The gun numbers: just 3% of American adults own a collective 133m firearms

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: November 15, 2017 at 1:04:59 PM EST
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The gun numbers: just 3% of American adults own a collective 133m firearms
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> [Note:  This item comes from friend Judi Clark.  DLH]
>
> The gun numbers: just 3% of American adults own a collective 133m firearms
> Facts show owning more than 40 guns is actually fairly common in the United States, and violence falls most heavily 
> on the country’s poorest neighborhoods
> By Lois Beckett in New York
> Nov 15 2017
> <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/15/the-gun-numbers-just-3-of-american-adults-own-a-collective-133m-firearms>
>
> You’ve heard the statistics before: Americans have more guns per head than any nation on earth – along with gun 
> violence rates that are dramatically higher than other rich, developed countries.
>
> But these big-picture facts can be misleading. Not every American is packing heat and gun violence is intensely 
> concentrated in small neighbourhoods.
>
> Here’s a look at the dramatic concentration of America’s guns – and America’s violence:
>
> Gun ownership
>
> American civilians own at least 265m firearms, which gives Americans the highest rate of per capita firearm ownership 
> in the world, with about one gun for every American. 
>
> Yemen comes in a distant second, with about 55 guns for every 100 people, according to data from the 2007 Small Arms 
> Survey. 
>
> But surveys show that gun ownership in America is actually highly concentrated. Only 22 to 31% of Americans adults 
> say they personally own a gun.
>
> Rates of personal and household gun ownership appear to have declined over the past decades – roughly two-thirds of 
> Americans today say they live in a gun-free household. By contrast, in the late 1970s, the majority of Americans said 
> they lived in a household with guns. 
>
> Most of America’s gun owners have relatively modest collections, with the majority of gun owners having an average of 
> just three guns, and nearly half owning just one or two, according to a 2015 survey by Harvard and Northeastern 
> researchers, which gave the most in-depth estimate of Americans’ current patterns of gun ownerships.
>
> But America’s gun super-owners, have amassed huge collections. Just 3% of American adults own a collective 133m 
> firearms – half of America’s total gun stock. These owners have collections that range from eight to 140 guns, the 
> 2015 study found. Their average collection: 17 guns each. 
>
> After the Las Vegas shooting, officials said the killer had 23 guns in his hotel room, and another 19 at home. Some 
> Americans asked, shocked, why one person purchasing so many guns had not set off any red flags. 
>
> Part of the answer is that owning more than 40 guns is actually fairly common in the United States: there are an 
> estimated 7.7 million super-owners, which might make it difficult to flag a mass shooter building an arsenal from 
> enthusiastic collectors and gun enthusiasts piling up different kinds of guns for hunting different kinds of game, a 
> selection of handguns for self-defense, and various accessories for the popular, customizable military-style rifles 
> that enthusiasts have compared to lethal Lego sets for grown men. 
>
> “Why do you need more than one pair of shoes? The truth is, you don’t, but do you want more than one pair of shoes? 
> If you’re going hiking, you don’t want to use that one pair of high heels,” Philip van Cleave, the president of the 
> Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group, explained last year. 
>
> Super-owners were less diverse than gun owners overall, with super-owners more likely to be male, less likely to be 
> black or Hispanic, and more likely to own a gun for protection, researchers said. 
>
> While Americans have a constitutional right to have a gun in their homes for self defense, an increasing number of 
> Americans also appear to be armed on a regular basis outside their homes. A newly released study found that three 
> million Americans carry loaded handguns with them on a daily basis, and nine million Americans do so on a monthly 
> basis. Most of those choosing to carry are men. 
>
> These statistics rely on survey estimates because there’s no official, national count of how many guns Americans own 
> – or even what the grand total of civilian gun ownership is. This is why estimates range from 265m in the 2015 study 
> to above 400m (Yes, gun ownership in America is so private that there’s a 100m gun gap between different estimates).
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/18849915-ae8fa580
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-aa268125
Unsubscribe Now: 
https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-32545cb4&post_id=20171115174740:FA085336-CA56-11E7-ACF5-E1A789AC1D86
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com