In Mississippi, 55.8% of adults have guns at home. Wyoming has, by far, the highest number of guns per capita. CBSNews.com, 15 February 2018. Two-thirds of gun owners say they own more than one gun, including 29% who own five or more guns. Many adults who dont currently own a gun say they could see themselves owning one at some point. As a result, studies have relied on proxy measures, such as the proportion of suicides in which a firearm is used. For example, about four-in-ten men (39%) say they personally own a gun, compared with 22% of women. Of Wyoming's 581,075 people, there are 132,806 registered guns. In Wyoming, an estimated 66.2% of adults live in homes with guns. An estimated 28.3% of adults in California have guns in their homes. Now, lets take a look at gun ownership by state. Fortitude Ranch is a survivalist retreat in Mathias. Just 20% of women say they used airsoft guns at least sometimes when they were growing up. New York is the only other state with gun ownership less than 20% at 19.9%. Guns are in the households of 50.8% of Oregonians. to incorporate the statistic into your presentation at any time. The following statistics portray current gun ownership statistics in the US. What the data says about abortion in the U.S. Are you in the American middle class? Customers peruse the merchandise at a gun show in Mansfield. On average, men who grew up in a gun-owning household report that they first got their own gun when they were 17, compared with an average age of 26 for women who grew up with guns in their household. 40-45% of 47-53 million Americans have a household with a gun. But higher shares of male than female gun owners say hunting (43% of men vs. 31% of women) and sport shooting (34% vs. 23%) are major reasons they personally own a gun. Access to this and all other statistics on 80,000 topics from, Show sources information Estimating Global Civilian-Held Firearms Numbers. For example, eight-in-ten adults who grew up in a gun-owning household in a rural area cite hunting as a reason there were guns in their household, while fewer cite protection (57%) or sport shooting (51%). Canada, on the other hand, ranks 13th on the study's list, with 9.95 million firearms or 31 per 100 residents. RAPID CITY, S.D. Up to four states can be selected at a time. ThoughtCo, Jul. And across community types, about three-in-ten cite sport shooting as a major reason. Overall, 69% of all U.S. adults and 75% of those who own a gun say the world has become a more dangerous place. This doesnt mean there arent crimes committed with legally owned weapons, but it does mean that bad guys do bad things and have found a way to get a weapon despite strict gun laws. When it comes to hunting, however, rural gun owners are far more likely than their urban or suburban counterparts to say it is as an important reason they own a gun; 48% of gun owners in rural areas say this, compared with 34% in the suburbs and 27% in urban parts of the country. In Iowa, 43.6% of adults have guns in their homes. CBS News staff. Structural equation modeling was then used to estimate ownership rates from these survey-based estimates and administrative data on firearm suicides, hunting licenses, background checks, and other indicators of gun ownership. Of Wyoming's 581,075 people, there are 132,806 registered guns. "Percentage of Households in The United States Owning One or More Firearms from 1972 to 2022. Gun Ownership by Firearm Type Pistols are the most commonly owned firearm among gun owners - second is rifles and then shotguns last. An estimated 55.5% of adults in Alabama have guns at home. While her husband looks on, Madelie Sellers shoots a .45 caliber pistol at Precision Guns and Indoor Range in Baton Rouge. Regardless of the type of community they lived in growing up, adults who grew up with guns in their households are far more likely than those who did not to be gun owners themselves. The SAS found that gun ownership among civilians . Republicans are more than twice as likely as Democrats to own a gun. Firearm related crime, deaths and injuries, Facebook: quarterly number of MAU (monthly active users) worldwide 2008-2022, Quarterly smartphone market share worldwide by vendor 2009-2022, Number of apps available in leading app stores Q3 2022, Profit from additional features with an Employee Account. RAND found that 46.8% of adults in Maine have at least one gun at home. While this is particularly the case among those who own or have owned a gun (95%), about half of those who have never personally owned a gun say they have fired one (55%). Mike Jones poses beside a display in a gun store in Simpsonville. Alaska gets the last spot on our list. The U.S. has over 50% more firearms per capita than the next two highest nations, Serbia and Yemen at about 0.55 and three times as many as major European countries such as France and Germany. First published on September 13, 2017 / 12:29 PM. Directly accessible data for 170 industries from 50 countries and over 1 million facts: Get quick analyses with our professional research service. Handguns are the most commonly owned type of gun, followed by rifles, then shotguns. Here, confiscated guns on display as federal officials announce multiple arrests in a drug and weapons investigation in 2021 in Boston. After taking the man into custody, police later confirmed the rifle was a replica Airsoft weapon. Statista. The number of legal guns in Germany is about 7 per 100 residents. But there are several reputable organizations that track firearms-related statistics, such as the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, which can provide a fairly accurate look at gun ownership by state, as well as annual federal licensing data. in 2015, the Deseret News reported reported Americans own guns at a staggering rate of 88.8 firearms per 100 people. Besides demographic differences, clear partisan divides emerge when it comes to gun ownership. Check to see how your. Take a look at the following tables that provides a look at legal gun ownership percentages throughout the United States: Gun ownership in America has a long and illustrious history. Its population of 731,545 people has 23,455 registered guns. In April, gun sales were down 23% compared with the . Most gun owners cite multiple reasons for owning a gun. Among whites, about four-in-ten of those with a high school diploma or less (40%) or with some college (42%) are gun owners, compared with roughly a quarter of white college graduates (26%). In fact, in 2020 alone, it is estimated that 5 million Americans became first-time gun owners. Among women who grew up in a gun-owning household, about one-in-five (22%) say they went hunting at least sometimes when they were growing up, while most say they hardly ever (18%) or never (61%) did this. In the lowest age group18- to 29-year-oldsown 27% own a gun. For the purpose of this article, were focusing on the total percentage of gun ownership in relation to the states population. Chart. Here, armed protesters calling for an end to restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 gather outside the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing in April 2020. Obtaining a permit or license required to even purchase a gun in these states can take weeks and is relatively rigorous. About eight-in-ten of those ages 65 and older (84%) and 73% of those ages 50 to 64 cite hunting as a reason; a narrower majority of adults ages 30 to 49 who grew up in a gun-owning household (60%) and about half of those younger than 30 (52%) cite hunting. The Falkland Islands -- a British territory in the southwest Atlantic Ocean, claimed by Argentina and the subject of a 1982 war -- is home to the world's second-largest stash of civilian guns. TheRAND Corporationpublished a 2020 study on adults who say they live with at least one gun. However, they provide a decent picture, per capita, of what gun ownership by state in American looks like. Wyoming has "more guns per capita than any state"-yet they have a gun-related murder rate that is below the national average. An estimated 53.1% of adults in the Bayou State have guns at home. Plus, these areas are often more rural in nature as 60% of households that own a gun are considered rural. Of those who didnt grow up with guns in their household, smaller shares say the same (46%). About eight-in-ten adults who live in a rural area (79%) say people in their community generally have a positive view of gun owners; just 47% of those in urban areas say the same about people in their community. They were made to safeguard freedoms against tyranny, and are not granted by the Government, but considered a God-given right and are not to be infringed upon by any government. Heather McCracken (Content), Haley Okuley (Design), and Lee Floyd (Development), State Level Estimates of Household Firearm Ownership, What Science Tells Us About the Effects of Gun Policies, In Search of Common Ground: Expert Judgments on Gun Policy Effects, New Approaches to Understanding the Effects of Gun Policies, Additions and Updates to the Gun Policy in America Initiative, Prohibitions Associated with Domestic Violence, Prohibitions Associated with Mental Illness, Surrender of Firearms by Prohibited Possessors, Bans on the Sale of Assault Weapons and High-Capacity Magazines, Firearm Sales Reporting, Recording, and Registration Requirements, Lost or Stolen Firearm Reporting Requirements, Laws Allowing Armed Staff in K-12 Schools, Explore all gun policies and outcomes from our research review, Firearm Injury Hospitalizations in America, Inpatient Hospitalizations for Firearm Injury, State-Level Estimates of Household Firearm Ownership, The Effects of the 1996 National Firearms Agreement in Australia on Suicide, Homicide, and Mass Shootings, The Relationship Between Firearm Availability and Suicide, The Relationship Between Firearm Prevalence and Violent Crime, Education Campaigns and Clinical Interventions for Promoting Safe Storage, Gun Buyback Programs in the United States. To compare countries' gun ownership rates, researchers in the original study assigned each nation a score based on figures from the Small Arms Survey, the country's ratio of firearm suicides to all suicides (a common proxy for firearm availability . In late June 2020, Mark and Patricia McCloskey of St. Louis brandished guns at Black Lives Matter protesters. Wide differences on most gun policies between gun owners and non-owners, but also some agreement, Amid a Series of Mass Shootings in the U.S., Gun Policy Remains Deeply Divisive. The graph above plots the per capita firearms rate in the United States (stated as number of firearms per 10 people) against the murder rate as tabulated in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. By contrast, older Americans who grew up in a gun-owning household are far more likely than younger adults who grew up with guns to point to hunting as a reason guns were present in their household. Measuring gun ownership comes with its own set of challenges. Assistant Kansas Attorney General Amy Hanley shows a jury a Ruger Redhawk gun during a 2013 murder trial. Furthermore, the survey was conducted among adults who have responded to Pew Research Center surveys in the past as part of the American Trends Panel and thus may be more comfortable answering the questions. Law Enforcement Approaches for Reducing Gun Violence, Personal Firearm Storage in the United States, The Challenges of Defining and Measuring Defensive Gun Use, Methodological Challenges to Identifying the Effects of Gun Policies, state-level estimates of household firearm ownership from 1980 to 2016. Around 57.2% of Arkansans say they have guns in their homes. Additionally, given that not every person in the U.S. owns a gun, many people own multiple or many. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); ProjectGunner is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. firearms per 100 residents, up from 88 per 100 in 2011, far surpasses that of other . Overall, men who currently own guns or who have done so in the past report that they first became gun owners at age 19, on average; for women who own or previously owned guns, that age is 27. An estimated 48.9% of Kansas adults have firearms in their homes. These once-illegally-owned guns were seized by the New York Police Department in 2013. However, the Pew Research Center has compiled data that is about as accurate as it gets. The states with the lowest gun ownership per capita and the strictest firearm ownership laws have the lowest gun fatality rates. Back in 2017, for every one hundred people in the United States, there were one hundred twenty firearms in the hands of the general public. This still gives us a good rate of the overall demographic trends of firearm purchases, and provides us some insight into the reasoning behind this ownership as well. And every year, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms publishes a list of federally registered guns by state. And while 85% of gun owners who say the right to own guns is essential to their sense of freedom say they cant see themselves ever not owning a gun at some point, 41% of those who dont see the right to own guns as essential say the same. In many ways, these differences mirror the patterns in gun ownership. 1. This database was first released in 2020 and is available free to the public. Among non-gun owners, about six-in-ten of those who grew up in a gun-owning household say they could see themselves owning a gun at some point (61%). An estimated 45.2% of Nebraska adults have guns in their homes. Brandon Wexler demonstrates with a weapon at the K&W Gunworks store in Delray Beach. Tiffany Teasdale, owner of Lynnwood Gun and Ammunition, demonstrates a Daniel Defense DD5 semi-automatic rifle on April 2, 2020. Gun ownership is more common among men than women, and white men are particularly likely to be gun owners. Here's the latest ranking, along with the RAND numbers, which reveal insights into America's love of guns. There are also significant differences across parties, with Republican and Republican-leaning independents more than twice as likely as Democrats and those who lean Democratic to say they own a gun (44% vs. 20%). The resulting measure represents the proportion of adults living in a household with a firearm in each U.S. state for each year between 1980 and 2016. In New Hampshire, 41.1% of adults have guns in their homes. 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Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images, MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images, Chris Melzer/picture alliance via Getty Images, Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images, Laurie Skrivan/St. The Small Arms Survey claims that the United States has by far the highest level of gun ownership, with 88.8 guns per 100 people. Alaska has the highest rate of gun ownership in the U.S., with nearly 62 percent of adults owning a gun. Small Arms Survey, 2018. To see a full list of myths and facts, take a gander at these statistics backed by national databases. A man carries a rifle with a Texas flag attached to it during a police-appreciation rally in Houston. About four-in-ten men who grew up in a gun-owning household (44%) say they went shooting or to a gun range at least sometimes when they were growing up, while about a quarter of women (27%) say the same. The founder and president of H&H Gun Range smiles at a Henry Golden Boy rifle at his store in Oklahoma City. And while 62% of non-gun owners who live in rural areas say they could see themselves owning a gun at some point, smaller shares of those who live in a suburban (49%) or urban (50%) areas say the same. As a Premium user you get access to the detailed source references and background information about this statistic. Before diving into gun ownership stats by state, lets look at some general gun statistics throughout the nation. About four-in-ten (38%) say hunting is a major reason they own a gun, while three-in-ten cite sport shooting, including target, trap and skeet shooting. According to the Pew Research Center, handguns are the most common type of firearm among gun owners. Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York have the four lowest number of gun deaths. How it works: Hover over or tap on a line on the chart to identify the state and year shown. 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