Gun Ownership in America: The Data versus The Debate

Belief systems are usually more powerful than information systems.

In the battle between emotion and data, emotions usually win because they are intense and, to many people, kind of scary. We are, most of us in our daily lives, trained and conditioned to be restrained and analytical. We spend a lot of our time in front of keyboards and screens rather than live people, which reinforces those inclinations.

Those who are adept at influencing emotions have an advantage. Many people are embarrassed or intimidated in the face of feelings. As in any field of endeavor where expertise trumps inexperience, those who know how to design, apply and reinforce the impact of emotion can often get their way. This applies in most aspects of institutional decision-making. Those who can most effectively convey their arguments will most likely prevail.

There may be no more emotional issue in the US currently than the debate about the role guns in daily life. Hundreds of innocents are murdered every year, most notably in December 2012 , when 20 six year old school children and some of their teachers were shot by a mentally unstable young man.

The possibility arose this week that one small, but significant, change might actually come to pass. The change is technical, having to do with background checks prior to gun ownership be permitted. The impetus for the change is interesting here because it has to do with the role of data.

Ever since what has come to be called the Sandy Hook massacre, named for the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut where it occurred, the dominant narrative has been that US gun sales have increased. A lot. The implication is that Americans are voting with their feet and wallets, strongly endorsing more widespread access to guns.

But as the following article explains, the data may be telling us something very different. That, yes, gun sales have increased, but the number of people and families owning guns has decreased. That, in fact, for years - and possibly decades, gun ownership has become concentrated in a steadily decreasing number of hands. That data may have played a role in the political decision this week to explore stricter registration requirements. The initiative may still fail to pass, but that it has even gotten this far suggests that the issue has become too important for the math not to matter. The emotion of demand for the sensible is overpowering that of rage. Which may account for the fact that in nationwide polling, gun background checks enjoy higher ratings than apple pie, baseball and kittens. JL

James Werrell reports in McClatchy via the Rock Hill Herald:

You’d think, reading news reports about people rushing out to buy assault rifles and stock up on ammo, that gun ownership is on the rise. But according to at least one survey, just the opposite is true.
If the survey is accurate – and the National Rifle Association is skeptical – it offers a fascinating contrast between reality and perception. Instead of a citizen militia busily stockpiling firearms, we may be a nation in which a large majority of people don’t have a single gun in the house.According to data from the General Social Survey, a public opinion survey conducted every two years by a research center at the University of Chicago, the household gun ownership rate has fallen from an average of 50 percent in the 1970s to 49 percent in the 1980s, 43 percent in the 1990s and 35 percent in the 2000s. Consider that, only about a third of U.S. households have guns.And, equally surprisingly, the decline has occurred across the board. The rate has dropped in big cities and small towns, suburbs and rural areas, and in all regions of the country – including the gun-loving South and West.Gun ownership is down among households with children and those without children. It’s down among rich and poor. It’s down among churchgoers and non-worshippers alike.Those who doubt the validity of the survey point to anecdotal evidence of increased gun sales, a rise in the number of background checks and long waits for gun-safety classes. But the researchers who conducted the survey have an answer for that: The people buying guns are the people who already have guns.That category could include everyone from collectors to survivalists. Apparently, though, most Americans aren’t interested in assembling an arsenal in their homes.We also have to assume that many of the people who said they had a gun in the house have only one or two firearms. They might have only granddad’s old double-barreled shotgun or pop’s Colt .45 from the war or the .22 rifle they got as a kid. And many, no doubt, are strictly hunters with only a rifle or a couple of shotguns.But the most surprising statistic is that, despite warnings that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun,” about 65 percent of American households are gun-free.That is pertinent because it appears to indicate that the successful effort to stymie even minor restrictions in gun ownership is driven largely by the gun fanciers who own multiple guns. We might also extrapolate that these are the people who are most concerned that the government will try to take away their guns.