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1) guns are a serious thing. If you are not prepared for the responsibility, you should not have one, period.
2) general demographic shift has been towards more urban, less rural. Rural = more likelihood to be around firearms. You will probably see some correlation between other urbans issue things like "people who don't know how to swim".
3) As long as crime stays low, NRA membership is the only thing at risk from less people owning guns. I don't think there is a criminal's union out there who will take a vote and say "Hey, gun ownership is down, time for a crime spree". I know that crime has generally been dropping in the past 30 years, but I don't know if that is because of or in spite of gun ownership.
4) Street thugs will not be survey participants. Perhaps they were 'estimated' though through police logs, etc?
Once one of the country's most popular pastimes, hunting has seen a steady decline since the 1970s because of lack of recruitment, a rise in high-tech entertainment and the migration of rural families to cities.
However, it just may be on the rise again leading to an increase in guns within the home. Everything goes in cycles.
Well in NJ it took my husband over 6 months to clear all the hurdles just to get the permit. Also guns are not cheap a lot of people just simply can not afford them, that does not mean they do not want them.
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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 (see Graphic 1, Graphic 2).
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 period of 21.6 percent in 2006 (see Graphic 1, Graphic 3).
These numbers, the most recent and comprehensive data available, come from the General Social Survey (GSS). The GSS is conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC)1 at the University of Chicago. Begun in 1972, the GSS completed its 26th round in 2006. According to NORC, “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.”
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How many people in their right minds would tell a telephone interviewer about their gun ownership? I would not.
It's nobody's business how many guns anyone owns, and anyone would be a fool to divulge personal information to some anonymous person in a telephone conversation. The survey probably is not worth a thin dime regarding gun ownership.
Do most people go to a gun store to buy a gun, or buy them from individuals? I'd wager that most guns are not registered to the real owners.
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