Gun ownership underreported

View · by **Lumpy** on Thu Aug 17, 2023 11:56 am

Courtesy of the NRA's newsletter, one limited study estimates gun ownership may be up to double the widely reported figure of 30%

https://www.shootingillustrated.com/con ... ly-thought

the researchers determined reluctance to provide personal details to a stranger—particularly when asked about home- and personal-defense choices—minimized results of previous efforts at determining the figure.

Gee, ya THINK? :roll:

View · by **crbutler** on Thu Aug 17, 2023 1:23 pm

Given how many firearms are known to be in the US, 30% is impossibly low.

View · by **Sorcerer** on Thu Aug 17, 2023 2:32 pm

You have to ask yourself, could 30% be correct? Think about that number, 30%, 1/3 of the US population. May very well be some what accurate. Open up your FIRST safe and do a barrel count. Number crunchers do the math especially if the original data was say a count at 1 or 2 barrels per head count. :didntdoit:

View · by **daleamn** on Thu Aug 17, 2023 3:02 pm

I once had a very good teacher school us about statistics. It was very interesting/enlightening.
One cynical joke he told was '95% of the population admits to sometimes exceeding the speed limit. This tells us that 5% of the population lies when polled.'

Back in the 1960's I kind of remember folk felt a little honored to be included in a poll. Scam artists pretending to do polls put an end to that and my personal belief is there are a LOT of folk that flat out lie to pollsters just for sport.

View · by **Rip Van Winkle** on Thu Aug 17, 2023 5:49 pm

30% is low, at least in Minnesota. I've heard numbers from 50%-70%.

View · by **dismal** on Thu Aug 17, 2023 10:58 pm

Illinois might be a good state to compare, since legal gun owners there need a FOID. Supposedly there are 2.1 million FOIDs, in a state with and adult population of 9.1 million, so a little over 24% of adults are legal gun owners. Seems likely to me that we at least double that.

View · by **Holland&Holland** on Fri Aug 18, 2023 6:11 am

I am surprised it is that high. All mine were lost in that boating accident. With all the lakes we have…

View · by **Sorcerer** on Fri Aug 18, 2023 3:57 pm

dismal wrote:Illinois might be a good state to compare, since legal gun owners there need a FOID. Supposedly there are 2.1 million FOIDs, in a state with and adult population of 9.1 million, so a little over 24% of adults are legal gun owners. Seems likely to me that we at least double that.

The problem with Illinois numbers is that you need “the card” to even handle any firearm or touch a box of ammunition. That doesn’t necessarily equate into ownership.

View · by **Lumpy** on Sat Aug 19, 2023 12:56 pm

Sorcerer wrote:
dismal wrote:Illinois might be a good state to compare, since legal gun owners there need a FOID. Supposedly there are 2.1 million FOIDs, in a state with and adult population of 9.1 million, so a little over 24% of adults are legal gun owners. Seems likely to me that we at least double that.

The problem with Illinois numbers is that you need “the card” to even handle any firearm or touch a box of ammunition. That doesn’t necessarily equate into ownership.

Yeah, at a minimum you'd have to include statistics on how many arrests yield unlicensed firearms and extrapolate from that.