Half of America’s Guns Are Owned by Only 3 Percent of Adults

3 percent of adults from America have 50 percent of the nation’s guns. This result was discovered after a survey made on 4000 firearm owners.

• There is more than 1 gun for every citizen in America.
• The survey showed that 22 percent of American adults own firearms.
• Gun advocates rights are skeptical about the result.
• People say that they own so many guns to protect themselves.

Although gun ownership has been reduced, the number of firearms now lays in fewer hands. The study has shown that 3 percent top American citizens have almost 17 firearms each.

This type of survey is very important because it shows not only if the person owns guns, but also the type of gun and how many he has.

This study showed that less people own guns compared to the studies made recently like Gallup (28 percent) and Pew Research Center (31 percent). This one revealed that only 22 percent have admitted that they own a gun.

Based on the estimated number of firearms in circulation (265 million) it means that there is more than a gun for every adult in America.

This research shows that many people are afraid for their lives and that is why they have more than one gun in their household. This type of concentration was also found when it comes to health care or alcohol consumption.

Many people are still skeptical when it comes to this type of survey. For example, the advocates for gun right believe that not many people are willing to communicate the number of guns that they own or if they own any to a stranger. Despite these skeptical opinions, the authors of the survey said that they did not experience any pushback from the people they surveyed. They conducted this survey online and mentioned that they are very confident in the responses.

The researchers say that people are buying more and more guns to protect themselves and think that if they own more firearms they feel safer. Despite this, the researches don’t really know whether having so many guns is a good way of protecting oneself, or is a greater factor for suicide and violence.

This survey showed a totally different picture from the one in the 1990s when most of the guns were used for target shooting and hunting, not for protection.

This Harvard-Northeastern survey is going to be published next year as a full study in an academic journal.

Do you think that it is normal that half of America’s guns are owned by 3 percent of adults?

Image source: Wikipedia