting up a time to go shoot. Of those that do go shoot, at least half have ended up taking classes and becoming new gun owners. By contrast, if their attitudes are clearly and firmly set against civilian ownership and they have no interest in trying shooting, I respectfully agree to disagree. I don’t waste my time or theirs trying to change their minds.
What’s the worldview?
I tend to look at the right to defend yourself and your family as a personal responsibility. Thus, I also support the right of anyone to lawfully do so. From my point of view, the issue is beyond just gun rights and breaks into two broader spectrums. These two factors help to shape a worldview that is either conducive to civilian access to firearms or not.
This first spectrum is reliance. Reliance ranges from complete reliance on others to complete self-reliance. Very few people would be at either extreme end, but most people tend towards either relying on others or themselves. I would fall toward self-reliance and as such strongly support being my own first responder. Though I am still willing to rely on others, I do not make the assumption that others will always be there, and can be trusted in all situations. Those that tend to rely on others are willing to outsource their own protection and safety and put greater faith and trust in others. Thus, when someone is not interested in self-defense, instead of arguing or presenting data, I am more interested in determining first where they fall on the self-reliance versus other-reliance spectrum.
The second spectrum is related to reliance, and it is freedom versus safety. The extremes on this spectrum would be absolute control to remove all potential harm on one end and absolute freedom to do anything on the other. Again, few people would be found at these two
extremes, but most people tend towards one or the other.
I would fall toward freedom. My worldview includes a strong sense of personal responsibility and an understanding that with the freedom to make choices comes the freedom to make poor or dangerous choices. These two spectrums tend to work in concert and those that tend more towards safety also are often more willing to trust others to enforce that safety (trusting in others).
Based on these two spectrums if someone says they are against civilian use of force, strongly trust in others to protect them, and prefer safety over freedom, I assume they are most likely firmly in the 34% of Americans that will likely never own or want to use a gun. Instead, they are trusting others to protect them and keep them safe. However, as the person expresses either a tendency towards self-reliance or a preference for freedom, I assume they are at least open to exploring gun ownership and I will make an effort to provide them with a positive exposure to guns.
The goal of this evaluation is to make sure our time and effort are well placed. We want to find our own realistic strategies not to change people’s politics (a difficult task in the best of conditions), but instead to open their experiences with firearms. The data shows that with
ownership will naturally come a shift in their own political beliefs, at least regarding civilian access to firearms. People are resistant to change and are less likely to change their overall beliefs, but as the numbers of gun owners in all political groups continue to expand, the support for civilian defensive use will naturally increase.
