Where does YOUR state rank?

[JTHunter]

Firearm ownership rates by states. Not too surprised but Alaska has the highest rate.

https://www.alloutdoor.com/2018/10/...ent=2018-10-27&utm_campaign=Weekly+Newsletter

 

[Chaparral]

Hawaii’s ranking really surprises me.

 

[Lyle Wyatt]

Another article to reaffirm the wisdom of my decision to relocate from California to Idaho 5 years ago.

 

[Bang!]

From their data site:

“We used data from a nationally representative sample of 4000 US adults, from 50 states and District of Columbia, aged >18 years to assess gun ownership and social gun culture performed in October 2013.”

That data is trash. No way they can accurately assess number of firearms in any one state or even come close. Call someone in Tennessee and ask them how many guns they have? Hahaha! Would like to see those answers in print.

Can be fun fun to speculate, though. Alaska should be a gimme to be on top.

 

[Bruce D Pease]

MA surprisingly high (22:6 %). Considering how anti gun much of our state officials are I would have expected around13-14% to approximate the CCW license holders no.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

I can pretty much guarantee my state of VA is more armed overall than the poll shows.

As are probably a lot of the states listed.

Polls these days are a few thousand people at the best, not even remotely close to anything based in fact.

 

[FL-NC]

I'm sad. Had hoped Fl would have a better showing.

 

[nettlle]

I have seen different rankings on this. I doubt the rankings on this one.

 

[somethingbenign]

I don't buy that Nebraska and California are tied. Maybe if you count air guns...

 

[Hokie_PhD]

I can pretty much guarantee my state of VA is more armed overall than the poll shows.

As are probably a lot of the states listed.

Polls these days are a few thousand people at the best, not even remotely close to anything based in fact.

No actually we’re dropping due to the massive population growth in Northen Va.

Fairfax has become as bad as DC and Maryland with their anti 2nd Amendment attitude. And if they had their way guns would be totally outlawed.

This next election will see if the rest of the stat will stand up to the North, or if we’re doomed to be subjects of them and the Johnny Come Latelies.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

No actually we’re dropping due to the massive population growth in Northen Va.

Fairfax has become as bad as DC and Maryland with their anti 2nd Amendment attitude. And if they had their way guns would be totally outlawed.

This next election will see if the rest of the stat will stand up to the North, or if we’re doomed to be subjects of them and the Johnny Come Latelies.

I will bet the farm that everything south of Fredericksburg and much of the western state far out ways what's going on in the north regarding guns.

Maybe not politics, but certainly guns.

 

[JohnBiltz]

I really don't see Arizona being in the middle of the pack.

 

[ontarget]

I know what my answer would be if some pollster called asking if I own guns. That's the problem with any poll, there is no way they will get an honest answer these days about guns, politics, religion or any other controversial subject.

 

[MedWheeler]

I agree that there is no way to glean anything even resembling accuracy in a poll regarding such a hot topic. There are just too many people who, for understandable reasons, just won't answer honestly. They're tired of being vilified.

 

[SamT1]

I bet due to paranoia (rightfully so) many states have answers at half the actual number.

 

[LoonWulf]

Hawaii’s ranking really surprises me.

Youd think right?
Honestly 45% is probably fair if we consider a firearm or two for an entire household....then there are the guys who own stores, and talk you out of buying stuff so they can explain to the wife that they arnt collecting they are in business......

Honestly I think were more accepting of MOST things out here than many mainland states.....We also have mandatory registration, so it MIGHT be easier to get a general idea of the number of legally owned firearms.
Never mind that there are probably just as many folks with unregistered firearms that have been handed down over the years.

There is also only Oahu which has major development, the other islands have some, but its more spread out and there is still a lot of agriculture, public land, and access to outdoorsy stuff.
Depending on the island, Id guess that firearm ownership might be closer to 75%, growing up I can count the number of families i knew on my hand who DIDNT have some form of hunting arm of some sort. Of the house holds on my current street (one a buddy from Molokai), there are two i know for sure have firearms, and a few more with hunting dogs, and they USUALLY have a firearms or two.

 

[hso]

I wouldn't put much stock in this "study" since it was intended to look at "gun culture" and ownership rate relationships for the purpose of influencing gun ownership, is at least 3 years out of date, is based on a survey instead of data collected on firearms sales, and (worst of all) is a small sample set lending itself to large errors in rates or gross number estimates.

"In conclusion, we found strong association between social gun culture and gun ownership. Gun cultures may need to be considered for public health strategies that aim to change gun ownership in the USA."

Here's the link to the study they're talking about https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/22/3/216

 

[CDW4ME]

Survey asking how many guns you have, ..... right.

 

[Spats McGee]

It's an older article that crops up from time to time. I like seeing Arkansas near the top of this list, but I don't put a lot of stock in this. From the abstract of the study on which this is based:

Abstract
We assessed gun ownership rates in 2013 across the USA and the association between exposure to a social gun culture and gun ownership. We used data from a nationally representative sample of 4000 US adults, from 50 states and District of Columbia, aged >18 years to assess gun ownership and social gun culture performed in October 2013. State-level firearm policy information was obtained from the Brady Law Center and Injury Prevention and Control Center. One-third of Americans reported owning a gun, ranging from 5.2% in Delaware to 61.7% in Alaska. Gun ownership was 2.25-times greater among those reporting social gun culture (PR=2.25, 95% CI 2.02 to 2.52) than those who did not. In conclusion, we found strong association between social gun culture and gun ownership. Gun cultures may need to be considered for public health strategies that aim to change gun ownership in the USA.

1. Is 4k a statistically significant sample in a country of 300M?
2. What, exactly, is this "social gun culture" that this organization is so concerned with?
3. Who or what is BMJ & why did they do this study? (A look at their editorial speaks volumes.)
4. Exactly what questions were asked?

Personally, when strangers call my house asking if I own valuable items, I don't feel compelled to be honest.

 

[Hasaf]

I recently read the book Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. It looked at the polling problem and ways to bypass polls by looking at, "big data." He discusses how it was possible to have the polls prediction a strone H. Clinton win while the Big Data results were seeing a Trump win (not trying to go political, just pointing out one of the examples he uses).

This leads to the thought, how could we tease gun ownership rates, and guns per capita, out of existing data. I place a lot of doubt about the study because they, quite literally, wear their bias on their sleeve:

Gun cultures may need to be considered for public health strategies that aim to change gun ownership in the USA.

Using their data for a moment, and to their credit, I spend most of my time in Kansas and Utah. The gun culture feels similar. It is interesting that those two states are right next to each other at 24th and 25th place.

That being said, I see a strong gun culture in California. How? first, people do tend to associate with people that they share interests with. In and of itself, that isn't insight, it is obvious. Second, I generally only visit Northern California (and no, I do not consider the Bay Area to be Northern California). Even having said this, I am not going to argue that the whole of California is a strong "gun culture" state. However, urban California is very different than the rest of the state.

I do question the entire study; but I am not going to pay for the study so that I can look at their methods.

Important edit: the bulk of the full study is here

Okay, here they do look at a study that applied big data to create a number.

Using firearm suicide as proxy, firearm ownership in the USA in 2013 was reported to be very high, with an overall national prevalence of 57.7% and ranged from a low of 25.8% in Hawaii to a high of 76.8% in Mississippi

this is cited to Seigel M, Ross CS, King C. The relationship between gun ownership and firearm homicide rates in the United States, 1981–2010. Am J Public Health 2013;12:12 I have not read the parent study to see if they used raw rates or corrected for some despair index.

Here is a look at the actual questions:

Social gun culture was measured using four questions that assessed whether an individual’s:
[list converted to bulleted list for ease of reading]

• ‘social circle thinks less of them if they did not own a gun’
• ‘family thinks less of them not owning a gun’
• ‘social life with family involves guns’
• ‘social life with friends involves guns’

Wedefined exposure to social gun culture if one of the four questions was answered as ‘yes’. Gun ownership was measured using six questions that asked status of gun ownership such as whether being a gun owner:
[/list][*]the gun was gifted, [*]bought before year 2000, [*]bought after 2000, the gun was used for hunting, [*]have attended gun safety classes [*]whether the owner advocated responsible gun ownership.

We categorised the individual as a gun owner if they responded ‘yes’ to any of these six questions. Individual responses were not mutually exclusive

[/list]

• I am still looking for a good definition of "social gun culture." The study address the definition here:

  A sensitivity analysis was performed by redefining social gun culture, when the respondent reported a positive response to a minimum of two out of the four questions.
  . . .
  

  • ‘social circle thinks less of them if they did not own a gun’
  • ‘family thinks less of them not owning a gun’
  • ‘social life with family involves guns’
  • ‘social life with friends involves guns

(Sorry about the bullets not under control, even in the advanced mode it is hard to clean the bullets and indents)

 

[Bama59]

 

[AlexanderA]

I can pretty much guarantee my state of VA is more armed overall than the poll shows.

I agree. The study is garbage.

"One-third of Americans reported owning a gun, ranging from 5.2% in Delaware to 61.7% in Alaska. Gun ownership was 2.25-times greater among those reporting social gun culture (PR=2.25, 95% CI 2.02 to 2.52) than those who did not. In conclusion, we found strong association between social gun culture and gun ownership."​

Anything based on self-reported gun ownership is suspect. People have lots of motives not to be honest with pollsters on a subject as sensitive as this, or simply not to participate in the survey. Furthermore, "social gun culture" is highly subjective.

I would suspect that the high reported rate of gun ownership in Alaska, for example, is partly due to the fact that there is little to no social stigma against gun ownership in Alaska. Conversely, there is lots of social stigma against guns in some of our more urbanized states. People that own guns there would tend to keep them a secret.

What we would need is objective data, such as the number of NICS checks. An additional data point, in the case of Virginia, is the number of machine guns registered with the State Police under the Uniform Machine Gun Act. If that is any indication, gun ownership in Virginia is quite high.

No actually we’re dropping due to the massive population growth in Northen Va.

Fairfax has become as bad as DC and Maryland with their anti 2nd Amendment attitude. And if they had their way guns would be totally outlawed.

I think you misunderstand northern Virginia. Yes, as a suburban area, there are plenty of soccer-mom type antigunners. Yet there are lots of gun owners here as well. (For proof, all you need to do is look at the mob scene at the monthly Nation's Gun Show in Chantilly.) Remember that the region's main employer is the federal government. When people come to the area to work for the government, they have a choice whether to live in D.C., Maryland, or Virginia. Anyone who's remotely interested in guns will locate to Virginia. So there's a bias there, and it's been that way for many years. And, BTW, a lot of the federal employees are military or law enforcement. They are not by nature antigun.

 

[Hokie_PhD]

I will bet the farm that everything south of Fredericksburg and much of the western state far out ways what's going on in the north regarding guns.

Maybe not politics, but certainly guns.

Exactly

I agree. The study is garbage.

"One-third of Americans reported owning a gun, ranging from 5.2% in Delaware to 61.7% in Alaska. Gun ownership was 2.25-times greater among those reporting social gun culture (PR=2.25, 95% CI 2.02 to 2.52) than those who did not. In conclusion, we found strong association between social gun culture and gun ownership."​

Anything based on self-reported gun ownership is suspect. People have lots of motives not to be honest with pollsters on a subject as sensitive as this, or simply not to participate in the survey. Furthermore, "social gun culture" is highly subjective.

I would suspect that the high reported rate of gun ownership in Alaska, for example, is partly due to the fact that there is little to no social stigma against gun ownership in Alaska. Conversely, there is lots of social stigma against guns in some of our more urbanized states. People that own guns there would tend to keep them a secret.

What we would need is objective data, such as the number of NICS checks. An additional data point, in the case of Virginia, is the number of machine guns registered with the State Police under the Uniform Machine Gun Act. If that is any indication, gun ownership in Virginia is quite high.

I think you misunderstand northern Virginia. Yes, as a suburban area, there are plenty of soccer-mom type antigunners. Yet there are lots of gun owners here as well. (For proof, all you need to do is look at the mob scene at the monthly Nation's Gun Show in Chantilly.) Remember that the region's main employer is the federal government. When people come to the area to work for the government, they have a choice whether to live in D.C., Maryland, or Virginia. Anyone who's remotely interested in guns will locate to Virginia. So there's a bias there, and it's been that way for many years. And, BTW, a lot of the federal employees are military or law enforcement. They are not by nature antigun.

No I know Northen Va extremely well.
I fled it about 12 years ago as it was no longer the beautiful place I grew up. I go back about once a month for woek and see how it’s become like DC and MD.

Yes there are LEO, military and others who are pro 2nd Amendment, but like many other states it’s become a large mostly left leaning city that is driving the state. It’s typical of the urban vs rural problem we’re having in our nation.

Most of Northen Va is no longer surburban but rather urban. Call it what you like, but when you can walk faster then drive it’s over populated and that’s urban in my book.

Simply look at the voting map of Va and you’ll see that those elected who are pushing for more gun control are those soccer moms and the mass hoard who have invaded Northen Va. they grossly out number the LEO, military and pro 2nd folks.

Sadly Fredericksburg is following and when they population grows more we’ll have fallen and become Maryland south.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

Personally, when strangers call my house asking if I own valuable items, I don't feel compelled to be honest.

I don't even answer the phone.
Caller ID eliminated any credibility phone polls ever had.

 

[AlexanderA]

Yes there are LEO, military and others who are pro 2nd Amendment, but like many other states it’s become a large mostly left leaning city that is driving the state.

From my perspective, Fairfax is not particularly "left leaning." At least not in comparison to places such as Montgomery County over in Maryland. I've lived here continuously since 1970 and I haven't noticed any radical change in the local politics. Regarding guns, things were actually worse in the 1970's before we had state preemption. (There was a 3-day wait for purchasing a handgun, for example.)