More than half of American voters — 52% — say they or someone in their household owns a gun, per the latest NBC News national poll.
That’s the highest share of voters who say that they or someone in their household owns a gun in the history of the NBC News poll, on a question dating back to 1999.
In 2019, 46% of Americans said that they or someone in their household owned a gun, per an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. And in February 2013, that share was 42%.
“In the last ten years, we’ve grown [10 points] in gun ownership. That’s a very stunning number,” said Micah Roberts of Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm that co-conducted the poll with members of the Democratic polling firm Hart Research.
“By and large, things don’t change that dramatically that quickly when it comes to something as fundamental as whether you own a gun,” Roberts added.
Gun ownership does fall along partisan lines, as it has for years, the poll finds.
This month, 66% of Republican voters surveyed say that they […]
Americans continue to assert the right to defend themselves. This increase in gun ownership is not just a white Republican demographic but is true with “Independents” and Democrats as well. The number of firearms owners who are African-American and/or women have increased as well. It should not be a surprise that the country with the largest world wide export of arms ( that’s us) would have a population that would prioritize self-defense. This is part of a larger trend of a non-virtuous cycle of distrust. This cycle has been progressing through society for many years but was placed on steroids with the introduction of the so called Patriot Act and the purposeful agenda of sowing fear in society through the so called “War on terror”. I might add that the author of the so call Patriot Act wrote its pre-cursor in 1995. It was waiting on his shelf to be dusted off, and guess what -he currently occupies the White House. See:
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/27/biden-antiterrorism-and-effective-death-penalty-act/
So this is and has been a bipartisan phenomena. You may not like this trend but its the bipartisan chickens coming home to roost.