From the WSJ:
According to the 2006 General Social Survey, which has tracked gun ownership since 1973, 34% of American homes have guns in them. This statistic is sure to surprise many people in cities like San Francisco – as it did me when I first encountered it. (Growing up in Seattle, I knew nobody who owned a gun.)
Who are all these gun owners? Are they the uneducated poor, left behind? It turns out they have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners. Americans with guns are neither a small nor downtrodden group.
Nor are they “bitter.” In 2006, 36% of gun owners said they were “very happy,” while 9% were “not too happy.” Meanwhile, only 30% of people without guns were very happy, and 16% were not too happy.
In 1996, gun owners spent about 15% less of their time than nonowners feeling “outraged at something somebody had done.” It’s easy enough in certain precincts to caricature armed Americans as an angry and miserable fringe group. But it just isn’t true. The data say that the people in the approximately 40 million American households with guns are generally happier than those people in households that don’t have guns.
The gun-owning happiness gap exists on both sides of the political aisle. Gun-owning Republicans are more likely than nonowning Republicans to be very happy (46% to 37%). Democrats with guns are slightly likelier than Democrats without guns to be very happy as well (32% to 29%). Similarly, holding income constant, one still finds that gun owners are happiest.
(emphasis added)
(h/t Tyler Cowan, who you should be reading every day)
Somehow it seems appropriate to add a favorite Clint Smith quote as well:
“If you carry a gun, people call you paranoid. That’s ridiculous. If I have a gun, what in the hell do I have to be paranoid about?”
Extend that just a little.
After becoming comfortable with your gun ownership, your list of “plausible physical threats” shrinks dramatically. And swings around to a small list – essentially just government entities.
Boiled down; one party feels government -is- the problem, and the other party feels government is -the- solution.
So is is gun ownership the cause or the effect in the relative levels of gun ownership amongst the political parties? Clearly it isn’t total (duh), but it would be interesting to see who gun owners find “most threatening”.
Did they adjust for the fact that convicted felons can’t carry?
> your list of “plausible physical threats” shrinks dramatically
Even if the list of threats doesn’t change, if you fundamentally believe that people who are willing to kill other people (i.e. gun owners are presumably willing to kill another person in self-defense) are vaguely threatening themselves, that’s one more threat that you believe you face that gun owners presumably don’t.
It’s even weirder than that, maybe. Anecdotally, USan gun owners are less likely than non-gun-owners to shoot their mouths off (so to speak) about how someone or other “ought to be shot”.
I hypothesize that people who like to talk like that, if they associate with or frequently encounter one another, might all be more happy with a world where they think they can be sure none of them will be able to execute that sort of threat.
One big caution here: Correlation is not proof of causation (in either direction). This could be the old ‘ice cream consumption causes crime’ deal: we could be dealing with a hidden causative factor, rather than any direct relation between observed variables. We can speculate about the relationship, but had better be careful to label it as such unless there’s more evidence to be had.
So in that spirit: I am a shooter, living in the Bay Area. (Thanks to AL for helping me get back into it many years after my teenage days.) I started for ‘self-defense’ purposes, but found I was having fun doing what I regard as the obligatory practice and turned it into a hobby. At this point I both shoot for score at public ranges, and participate in club-level matches (or at least I will again when I finish healing up from a *&&^)$$ broken leg.) From that background, a few comments:
It sure would be nice to have some statistic other than ‘owns a gun’. There’s a tremendous range covered by that fact. On one end you’ve got the owner of single ‘self defense’ handgun who thinks about it (and practices, unfortunately) as little as possible. At the other extreme, you’ve got the professionals, like police who carry for their job and therefore have to put in at least enough range time to qualify.
In between you’ve got ‘non-professional enthusiasts’ with an enormous range of interests and levels of motivation. Non-owners and especially anti-gunners focused on the ‘shooting someone’ possibility usually miss that diversity. You’ve got plinkers and action shooters and hunters and collectors and cowboy and Civil War re-enactors and high-power match shooters, and on and on. The best comparison I’ve come up with is with automotive enthusiasts: Everyone’s got something slightly different in mind as a goal, differing levels of commitment and resources, and even for similar goals there’s lots of disagreement on what’s the best way to achieve them.
The emotional payoffs are likely just as diverse, so just saying ‘happy’ is also pretty imprecise. I can only speak for myself, but I find there’s a bit of Zen in shooting. Whether it’s target shooting or a tactical rifle match, you just cannot let outside thoughts intrude. You’re either of single mind or you don’t do well. For some people it’s yoga, my flavor just happens to go ‘bang’.
There’s also a lot of socializing commonly associated with shooting. In the extreme case, you’re actually running an action match stage for 1-2 minutes, and spend the rest of a half hour helping set up, scoring and most of all shooting the sh**. And that’s the root of my guess about these numbers:
My speculation is that you might get similar numbers if you correlated ‘happiness’ against actively engaging in pretty much any hobby that involves commitment, skill and socializing. And that of course implies having the time, money and energy to do so. Not as politically interesting of course, and the hypothesis is vulnerable depending on how many gun owners actually regard it that way, rather than falling on either end of the range I described.
(BTW, the best book I’ve seen on describing the hobby and people is Abigail Kohn’s ‘Shooters’. She did the ‘field work’ for it as a Berkeley anthropology graduate, and ended up as a cowboy action shooter. She anonymized the people and ranges involved, but one of the latter is obviously my own club, and what I can verify of her descriptions rings true.)
#1 from Al – You said:
bq. After becoming comfortable with your gun ownership, your list of “plausible physical threats” shrinks dramatically. And swings around to a small list – essentially just government entities. … it would be interesting to see who gun owners find “most threatening”.
I do not believe the first part is true and I am a gun owner. I still feel home invasion scenarios, muggers, car jackings etc. are “plausible physical threats”. I just choose to not be a victim. Please follow the link below as to why. I choose to guard myself, my home and my family actively. I have back up for my views from the local PD. The local patrol officers admit they can only be there to “do the paperwork”.
“Just Dial 911? The Myth of Police Protection”:http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=1758
The second as to what I find most threatening is our own government. There have been several cases in recent years of severe over-stepping of the local, county and state governments with regards to gun owners. See the attached link for one really egregious case, New Orleans after Katrina.
“Turning Tragedy Into Travesty”:http://www.nraila.org//Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?ID=177
#4 from Nortius Maximus
bq. …gun owners are less likely than non-gun-owners to shoot their mouths off (so to speak) about how someone or other “ought to be shot”.
This is absolutely true. We know what a firearm can do to someone and will do just about anything rather than have to shoot someone. Training for concealed carry takes you through the physical, emotional and legal consequences of having to shoot someone. It is a life changing event for EVERYONE involved.
#5 from Tim Oren
bq. It sure would be nice to have some statistic other than ‘owns a gun’. There’s a tremendous range covered by that fact. On one end you’ve got the owner of single ‘self defense’ handgun who thinks about it (and practices, unfortunately) as little as possible. At the other extreme, you’ve got the professionals, like police who carry for their job and therefore have to put in at least enough range time to qualify.
The actual stats do not back up your points. Those who carry for self defense tend to spend a whole lot more time at the range practicing than the ‘professionals’. There is a direct reason for that. The armed citizen MUST be able to be sure of his target because he will not have the union and government backing should he have to use his firearm and not hit the target. The armed citizen is at the mercy of the local DA, public opinion and the local PD. The ‘professional’ WILL have that backup including the force of the law and public opinion as his back stop.
Also, I will make my usual referral here. Please go to “No Nonsense Self-Defense”:http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/index.html for a really, really good compendium of self defense issues and topics from someone who is the real deal. This is akin to what Nortius Maximus intimates, those who mouth off that ‘someone ought to be shot’ is like the guy who brags ‘I know karate (or some martial art)’. They don’t or they do not have the means or wherewithal to follow through. (Empty threats from empty heads)
People who carry weapons are unfailingly polite and non-confrontational. They have to be. The alternatives are too ‘heavy’ and long lasting.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Barack Obama, for one thing. It’s clear he’s opposed to private gun ownership, and that when he suggests otherwise, as he often does, he’s being devious or lying outright. Kenneth P. Vogel has the details. (link)
Yes, I am a bitter gun owner.
I wanted one of those high-velocity single-cock pellet guns for up at my dad’s farm, and the only choices were of Chinese and Spanish manufacture. I got the Spanish pellet gun, but it has this really stiff trigger pull, and practice as I may, I can’t hit a darned thing with it because I can’t hold it steady through the trigger pull unless I am resting it on a bench.
Can’t seem to get the scope on it focused either, but I don’t want to fiddle with the scope anymore because that throws off what passes for a “zero” on the thing right now. You bet I’m bitter.
bq. The actual stats do not back up your points. Those who carry for self defense tend to spend a whole lot more time at the range practicing than the ‘professionals’.
Robo – I’m not at all claiming that self-defense owners as a whole don’t spend more time than the ‘pros’. Those who come out and practice are part of what I’ve lumped into enthusiasts. What I was trying to at my one end is describe the granny-with-a-revolver type without saying as much. They do exist.
Pros vary a lot as well. On one hand, police practice probably does more damage to our range equipment than any other activity. Poor accuracy, rushed shooting on some of the qualifications, not taking the time to set up the right targets. On the other hand, one day a member of a SWAT team showed up at our tac rifle match and cleaned our clocks. On the average, I expect the enthusiasts spend more time at the range than those who are paid to carry.
Its interesting that HRC and Obama are taking this new political tact- ie, guns are great (for sportsman and collectors) but we’re not gonna comment on the 2nd amendment specifics except that we think its great (but you’ll never hear us promise there is an individual right to own a handgun).
A few years ago gun grabbers weren’t so shy.
I think pro-2nd amendmenters need to jump all over this deception before it gets entrenched. Candidates need to candidly explain whether citizens should be allowed to own guns without dodging.
I think the answer with these two candidates is clearly no. Fine, but the next question needs to be- if gun crimes are so heinous, why not lock up everyone that uses a gun in the commission of a crime for 20 years automatically (like we do with drug dealers) and automatic life if you shoot someone committing a crime?
Why do we punish drug dealers so severely but armed robbers, rapists, and murderers so much more leniently? What is the argument against throwing away the key on anyone using a gun to commit a crime?
And ultimately the question becomes why are you so willing to deny the peaceful citizens their right to a weapon before punishing those that abuse that right to the fullest extent of the law? Why does the guy who knocks over the liquor store get probation but the peaceful citizen isnt responsible enough to own a pistol?