10-31-2016, 01:44 PM
New Gun Research
Hopefully, gun-related research will stop being blocked in the U.S. and more information will be available on a periodic basis. The most in-depth research in 20 years was recently conducted by Harvard/Northeastern public health researchers. It's really interesting, in my opinion.
It confirms what some of us have long suspected; fewer Americans are choosing to own guns, but the number of guns in circulation has grown. This is due, in large part, to the fact that some men who do choose to own guns also choose to own quite a few of them.
Americans own an estimated 265m guns according to the recent research. That averages to more than one gun for every American adult. However, the research estimates that 133m of guns (about half of those in the country) are concentrated in the hands of just 3% of American adults – a group of super-owners (the majority of whom are older white men in rural locations and veterans) who have amassed an average of 17 guns each.
The Harvard/Northeastern public health research indicates that America’s gun stock has increased by 70m guns since 1994. At the same time, the percentage of Americans who own guns decreased slightly from 25% to 22%.
While fewer men own guns than 20 years ago, more women own a handgun than was the case 20 years ago. Women’s focus on self-defense is part of a broader trend. Even as the US has grown dramatically safer and gun violence rates have plummeted, handguns have become a greater proportion of the country’s civilian gun stock, suggesting that self-defense is an increasingly important factor in gun ownership.
“The desire to own a gun for protection – there’s a disconnect between that and the decreasing rates of lethal violence in this country. It isn’t a response to actuarial reality,” said Matthew Miller, a Northeastern University and Harvard School of Public Health professor and one of the authors of the study.
The data suggests that American gun ownership is driven by an “increasing fearfulness”, said Dr Deborah Azrael, a Harvard School of Public Health firearms researcher and the lead author of the study.
“If we hope to reduce firearm suicide, if we hope to reduce the other potential dangers of guns, my gut is, we have to speak to that fear,” she said.
The new survey also found a much higher estimate of annual gun thefts: 400,000 guns stolen per year, compared with 230,000 a year in a recent estimate from the National Crime Victimization Survey.
Refs:
-- GPS program, Fareed Zakaria (this Sunday morning)
-- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016...hip-survey
Hopefully, gun-related research will stop being blocked in the U.S. and more information will be available on a periodic basis. The most in-depth research in 20 years was recently conducted by Harvard/Northeastern public health researchers. It's really interesting, in my opinion.
It confirms what some of us have long suspected; fewer Americans are choosing to own guns, but the number of guns in circulation has grown. This is due, in large part, to the fact that some men who do choose to own guns also choose to own quite a few of them.
Americans own an estimated 265m guns according to the recent research. That averages to more than one gun for every American adult. However, the research estimates that 133m of guns (about half of those in the country) are concentrated in the hands of just 3% of American adults – a group of super-owners (the majority of whom are older white men in rural locations and veterans) who have amassed an average of 17 guns each.
The Harvard/Northeastern public health research indicates that America’s gun stock has increased by 70m guns since 1994. At the same time, the percentage of Americans who own guns decreased slightly from 25% to 22%.
While fewer men own guns than 20 years ago, more women own a handgun than was the case 20 years ago. Women’s focus on self-defense is part of a broader trend. Even as the US has grown dramatically safer and gun violence rates have plummeted, handguns have become a greater proportion of the country’s civilian gun stock, suggesting that self-defense is an increasingly important factor in gun ownership.
“The desire to own a gun for protection – there’s a disconnect between that and the decreasing rates of lethal violence in this country. It isn’t a response to actuarial reality,” said Matthew Miller, a Northeastern University and Harvard School of Public Health professor and one of the authors of the study.
The data suggests that American gun ownership is driven by an “increasing fearfulness”, said Dr Deborah Azrael, a Harvard School of Public Health firearms researcher and the lead author of the study.
“If we hope to reduce firearm suicide, if we hope to reduce the other potential dangers of guns, my gut is, we have to speak to that fear,” she said.
The new survey also found a much higher estimate of annual gun thefts: 400,000 guns stolen per year, compared with 230,000 a year in a recent estimate from the National Crime Victimization Survey.
Refs:
-- GPS program, Fareed Zakaria (this Sunday morning)
-- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016...hip-survey