Americans own more guns than ever, and liberals are freaking out.
But it’s not all good news for Second Amendment advocates.
New estimates from Wonkblog, based on data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive, reveal there is an average of 8.1 guns in every firearm-own household, a dramatic increase from the average of 4.2 guns in 1994.
But while Americans own more guns than ever, the number of gun-owning households is dropping, meaning the rising number of privately-owned guns in the U.S. is driven by gun owners possessing more firearms.
That could have deep political implications, as views on gun laws correlate with gun ownership, as do other voting patterns.
Christopher Ingraham, writing in The Washington Post, notes information from the University of Chicago’s “General Social Survey” “shows household ownership rates falling from over 50 percent in the 1970s to around 32 percent today.”
He points data Gallup shows a similar, but less extreme, trend.
Gallup finds “a decline in gun ownership since the early 1990s, from 54 percent of households in late 1993 to 43 percent as of this fall.”
A “2006 study found that the top 20 percent of gun owners owned 65 percent of America’s firearms. The top 3 percent of gun owners averaged over 25 firearms each,” Ingraham writes.
So why do gun owners own more guns than ever?
Because they’re tools, Ingraham notes.
“(Y)ou need different tools for different jobs: a rifle for hunting deer. A shotgun for hunting duck. A pistol for self-defense. An AR-15 for fun. Etc.,” Ingraham writes.
And that has liberals screeching.
“(I)n recent years, it seems many gun owners have seen fit to expand their toolboxes,” Ingraham writes. “There are probably a number of factors driving this: fear-stoking by some gun rights groups in the wake of mass shootings can lead to surges in gun-buying from existing owners concerned the government could take their guns away. The rising popularity of “prepper” groups, who stock up on food and firearms in preparation for a variety of coming apocalypses, may also be playing a role.”
In response, liberals are directly attacking ownership of AR-15s and high-capacity magazines.
While anti-gun activists of the past focused on broad, sweeping bans and casting all guns as threats, the new generation of gun confiscator is using AR-15s, high capacity magazine and “scary-looking” guns to cast the shrinking number of gun owners as domestic terror threats.
This “divide and conquer” strategy could be the beginning of the end for private gun ownership in America.
AAN Staff
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