This Is What The Average Gun Owner Looks Like In America

[billh58]

After a shooting in Charleston, South Carolina claimed nine lives, President Barack Obama called for the nation to come to terms with the fact that no other advanced country in the world suffers mass shootings as frequently as the U.S. It won’t be until we acknowledge this basic truth, he said, that we’ll realize we have the power to put an end to gun violence.

But that won’t happen until we learn more about the culture that drives gun ownership in the first place, according to Dr. Bindu Kalesan, a gun violence researcher at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. In a first step toward understanding who the typical American gun owner is, as well as the role guns play in their lives, she conducted a nationally representative online survey of 4,000 U.S. adults in 2013. The findings, published Monday in the journal Injury Prevention, reveal a wide range of gun ownership rates across the country as well as the profile of an average gun owner in America.

He’s white, married or divorced, high income, and over 55 years old. Unsurprisingly, he’s also more than twice as likely to be a member of “social gun culture” than those who don’t own firearms. In all, almost one in three Americans owns at least one gun, but gun ownership rates vary widely across states. At 61.7 percent, Alaska has the highest rate of gun ownership, while Delaware has the lowest, at 5.2 percent.

-Snip-

Kalesan’s study defined “social gun culture” as a phenomenon in which friends or family would think less of you if you didn’t own a gun, and if your social life with friends and family involved guns. Any survey participant who answered “yes” to any of these statements was categorized as being part of social gun culture.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/02/average-gun-owner-america-gun-violence-study_n_7709884.html

Far from needing a gun for survival or "protection" many gun owners have them for ego-driven reasons, or for peer acceptance. There is nothing inherently wrong with having a gun just because they're cool, but being the dangerous weapons that they are responsibility for owning a gun should be mandatory.

Regulating responsibility for the ownership of a lethal weapon does not violate, nor "infringe" on the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, regardless of how it is interpreted. We need to put a stop to the needless death and injuries caused by irresponsible gun owners:

“In 2013 alone, 33,636 persons were killed using a gun, while 84,258 were shot non-fatally,” said Kalesan. “Those who are injured have a difficult journey during recovery, some remaining paraplegic and injured often with PTSD for the rest of their lives.”

[TeddyR]

1. Does the study profile

The average gun criminal?

[billh58]

3. Great ALEC/NRA/ILA response

Bubba. You must be late for a Trump rally, so we'll see you around. K?

[TeddyR]

6. It was a legitimate question

What does the appearance of the average gun owner have to do with gun violence, unless all the gun owners are committing gun violence?

Bubba huh? Haven't been called Bubba ever. Or a Trump supporter. But if you have no answers to legitimate questions I guess you make personal attacks.

On edit, that average gun owner profile seems even less relevant to gun violence when you think about it. How many 55 year old white males are going around shooting others? I don't have the statistics at hand but aren't most gun crimes committed by younger males - Dylan Roof, Adam Lanza, etc.?

[TeddyR]

9. I like you

You are consistent in both your insults and inability to answer simple questions. So what does the profile of the average gun owner (55, white male, might be married might not be) have to do with firearm violence? What is the definition of "bubba"? Would that be someone like Bill Clinton, a white male from a southern state?

[TeddyR]

12. Oh, I agree that you have no "obligation" to answer

Was just trying to have a discussion and sorry for asking questions you couldn't answer - I understand that facts sometimes aren't your friend. Thanks for the insults though! Have a good weekend.

[guillaumeb]

2. "many gun owners have them for ego-driven reasons"

The die hard syndrome, or the Rambo syndrome, or the terminator syndrome. A way to compensate?

[billh58]

4. I vote for

all of the above.

[guillaumeb]

5. Prepare for more from the NRA crowd as word gets around. eom

[Warpy]

7. Well, that plus exaggerated fear from watching

too many episodes of "Cops."

That doesn't apply to Alaska or any other largely rural area where the animals are large, plentiful and dangerous.

[billh58]

11. The Gun Humper crowd

appears to be confused by the results of the study. The article does not accuse anyone of gun violence, but identifies which members of our society make up the "gun culture." White, middle-aged married/divorced men buy and hoard the most guns. They don't acquire them for the reasons we so often hear about (safety, protection, etc.) but because of peer pressure and ego.

But then again, gun humpers only hear/read what the NRA tells them to anyway.

[Waldorf]

15. How about people just like to go to the range and shoot their firarms. I fnd it relaxing and

enjoyable.

[valerief]

13. Mah pistol is mah penis.

Ammosexuals make me laugh.

[MisterP]

14. urban or rural, most everyone I know who has one says they want it for the inevitable race war...