How Many Guns Are There and Who Owns Them? - Characteristics Of Gun Owners

In "Who Owns Guns? Criminals, Victims, and the Culture of Violence" (American Economic Review, vol. 88, no. 2, May 1998), Edward L. Glaeser and Spencer Glendon reported their findings on the characteristics of gun owners. They concluded that gun owners are most likely to be:

• White, married men, over age forty, with teenage children (rather than infants or young children)
• High-school graduates with higher incomes who own their own homes
• Hunters
• Residents of the South who live away from large cities and in areas where police are less available
• Members of social groups in which gun ownership is the norm, perhaps because of a mistrust of public justice or because reliance on public justice is seen as a lack of individual competence

TABLE 2.8

Gun ownership by socio-demographics, 2001
	Gun in household	Handgun in household	Personally owns gun
* Overall differences in distributions significant at .05–.002
** Overall differences in distributions significant at .001 or less
SOURCE: Tom W. Smith, "Table 5A. Levels and Distribution of Gun Ownerships—Ownership by Socio-Demographics," in 2001 National Gun Policy Survey of the National Opinion Research Center: Research Findings, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, December 2001, http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/online/guns01.pdf (accessed October 7, 2004)
Men	41.7%	27.9%	39.2%
Women	28.5**	16.0**	10.2**
Northeast	26.0	11.4	18.9
Midwest	35.0	18.9	21.2
South	44.2	29.5	31.8
West	27.7**	20.9**	18.8**
Rural	65.2	41.8	43.6
Town, small city	35.3	19.2	27.7
Suburb	29.5	20.8	15.9
Large city	21.7**	13.8**	15.6**
Married	41.9	26.7	27.0
Divorced	29.2	17.0	24.9
Separated	24.6	11.8	18.4
Widowed	28.3	16.1	28.0
Never married	23.2**	13.8**	15.0**
Less than high school	27.7	12.8	19.2
High school	40.3	25.7	27.9
College	34.9	22.3	24.0
Greater than college	31.7	23.0	21.2
$0–9,999	16.1	10.2	14.3
$10,000–19,999	27.1	10.9	20.1
$20,000–29,999	31.1	17.0	27.0
$30,000–39,999	35.2	18.5	19.2
$40,000–49,999	30.4	21.5	23.5
$50,000–59,999	39.6	27.2	27.8
$60,000–79,999	49.8	30.0	29.2
$80,000+	41.3**	31.0**	29.6**
Less than 30 years old	25.8	16.2	13.3
30–39	37.0	21.6	20.6
40–49	41.1	26.4	28.8
50–65	34.2	24.4	29.4
65+	37.2*	19.9**	29.2**
No children in home	34.6	21.1	25.8
1 child	31.7	21.8	18.5
2 children	39.6	25.0	23.3
3 children	35.1	20.0	19.7
4+ children	35.9**	20.7	30.7**
Liberal	25.9	16.1	18.4
Moderate	35.0	19.7	24.0
Conservative	40.0**	26.6*	26.9*
Whites	37.8	23.3	25.3
Blacks	21.6	15.4	18.3

• Individuals with a tendency toward more violent types of retribution

Characteristics of gun owners are also collected by the National Opinion Research Center in the annual National Gun Policy Survey. Table 2.8 shows 2001 data according to demographic and social characteristics ("socio-demographics"). Men (39.2%) were far more likely to own guns than were women (10.2%). More respondents in the South (44.2%) said they had a gun in the household, and handgun ownership was also highest there (29.5%). Married people (27%) and widowed people

FIGURE 2.3

(28%) were more likely to have guns than divorced people (24.9%), separated people (18.4%), or never married people (15%). Personal gun ownership was highest for high-school graduates (27.9%) and lowest for those with less than a high-school education (19.2%).

Table 2.8 also shows that gun ownership varies with household income, age, political persuasion, and race. Households with incomes of more than $60,000 reported the highest levels of gun ownership. Those aged forty and over were more likely to own guns than those under forty. Conservatives (26.9%) and moderates (24%) were more likely than liberals (18.4%) to own guns. More than a quarter (15.3%) of whites reported owning a gun compared to 18.3% of blacks.

A 2004 Gallup poll found that 43% of households reported that they keep a gun in the home. Figure 2.3 shows that of the approximately one thousand people called in this survey, 50% of political conservatives, 38% of moderates, and 33% of liberals owned a gun.