Survey-Based Estimates
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67
68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101
102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115
Although production-based estimates indicate a 25 percent increase in
firearms availability since 1980, survey-based estimates indicate an 11 to
33 percent decrease in households reporting ownership. Three often-used
surveys are the General Social Survey (GSS), the Gallup Poll, and the Harris
Poll.5 According to these surveys, the percentage of respondents reporting
4Production-based data have limitations in that they account for neither additions to the
stock from illegal or other uncounted means nor losses from seized, lost, or nonworking
firearms. These data also exclude firearms manufactured or exported for the military but
include firearms purchased by domestic law enforcement agencies.
5Each survey asks a similar question about gun ownership. Gallup asks “Do you have a gun
in your home?” Harris asks “Do you happen to have in your home or garage any guns or
revolvers?” and the GSS asks “Do you happen to have in your home (or garage) any guns or
revolvers?”
TABLE 3-2 Estimated Number and Per Capita Ownership (rate per
1,000) of Firearms in the United States, 1950 to 1999
Firearms per Handguns per
Year Total Firearms Handguns 1,000 Persons 1,000 Persons
1950 57,902,081 14,083,195 381.3 93.5
1960 77,501,065 18,951,219 430.6 105.4
1970 111,917,733 31,244,813 548.7 153.2
1980 167,681,587 51,707,269 737.9 227.5
1990 212,823,547 72,499,181 853.3 290.7
1999 258,322,465 93,742,357 925.8 336.0
SOURCES: Data for 1950 to 1990 are from Kleck (1997: Table 3.1). The 1999 estimate was
derived by adding the annual net increase in the stock of total firearms and handguns (manufactures
+ imports – exports) to the 1990 estimate using data from U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms (2002: Exhibits 1, 2, and 3).
that they have a firearm in the home has been declining since the late 1950s.
While the estimates vary from year to year, all three surveys indicate a
decline in the percentage of households possessing firearms. From 1980,
when the percentage of households owning a firearm was between 45 and
48 percent, ownership has decreased by 5 to 16 percentage points to a
prevalence of 30 to 43 percent. In discussion with the committee, Cook has
suggested that the decline in ownership per household while individual
ownership remains constant may be due to the increase in female-headed
households during this period. Despite these overall reductions in household
ownership, the relative distribution of firearm ownership across attributes
of gender, race, age, education, income, and region has been remarkably
consistent over time (Maguire and Pastore, 2002: Table 2.70).
Of households owning a firearm, between 59 and 62 percent reported
owning a handgun (Maguire and Pastore, 2002: Tables 2.69, 2.71, and
2.72). All three surveys indicate that gun owners are more likely to be male,
white, and middle-aged or older. Furthermore, gun ownership was higher
among those who live in the South, had less education than a college
degree, and had a higher than average income. Among respondents reporting
household gun ownership, the percentage of blacks reporting handgun
ownership was 6 to 9 percent higher than for whites, and the percentage of
blacks reporting long gun ownership was 11 to 29 percent lower than for
whites (Maguire and Pastore, 2002: Tables 2.71 and 2.72).
Aggregation of Individual Survey Responses
Recent research has aggregated the individual survey responses about
firearms ownership across U.S. communities (Baumer et al., 2002; Rosenfeld
et al., 2001). The GSS is based on a national area probability sample
composed of 100 primary sampling units (PSUs) (in the 1990 sampling
frame) designed to represent the population of people age 18 and older in
the United States. Each PSU is a “self-representing” geographic unit, in the
sense that the respondents are representative of the PSU adult population.
Aggregating the individual survey responses to the PSU level permits
comparisons of the aggregated items, including firearms ownership, across
a representative sample of U.S. geographic areas. Figure 3-1 shows the
geographic distribution of household firearm ownership for the 100 PSUs
in the 1990 GSS sampling frame, covering the period 1993 to 1998.
The figure shows substantial variability in firearm ownership in the
United States. The prevalence of household ownership varies from roughly
10 to 80 percent. Most of the PSUs cluster around the mean ownership level
of 43 percent, with fewer PSUs located near the extremes of the distribution.