laklak wrote:It's extremely difficult to quantify gun ownership in the U.S. Since there is no national registration we have to rely on self-reported surveys.
We do have some very hard data, and that is the number of guns manufactured or imported in any given year for domestic sale. It's rational to presume that the vast majority of those arms (about 8 million of them last year) are sold to the private market, and that the market is not saturated because the annual number of guns manufactured continues to rise...rather dramatically at the moment.
Now, I know for a fact that a good percentage of gun owners I know would lie about it. I probably would, to be honest. It's no one's business if or how many guns I own. I can only speak from my Southern experience, but damn near everyone I know owns at least one gun. Now, that could be because of where I live but also who I hang around with, since I'm not likely to be found passing cookies out at an Obama rally.
Yup. We've become very, very reticent to share that information because it might get back to the government. For example, Obamacare pressures doctors to ask about firearms in the home during exams, particularly OF CHILDREN, and the are encouraged to document the results. These results will be available to the IRS, and therefore to the BATFE and the rest of the government under Obamacare. This is a back-door way of locating guns in society which we are very concerned about.
I just did a bit of a whirlwind trip through northern Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, looking for acreage to buy. Stayed in several towns, talked to a bunch of realtors, bartenders, waiters, hotel employees, charter boat captains, marina workers, etc. It doesn't take long until they're trying to suss out what your position on guns is, some people just come right out and ask. Point is, I didn't meet one single person, not one, that didn't own a gun or guns or who supported any sort of weapons bans. One guy said he'd like to see the "gun show loophole" closed, but he was then only one. Maybe it's entirely different up north or out on the pacific coast, I don't live there and am very unlikely ever to do so. I'm a bit skeptical of any claims that gun ownership is declining.
Yes, it's pretty much only in the liberal enclaves like California, the Northeast and Rust Belt (Chicago/Detroit). Unfortunately, that's also where the bulk of the population lives, so there's a lot of voting power that can be used to infringe on the rights of everyone else.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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