Part 2: An analysis of firearms ownership in the United States over the years...

[DevsAdvocate 112]

Figured ya'll would enjoy this, I did a write up on the number of firearms owners over the years 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010... using polling data combined with census data.

 

Linky...

 

Let me know what you guys think!

[H.M. Murdock 0]

Thanks for sharing, I need to go back thru the site and read Part 1

[DevsAdvocate 112]

Thanks! Part 1 should be linked in the first paragraph.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[zoid 24]

Very interesting read. Do you think immigration has anything to do with it? Perhaps because if a good majority of the population increase is from immigrants and it's harder to obtain a gun as an immigrant it could affect ownership stats.

[Vlad G 345]

It's not really hard to obtain a firearm legally as a legal immigrant.

[Vlad G 345]

For some reason the gss data link doesn't work for me but I would like to know the methodology for their numbers to compare with the Gallup ones.

[Vlad G 345]

Whoa .. ok, so I got some data on how GSS is done vs Gallup and I personally wouldn't trust GSS data for anything, no just guns.

 

First of all, the GSS survey is often "in person", a face to face survey. This is going to skew results when you ask about controversial topics. Who here is shocked that the reported gun ownership dropped in the 80's and 90's given all the history of abuse during those years. If someone came into your house and asked what would you have said?

 

Secondly it is a 90minute interview. An hour and a fraking half. Ask yourself how many people are going to have the time to sit through that? More importantly ask yourself WHO is going to sit through that? I'm betting you are going to have an overrepresented quantity of retired people, house wives, etc. The report shows a decline in gun ownership young people? No kidding, you think your average young person today will sit down for a 90min survey and if they do think of what kind of person they are give todays standards. In my experience the younger folks are the people I see MOST at the range.

 

Compare this with Gallups polls which are phone based, and which make an effort to ensure that out every 1000 person poll they sample 400 cellphones and 600 landlines. This is going to lead to much different population they are going to sample.

 

So I think your data is wrong and you are mixing data sources which is never a good idea.

[DevsAdvocate 112]

Whoa .. ok, so I got some data on how GSS is done vs Gallup and I personally wouldn't trust GSS data for anything, no just guns.

 

First of all, the GSS survey is often "in person", a face to face survey. This is going to skew results when you ask about controversial topics. Who here is shocked that the reported gun ownership dropped in the 80's and 90's given all the history of abuse during those years. If someone came into your house and asked what would you have said?

 

Secondly it is a 90minute interview. An hour and a fraking half. Ask yourself how many people are going to have the time to sit through that? More importantly ask yourself WHO is going to sit through that? I'm betting you are going to have an overrepresented quantity of retired people, house wives, etc. The report shows a decline in gun ownership young people? No kidding, you think your average young person today will sit down for a 90min survey and if they do think of what kind of person they are give todays standards. In my experience the younger folks are the people I see MOST at the range.

 

Compare this with Gallups polls which are phone based, and which make an effort to ensure that out every 1000 person poll they sample 400 cellphones and 600 landlines. This is going to lead to much different population they are going to sample.

 

So I think your data is wrong and you are mixing data sources which is never a good idea.

 

Vlad, I accounted for that. I know mixing data sources is never a good idea, but this is all we have to go on. If you have better source data, then by all means, let me know. The sheer fact most gun owners are paranoid about people asking about gun ownership is why getting data on the actual number of gun owners is very difficult. You can see that with the 2000 polling data versus 1990, and then 2010. In 1990, it might have been in vogue to report gun ownership, but not in 2000.

 

But even under-reported, 80 million people is a lot. At least it gives us a good idea of the minimum number of gun owners. It is most likely a lot higher... but how much higher?

 

Here is the problem though: under-reporting gun ownership is actually TERRIBLE. Guess who else looks at these polls? Politicians, policy makers, etc. People who make decisions and hold a lot of power. When they see gun ownership in decline, or they think the numbers are lower than they really are, they assume gun owners can be marginalized. Sure, we can rally and kick their asses out of office AFTER the fact, but the idea is to make them realize how powerful we really are as a group so they know the political costs of pissing us off.

[DevsAdvocate 112]

Very interesting read. Do you think immigration has anything to do with it? Perhaps because if a good majority of the population increase is from immigrants and it's harder to obtain a gun as an immigrant it could affect ownership stats.

 

Immigration is a major contributor to our nations' population growth, but I have nothing to support how this would affect gun owners. There is simply not enough data.

[JSF01 13]

Here is the problem though: under-reporting gun ownership is actually TERRIBLE. Guess who else looks at these polls? Politicians, policy makers, etc. People who make decisions and hold a lot of power. When they see gun ownership in decline, or they think the numbers are lower than they really are, they assume gun owners can be marginalized. Sure, we can rally and kick their asses out of office AFTER the fact, but the idea is to make them realize how powerful we really are as a group so they know the political costs of pissing us off.

I have been giving this some thought. I think I have an idea that could correct for that. The downside is it would take new research and polls to accomplish, which you most likely do not have the capabilities to perform. If you could find what percentage of people honestly answer questions about gun ownership in polls, you could then use that information to extrapolate the total gun number of gun owners. If your poll says that 35% of the population owns firearms but you know that 50% of gun owners lie about owning guns it would indicate actually 70% of the population owns guns.

Of course the trick is figuring out what percentage the population lies about it since if a person that lies about firearm ownership is probably not going to tell you that they would lie about firearm ownership. The most simplest way to run the pool would be to a few gun ranges across country an poll them on who would answer polls on gun ownership honestly, and under what circumstances. Since they cannot lie about if whether or not they own a firearm or not when you can see they own one you know they are firearm owners. Because of that them telling you whether or not they would lie about firearm ownership would be pretty accurate.

Limitations of such polls would be that the results could be skewed one way or the other by people that do not go to ranges (for example people that bought a firearm for self defense or other emergencies, than put in a drawer never to touch it again.) Overall though I think It would be a pretty good rough estimate to go off of.

[greatgunstatenj 32]

Of course the trick is figuring out what percentage the population lies about it since if a person that lies about firearm ownership is probably not going to tell you that they would lie about firearm ownership.

 

Or you can do what the newspaper in NY did the other day. Use public records to find gun owners, get the phone number for the address, and call them with a "random" survey. Make one or two out of 10 questions about guns so they don't realize the purpose of the call. Then just compare their answers to what you know given the public records.

[JSF01 13]

Or you can do what the newspaper in NY did the other day. Use public records to find gun owners, get the phone number for the address, and call them with a "random" survey. Make one or two out of 10 questions about guns so they don't realize the purpose of the call. Then just compare their answers to what you know given the public records.

That may work. The only problems I see is that A) most places do not have a licencing system, and those that do are usually quite anti-gun. B) you still run into the problem of people that no longer live at that adress, or no longer own firearms. Not sure how big that problem would be though.