10% of Americans own 80% of guns?

D

Dennis

Staff Emeritus
From www.iwon.com

First-Time Gun Buyers The Exception

10% Of Americans Own 80% of Guns

WASHINGTON (CBS News) - When it comes to guns in America, in theory
there are enough for every adult to own at least one.

But, as CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports, they don't, because as
it turns out, most guns are actually owned by just a small group of
Americans, including men like James McCoskey.

McCoskey owns close to 100 firearms, but don’t call him a collector. "I'm not
really a collector. I guess you'd say I'm an accumulator and a user of guns."

And like many people who own multiple guns, he carries his passion to the
voting booth.

"I tell ya, you can criticize people for maybe having a tendency to be single
issue oriented. But this is one of those single issues," said McCoskey.

Poll after poll has shown that a majority of Americans favor tougher gun laws,
and yet little has happened. One reason for that, researchers believe, is
because for the shrinking number of Americans who do own guns, this is not
just a big issue, it's the only issue.

In fact, a recent study found the number of gun owners in America has never
been more concentrated than it is now among a small number of white,
middle-class rural men.

"We find that about 10 percent of the adults in the United States own about
80 percent of all the guns,” said professor Jens Ludwig of Georgetown
University, who conducted the study. That translates into about 150 million
guns.

And gun dealers like Don Davis confirm it. According to him, new buyers are
the exception. "I would say 60 to 70 to 80 percent of the guns we'll sell today
are to people who have other guns. We know customers that's got a
thousand guns."

And what they spend on their guns, they also gladly spend on the politicians
who share their view on the subject.

"I think that money would be there. I think people who probably never
donated a nickel to a political campaign in their life would dig in there and lay
it out. I really do," said McCoskey.

And the figures show they really have. Since Columbine, gun makers and gun
lobbyists have poured more than $1 million into this fall's elections.
============
Could this be a limiting factor:
- in the membership of RKBA organizations?
- in our attempts to affect politics?

Comments?

------------------
Either you believe in the Second Amendment or you don't.
Stick it to 'em! RKBA!

[This message has been edited by Dennis (edited July 06, 2000).]
 
hmmm... 10% of 270,000,000 = 27,000,000

80% of 150,000,000 = 120,000,000

therefore, 4.444 guns per 'typical' owner?

Or should we consider that most people have a family:

Average family size is 4.3 (Mom, Dad, 2.3 kids)

10% of 270,000,000 = 27,000,000 * 4.3 = 116,100,000

80% of 150,000,000 = 120,000,000

therefore, 4.444 guns per household
and

116,100,000 / 270,000,000 = 43%

Hmmm... 43% of Americans own 80% of guns

btw -- What happend to the 80M guns in 40M households number???

------------------

~USP

"[Even if there would be] few tears shed if and when the Second Amendment is held to guarantee nothing more than the state National Guard, this would simply show that the Founders were right when they feared that some future generation might wish to abandon liberties that they considered essential, and so sought to protect those liberties in a Bill of Rights. We may tolerate the abridgement of property rights and the elimination of a right to bear arms; but we should not pretend that these are not reductions of rights." -- Justice Scalia 1998

[This message has been edited by USP45 (edited July 06, 2000).]
 
Dennis,

I saw this report last night and I don't believe that Professor Jens Ludwig knows what he is talking about. CBS is going to have a followup to this tonight about how pushing gun control during an election year can backfire.

Sure, there are a lot of people with hundreds or maybe even thousands of guns, but most of the people I know own less than a dozen and some only own one or two. Then there are the people who own guns who would never admit it even though they are law abiding.

I see this as a ploy to minimalize gun owners. Sure if it is just a small group of people who own guns, "Heck we can take their rights away and nobody will care."

Even by this report 30 to 40 percent of the people buying guns these days are new buyers. This just doesn't all add up.


FIREARMS FACTS

Guns in the U.S.: 200 million, incl. 65-70 million handguns (BATF)

Gun owners in U.S.: 60-65 million, 30-35 million own handguns

Owners who have used guns for defense: 11% of firearms owners, 13% of handgun owners

Annual criminal gun use: Less than 0.2% of firearms. Less than 0.4% of handguns


About 99.8% of firearms and more than 99.6% of handguns will not be used to commit violent crimes in any given year. (Source: FBI data on gun-related crimes and survey research on gun ownership.)

For more information on these and other firearms related issues, contact the Grassroots Division at:


NRA Institute for Legislative Action
 
And where will the other 90% go when/if TSHTF? Don't come to my place.....the guns will be taking up most of the space. :p
(just kidding, Mr. ATF Lurker)

[This message has been edited by CindyH (edited July 06, 2000).]
 
Supposedly 40-50% of the households in the USA have a gun.

But the concentration in a small set of households for most guns could be true.

That probably means that when we say there are so many gunowners and they should get involved, it has no real force. The majority might has well be toaster owners.

I tend to believe it because when you look at states where there are shall issue laws, you see only 1 to 4% of the population getting permits. And these folks tend to be older, white males.

Thus, there aren't that many committed gun owners out there. I jumped at the chance for legal carry. Why don't others - they don't feel the issue.

It brings up another point that if committed gun ownership is confined to a shrinking circle then eventually legislation will become very oppressive.

Most "gun owners" are probably OK with registration laws. We've known this for a long time now. Unbiased polls show it.

It also means that strategies by pro-gun groups that aim only at further "mining" the small set of committed gun owners are not that useful. Yes, they generate some more dough for the GOA and NRA but as soon as politicians don't need that money or see more elsewhere, the issue is sunk.

I've argued that the only hope is to reach out to politically moderate folks, women, minorities and even except a law that takes away something to trade for a great gain.

However, this brings forth the "NO compromise, Line in the Sand" battalion, who
(no offense) just don't get it. They would rather have the righteous and perfect loss to complain about on forums like this and that the GOA and NRA could use for ads to the committed than plan a strategy that may get us support from the middle of the electorate or even liberals that see the rationality of the self-defense argument.

That's why I come down hard when this forum wanders into racism, homophobia, Confederate flag or abortion threads. Such stuff will be
incredibly counterproductive. I wanted examples for the militia argument that have force today as that what's counts in the elections and in public opinion.

When we carry on about UN troops, we need guns for foreign invasions, we lose the PR wars although it makes some feel good.

I've had guys tell me that 21000 Red Chinese troops are arriving in CA and 500000 UN troops in Houston. Great!

Well, I rambled but my point is that this article may be true and the RKBA is sunk if the trend continues. You are not going to convince the country to go hard right conservative and moralistic as some demand.

If you want the RKBA, we need to think of ways to broaden the base.

Now I am holding a Hebrew National All Beef Frankfurter by the screen and await the flames from the usual suspects. Hmm! Smells good already. Anyone have a Dr. Brown's CelRay tonic? Or a Shiner?
 
USP45

The figure of 150,000,000 guns in the article is just for the 10 percent of gun owners. According to the NRA that would leave another 50,000,000 guns among the 90 percent. Like I said before, I think this whole study is bull anyway and CBS is using it to their antigun advantage.

Joe
 
ummm... yeah.

If 60% (his lowball estimate) already own firearms, that means almost half of his clientele are new gun owners, which would mean that the number of gun owners are increasing, despite the premise of the story.

Funny thing about that 10% number... I think whenever one tries to minimize a group, the %10 is used... Commonly used WRT the gay/lesbian community. This article seems to be attempting to make it very un-pc to own a gun (middle class old white guys. hmm)
 
Glenn E. Meyer


What I understood of your post I totally agree with. ;) I don't care what color someone is, what party they belong to, what church they do or do not go to, what their stance is on abortion, or what kind or barn animals someone sleeps with, if they are pro RKBA we need them on our side. To be honest I could even put up with a lot of liberalism if we could have a guarantee that we could always have the RKBA. The all or nothing Libertarian attitude isn't what is needed.

We need EVERYONE on our side including the soccer moms and we aren't going to get them if we look like a bunch of nuts running around talking about black helicopters and U.N. troops on U.S. soil.

Joe


http://second.amendment.homepage.com
 
A little familiarization with Dr. Jens Ludwig and his study for those of you who are unaware.

Dr. Ludwig co-authored a study entitled "Guns in America" with Dr. Phillip Cook of Johns Hopkins. This study is notable for a number of reasons.

The DOJ was curious at the results of the Kleck study and wanted to study gun use in America further. The study was funded by a grant from the Department of Justice and was carried out by the non-profit Police Foundation. Originally, Dr. Kleck was to have been the author of the study but he was removed through political wrangling and the anti-gun team mentioned above was appointed.

The study looked at several aspects of firearm use including defensive firearm use.
The study used sampling to determine that roughly 36% of Americans owned 192 million guns. They further made the conclusion that about 10% of Americans owned the majority of guns.

What is really remarkable about the study is the number of defensive gun uses it found... despite an anti-gun author and a much more restrictive methodology than Kleck, the study found about 1.5 million DGUs every year. Had they used the Kleck methodology, the number would have been 4.7 million...

The authors then went on to state that this particular number was wrong while the rest of their survey was absolutely correct. They further speculated about possible sources of "false positives" in DGU reporting (ignoring all sources of "false negatives" that might be present as well).

Given the use of sampling, the ownership numbers could be off some... I have consistently seen household ownership (and this measures adult ownership - not household) at around 40-50%. Overall though, the numbers are probably in the right ballpark... the NRA and ATF estimate of 225 million guns is based on a rather optimistic estimate of counting every gun made or imported in this country and not exported from 1898 to 1994. Obviously, some of those older guns are not going to be functional even if they do still exist.

A brief of the "Guns in America" study can be found online at the National Institute of Justice for those of you who are curious. http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles/165476.txt
 
Well, as most of you know, I'm one of those who believe the Second
Amendment means just what it says. I gather there aren’t many of us left.

But before you brand me with that "All or nothing" brush, make sure you
have your facts straight.

Unlike many of you, I welcome every viewpoint on the side of our RKBA.
Though we may differ in what you call strategy and tactics, I put great store
in Colin Powell’s statement, "A movement requires many different voices".

So I don't agree that we should give away as much as you are willing to give
away. So what? For you to say I'm a detriment to the movement because I
believe in the Bill of Rights is not merely offensive, it weakens our
movement, and it is a lie. When you accuse me of “preaching to the choir”,
please note that you are belittling and insulting, in public, someone who
believes in the same goals you profess to have but will not defend.

We, as gun owners, would be much better off welcoming all comers to the
RKBA movement rather than expending time and effort engaging in the “only
I am smart enough to be correct” syndrome.

Why would a newcomer want to join a group engaged in back-stabbing and
in-fighting? Simply acknowledge there is a great span of views within the
RKBA effort and help newbies find their niche. Quit blaming people on your
side for the successes of the united, active, and therefoe effective HCI crowd.

Just for a moment, note that we have been compromising and losing since
Prohibition. It shouldn’t shock and surprise you that some of us no longer
believe we can regain our Rights by giving up the meager remains of the
Second Amendment.

2) And many of us do compromise. The Concealed Handgun License
program of which you are so proud has licensed and registered thousands
upon thousands of gun owners. Here in Texas we now must pay more than
$200 for the four-year privilege of exercising what really is a small part of our
Second Amendment Rights. Yet we scream victory because we have
minimized a loss - we have regained part of what was stolen from us.

I despise the CHL system on the level of politics and Natural Rights. However,
I am a CHL Instructor, trying to introduce as many people as possible to our
RIGHT to Keep and Bear Arms. So I also have compromised in the
name of a greater goal.

But when you accuse those who believe in the Second Amendment of being
“loonies”, stupid, ignorant, unrealistic ignoramuses who are “preaching to the
choir”, please remember it is the “compromisers” like you who brought us to
the low position of near defeat we suffer today.

So, get on with your program. Bring more people into the RKBA fold. But
remember nobody on TFL, in our government, or even in our country, is big
enough intellectually, morally, historically, physically, or administratively to
berate anyone in the RKBA movement for their beliefs in the Right to Keep
and Bear Arms.
------

Now, how do we get Americans to consider our Constitution important enough to vote for?


------------------
Either you believe in the Second Amendment or you don't.
Stick it to 'em! RKBA!
 
As I say, it's an assault on the Gun Culture. If the sheeple can be separated from the knowledge and ownership of guns, their sheeple children will have no basis from which to understand that gun ownership is their right. Further, with no access to guns, they won't "miss them" when they're confiscated. Rather, they'll be cheering on the JBT's as they "root out" the last enclaves of "right-wing Christian survivalist gun-totin' wackos".

In another generation, maybe two, that generation of adults will only see guns in museums (and in the hands of criminals and JBT's). Remember, it's a war on the CULTURE. We have nearly lost already. A few more nudges and that's it.
 
Dennis,

Maybe I wasn't clear. When I was talking about the "all or nothing Libertarian" attitude" being self defeating, I wasn't talking specifically about the 2nd Amendment. As far as the 2nd Amendment is concerned, I do take a no compromise Libertarian stance.

Like I said before, I could put up with a lot of liberalism if I could have a guaranteed RKBA. Let's secure the RKBA and then go from there. We can worry about a completely perfect Constitutional government later. :)

Joe
 
In agreement with most of Mr. Meyers points, but there are several retorts or comments.

1) Only a handful of CCW permits. We have to admit that not everybody wants to carry concealed. I do, you do, but not everyone. Some people like having that 38 in the nightstand.

2) I also agree with the "many voices in our movement," but it is imperitive that once it does come down to "our" issue, we all sing the same song. There is the ideal (2A = What it says) and the practical (2A = Govt Administration). As a group, rather than patting ourselves on the back and pointing fingers, we need to ORGANIZE a little better to reach our goals. 100 million owners or 25 million owners we can all vote.

3) Your "No comp, L.I.T.S.B." reacts the same way when I construct emotional arguments for anti's and pro's alike. Saying something to strike a chord and watching the mental gymnastics unfold is quite fun and effective. This refusal to use emotion in our campaign, "just the facts ma'am" is retarded. I think using holocaust images is despicable due to the complete lack of intentional sacrifice on the victims part- they did not die for our cause, they died because they were different than the ideal. These debates; however, are truly educational when it comes to the mind workings. Not all minds are inspired by the truth, some like to feel that emotion swell- like deep down, everybody wants to see the New Orleans Saints stop sucking just once and win the big one. Never happen, but it makes you feel GOOD!

I agree with the middle of the road recruitment, but if there is not this hard right group, we would not have a benchmark to measure our gains and losses against.

Stay away from hotdogs, all lips and as#Holes- like NYS politicians. Too much salt too much fat. I can not wait until cities start suing food producers because the US is too fat (it has been proposed.)

[This message has been edited by hube1236 (edited July 06, 2000).]
 
You know a journalist is an anti when he/she goes out of the way to quote someone and use the EXACT improper grammer to make him look foolish.

Have you ever read something like this:

When asked about the gun his son used in the shooting Mr. Johnson said, "I'oh know whaya he got dat gun. Ya'll know what ahm sayin'?"

You never will. Instead, they clean it up by not directly quoting the person.

Mr. Johnson said he had no idea where the gun came from.

10% of Americans pay more than 80% of income taxes, too. Ever hear of the 80/20 rule?

Maybe we need minority protection? Maybe it should be a hate crime if you disparage a gun owner?
 
Just another "scientific" attempt to fractionalize the masses into separate, distinct, arguing groups.

Read my signature line by Lenin.

By definition, I am a single issue voter. I see this attack upon the 2nd Amendment as THE issue presented by the incumbent political party.
This pissing contest was brought to us, not the other way around.
If someone wants 'em, by all means, come and get 'em.

And, if I'm to believe that my adversaries are so intent upon disarming me, then let them try, personally to disarm me.
Too damn chicken sh!t to do that though. The same damn crowd who I'd love to watch go hunting for their own food daily to survive.
They'd poison themselves because they're too ignorant to know how to properly dress game. That, of course, assumes they could even take the game to start with.

The arguement has been made that the 2nd Amendment has outlived it's usefulness, and that technology has eliminated the need to arm the populace.
Along the flow of that arguement then, I challenge any anti-2nd Amendment person to provide food for themselves on a daily basis.(For the "It's not for the hunting guns" logic of Gun Control)
I realize that a great number of anti-2nd Amendment folks are vegetarians. So be it. Go find the necessary materials for your salads in the middle of the Winter. Your bean sprouts, Lettuce, Celery, Tomato, etc., without some hi-tech hyponic garden. Oh, and you can't cheat and goto the local grocery store and buy some Chicken, or Turkey to supplement the dietary intake.

No, no, no, the challenge would be to provide food for yourself, and family on a daily basis, without the benefit of modern society. No car, no stores, no ordering out, no deliveries.

Your mind, your gun, and your will to survive. That's all you get.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, there will be criminals out there who will want to take your gun, your food, rape you, murder you, and leave your for the scavengers.(The real reason we have a 2nd Amendment)
Have a good day :)

Best Regards,
Don

------------------
The most foolish mistake we could make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms;
History shows that all conquerers who have allowed their subjected people to carry arms have prepared their own fall.
Adolf Hitler
-----------------
"Corrupt the young, get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial, and destroy their rugged- ness.
Get control of all means of publicity, and thereby get the peoples' mind off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books and plays, and other trivialities.
Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance."

Vladimir Ilich Lenin, former leader of USSR

[This message has been edited by Donny (edited July 06, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Donny (edited July 06, 2000).]
 
You guys are pushing me down into the .05% level. That rightful position once was reserved for the bike club, not me!
I may own an inordinate amount of firearms according to others including my wife but they are my joy. I can tell you the history of each since it has come into my collection and prior history on most. I don't shoot all af them on a regular basis but have shot all but a few and worked up a good load for each! I am over 50 years old, served in the the US NAVY from 1970-1974 and never killed a soul PERIOD In my years of being a firearms person, I have purchased a bunch and never sold but one and had fun with them. Life Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness?

[This message has been edited by HankL (edited July 06, 2000).]
 
No matter how you finagle the figures, CBS in these two segments of half-baked hokum has acknowledged that gun owners are a significant fraction of the population. Now tell me, how can this group 'want more gun control' as CBS claims that the polls show? And if it makes no sense for them to want such an intrusion into their rights, then who does want it? And how large a minority are they?

As I pointed out in my post below (CBS and Dan Rather At it Again,) the network has succeeded in shooting itself in the foot in two ways...in contradicting the figures in their own propaganda report; and also by antagonizing and vilifying a group that considers itself by definition a part of the Good Guys of our society .

Tonite's 'follow-up' admitted that the anti's have actually created more interest in gun ownership by their espousal of the 'smart gun' concept. But there's a cryptic agenda at work in this statement too. If 'smart guns' are so popular, and are the only safe guns, there is every reason to make non-smart guns against the law for private citizen ownership. Believe me, they'll push this idea. They can't stand the notion that someone's old night-stand horse pistol is beyond their control.

One can only hope that bunk like this so insults the intelligence of the general electorate that they will vote against the tide, out of anger, and help us delay the inevitable defeat.

Not by Constitutional means, but by propaganda, fiat, regulation and administrative limitations, our legal right to be armed will gradually be removed, and only the natural right will remain. At that time, every one of us will have to decide which law is paramount.


------------------
If they take our guns, I intend to let my hair grow long and acquire the jawbone of an ass.
 
Americans should eat a good hot dog every once in awhile and damn the cholesterol.

As far as their being made of weird body parts - so what. I love a good lobster and that dude is nothing but a big bug that lives in the ocean. Looks like the scorpions that periodically visit my house.

Back to the survey. I'm thinking about my workplace where I happen to have a pretty good handle on the gun owners. If we did a frequency distribution of guns, I'm pretty sure we would get a distribution of a lot of folks with one or two guns and then a significant but smaller group of folks with lots of guns. The group of committed owners have 6 to 20 guns each. Thus the sum of the two groups might actually come out the way the survey says.

As far as my views - I've made my points before about the difference between compromise which slows the erosion as compared to getting a greater gain with a smaller technical loss.
Boring to repeat myself. Search for my brilliance or ignorance depending on what you think.

It is better to have the TX CHL bill then not.
We then modified some of the crappy parts of the original. GWB is being criticized for some of these changes.

In Oregon, we traded a stupid ban on carrying assault weapons in public for a CHL law.

If you sit and wait for absolute purity of the
2nd Amend to descend from Heaven, you better be immortal.

The antis whittle us away, I never understand why we can't whittle back instead of just making statements after a loss.

Remember the uproar when it was said that Clinton needed some deaths to promote gun control.

Sometimes I wonder in dark moments if some pro-gun forces need losses to keep the donations flowing.

If Emerson for example wiped out all gun laws
(never happen), would the NRA be hit financially and what would the GOA do?

Evil thoughts, heh?
 
Glenn, I have to admit that I have similar dark thoughts about the NRA. They are stronger than ever with Clinton/Gore. The donations flow when the chips are really down. Oh well, I'm just glad that I converted an Anti this weekend, and he ended up with a Glock! I'm still gloating.
 
It took 11 years to get the constitution ratified. And because a few of those men took a (line in the sand no compromise posititon), we live in the greatest nation that has ever existed.

They knew that we would reach this point
in our evolution, they gave us the tools
(The Bill of Rights) to keep and regain
our lost liberties.

History tells us what happens when firearm registration becomes law.

We only have to read the Declaration of Independence to grasp what tyranny is, and the abuses that go with it.

I envision a future, where evil men are kept
in check by good men.

A future where children dream of becoming what ever their hearts desire, and not puppets being shuffled around specialized schooling because of their DNA.

I don't know about you, but, I like the idea
of having the responsibility of making decisions that determines what happens to me.

Waterdog
 
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