As National Rifle Association Meets in St. Louis, MO, This Week, New Comprehensive Survey Reveals That Gun Ownership Has Declined Dramatically Over Past 35 Years

Contrary to Gun Industry and Gun Lobby Claims, Only 34.5 Percent of U.S. Households Have Guns, Personal Gun Ownership Hits Low of 21.6 Percent

Washington, DC--Contrary to public claims by the gun industry and the gun lobby, firearms ownership has declined dramatically over the past 35 years according to new survey data from the General Social Survey (GSS) released today by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. Except for the U.S. Census, the GSS is the most frequently analyzed source of information in the social sciences and is the only survey that has tracked the opinions of Americans over an extended period of time. The NORC data comes out the same week that the National Rifle Association (NRA) begins its annual convention this Thursday in St. Louis, MO.

The NORC data shows that during the period 1972 to 2006, the percentage of American households that reported having any guns in the home has dropped nearly 20 percentage points: from a high of 54 percent in 1977 to 34.5 percent in 2006. The data also shows that during the period 1980 to 2006, the percentage of Americans who reported personally owning a gun dropped more than nine percentage points: from a high of 30.7 percent in 1985 to a low during the survey period of 21.6 percent in 2006. Charts for both household gun ownership and personal gun ownership using the NORC findings for the years 1972 to 2006 can be found in a new Violence Policy Center (VPC) analysis, A Shrinking Minority: The Continuing Decline of Gun Ownership in America. The VPC analysis also reveals that contrary to claims by the gun industry and gun lobby that firearms ownership continues to rise and that “nearly half” of all American homes have a gun, the reality, as the new NORC report "Public Attitudes Toward the Regulation of Firearms" concludes, is that “...gun ownership has been declining over the last 35 years and the 9/11 terrorist attacks did not reverse that trend.”

VPC Executive Director Josh Sugarmann states, “Society is leaving the gun culture behind. Nearly two thirds of American homes are gun free, and more than three quarters of Americans do not personally own a gun. Yet our nation remains hostage to the gun industry’s lethality-at-any-cost mentality as measured by nearly 30,000 gun deaths per year and tens of thousands of additional wounded.”

The VPC analysis notes, “When talking to the news media, gunmakers work to present themselves as a vibrant, growing industry that is an inextricable part of American society.” Yet, over the past decade when talking amongst themselves in industry publications, the issue, as voiced in one gunmaker’s 1998 ad cited in the analysis, is, “It’s not `who your customers will be in five years.’ It’s `will there be any customers left?’” Reasons most commonly cited by the gun industry and gun lobby for the decline in gun ownership include: a lack of interest in guns by youth; the end of military conscription; the decreasing popularity of hunting; land use issues that limit hunting; environmental and zoning issues that force shooting ranges to close and limit new range construction; and, the increase in single-parent homes headed by women.

The Violence Policy Center is a national non-profit educational foundation that conducts research on violence in America and works to develop violence-reduction policies and proposals. The Center examines the role of firearms in America, conducts research on firearms violence, and explores new ways to decrease firearm-related death and injury.