Who’d-a thunk it? Looks like all those polls the Gun Control Industrial Complex love to cite showing gun ownership dropping may be…wait for it…flawed. For some reason, lots of gun owners are rather reticent about telling a complete stranger whether or how many firearms they have in the house. I know, right? From wsj.com’s piece, Gun Counts Can be Hit-or-Miss: “Some surveys show ownership rates declining, but whether that’s simply because Americans have become less likely to tell strangers they own guns is “an open question,” said Arthur Kellermann, a policy analyst at the think tank RAND Corporation.” Only the best and the brightest make the RAND team, no? But here’s the great part: it just doesn’t matter. The Second Amendment’s an individual right. No matter how much gun grabbers want to paint it otherwise, the RKBA isn’t dependent on participation rates. How great is that?

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30 COMMENTS

  1. I would not tell anyone shit if they asked me what guns I owned, that would be a good way to get some little goody two-shoes busybody poking around in someones business. No thank you!

  4. The idea of even taking a poll to determine one way or the other is silly. Firearms manufactures can’t keep up, ammo manufactures cant keep up, guns shows have lines wrapped around the building. Progun rallies are mob scenes with large police presence, antigun rallies have little to no police on hand because the crowd is so small a trained monkey could control it. Firearms instructor organizations have classes for first time shooters are back-logged for months in advanced. Police are reporting that they are rationing ammo cause they cant get none either. Sheriff’s depts are reporting major staff increases and extended hours for unprecedented first time CCW applications. These are facts that anyone can see.

  6. Now what could cause this? Maybe the demonization of gun owners by msm? Maybe cause our politicians wanna take them? Hoping they find out how many gun owners there are in 2014…

  7. If it was a door to door poll, Id answer nude and ask if they want to come in and help me look.

      • That’s basically the argument. The claim is that the increase in gun sales is a smaller number of people adding ever more guns to their collection. Seriously.

        I’d like to see if there’s an example of an industry where a shrinking customer base was responsible for this kind of increase in sales. Does this kind of thing ever really happen in reality? We’re not talking about one company, or one segment of a market here. Literally the whole firearms industry has been expanding, and dozens upon dozens of companies have been doing insane business for years, and all of that has been on the basis of fewer customers buying more?

        • “I’d like to see if there’s an example of an industry where a shrinking customer base was responsible for this kind of increase in sales.”

          One of the most astute observations I’ve read yet.

      • And these Rugers comprise my collection with serial numbers comprised of an odd number of even numerals. The odd odd are in the adjoining gallery, while the pink ones are in the opposite wing. Upstairs, we have the…

  9. The reason the Gun Control Industrial Complex cites low/decreasing numbers of gun ownership is because it rationalizes the marginalization of gun owners.

    “If only x% of Americans own guns, their rights don’t matter”.

    According to Wikipedia (for what it’s worth)

    The demographics of sexual orientation are difficult to establish for a variety of reasons.
    . . .
    Homophobic settings may also mean that some LGBT people may not openly identify as such, and open identification of one’s true sexual orientation may depend on the status of LGBT rights in a given location.

    Another Wikipedia article states that:

    According to a Williams Institute review conducted in April 2011, approximately 3.5% of American adults identify themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual, while 0.3% are transgender—which would correspond to approximately 11.7 million Americans as of the 2010 Census.

    The low number of gun owners is, what ?, 15% of the population, or about 45 million people. Higher estimates are about 80 million people. When I saw Dan Baum at the Boulder Book Store earlier this week, he referred to 100 million gun owners.

    So if it’s OK to marginalize the rights of 45 million (or 80 million or 100 million) Americans, why should I care about the rights of 12 million Americans — a much smaller group? Because the same Donkeyrats who hate me tell me I should?

    Consider this e-mail I got from one of my U.S. Senators:

    From: Mark Udall
    Date: Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 3:35 PM
    Subject: Making history

    It’s not every day we celebrate making history. With Governor Hickenlooper’s
    signature today, Colorado just became the latest state to legalize civil
    unions for LGBT couples.

    We’ve come a long way since 1996. That year, the Defense of Marriage Act
    (DOMA) passed through the U.S. Congress, barring the federal recognition of
    gay marriage — even in states which have adopted marriage equality — and
    denying lawfully-married LGBT couples the federal benefits and
    responsibilities shared by straight couples

    So I’m supposed to “celebrate” while the same governor is trampling over my rights at the same time?

  10. In what category do they place respondents who’ve had recent tragic boating accidents?

  11. It’s like asking someone if they have expensive jewelry in their house.

    The hell do you want to know for?

    The more people that know, the more likely your valuables are going to be stolen. Guns, jewelry, etc. are extremely valuable, easy to sell, and hard to track.

  12. Notice who’s saying this? Arthur Kellermann, the knucklehead who claimed that we’re X times more likely to die by accident or murder from a family member than to use a gun in self defense. Well, I guess even idiots are right every once in a while.

  13. No surprise to me. If someone called me and asked if I have guns in the house, I’ll say no. I don’t know who you are or who you represent, and I don’t know how this information will be used (or abused) later on.

  14. On a “need to know basis” Other than my husband no one needs to know, oh wait, since his comment not long ago “you have enough guns already”, he no longer needs to know. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.

  15. More wishful thinking. I personally know of two this past year who’ve bought a gun. One I went to the LGS with. My own brother, who’s never owned a gun in his life is talking to me about it. A pseudo friend (his son is in my kid’s class and we sometimes go golfing), wanted to borrow a handgun when his neighborhood had a series of break ins (I said no, but offered to take him to the range so he could get some training and buy his own). Another statistic, a few LEO coworkers of mine do not own a gun, other than their duty issued weapon. Their rationale is one (the duty weapon) is enough. However, they’ve all said if they retire or quit, yes, they’d go out and buy another, or try to buy their duty weapon when they leave.

    Gun ownership is going up. Exponentially, and there’s no way to accurately track it. Except for registration, which is one of the antis goals.

  17. Many of us feel that we have a moral obligation to lie to pollsters. If more people did that, the politicians could no longer rely on polls, the pollsters would go out of business, and the politicians might actually have to tell us what they believe, rather than what they think we want to hear.

    I know, this is radical revolutionary thinking here. Hey, I also believe that the correct answer to “race?” on the Census is “human”.

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