I followed the link in the The Guardian article on the claim that "super-owners" (17+ guns each) are 3% of American adults, to the The Guardian article on the survey, to the The Trace article on the survey. The Guardian and The Trace tout the results (or their spin on the results) but make it hard to suss out the name of the survey and who did it.
That's the Harvard/Northeastern survey of 2015 "The Stock and Flow of US Firearms: Results from the 2015 National Firearm Survey." David Hemenway (Harvard Injury Control Research Center) and Deb Azrael of Harvard were on board.
2015 National Firearm Survey is billed as the followup to the 1994 National Survey on Private Ownership and use of Firearms (NSPOF). NSPOF is the survey that gave us the famous stat that:
60% of gun acquisitions are from retail sources
_ 43% Gun store
_ 11% Other store (department store, gunshow, flea market, etc)
_ 6% Pawnshop
40% of gun acquisitions are from non-retail sources
_ 19% gift from family or friends
_ 13% private sales
_ 5% inheritances
_ 3% swaps or trades
The 1994 NSPOF "40%" was spun in the media in 2011-2012 as 40% of guns are bought from dealers at gun shows without background checks.
I expect the same from politicians and media using this new survey.
"3% Super-owner" will be the new "40% dealers w/o BC" talking point.
Like 1994 NSPOF which used non-institutionalized adults living in home with telephones, 2015 NFS (whatever their new improved sample method turns out to be) is a survey of ordinary legal gun owners -- who owns guns legally, how they acquire them, what they do with them, etc.
If it were a survey to show what do do about criminal gun violence, they would go with the Bureau of Justice Statistics Firearms Use by Offenders surveys of prison inmates, which asks inmates whose last offense included carrying or using a gun (firearms using offenders), where they got their guns.*
On this new survey Daniel Webster gun violence researcher at Johns Hopkins: "What people do with their guns, who has them, how they obtain them -- these are all behaviors that are very relevant to gun violence."
Again, what is most worrisome to people is criminal gun violence. What does a survey of the general gun-owning public tell you about what criminals do with their guns, which criminals have them, how they obtain them? If that was the goal, one would have used the BJS FUO inmate surveys conducted every six/seven years or so. In my not so humble opinion, based on 50 years bombardment from gun controllers' rhetoric, the goal is not to control firearms using criminals; it is to control gun owning citizens. 2015 NFS will be used like the NSPOF survey before it: policy to control legal ownership by the law abiding with no impact on crime -- see the CDC 2003 and NRC 2004 reviews of research on impact of gun policy on crime. (I do read the newspapers: the local murderers who killed with gun. rock, hammer, knife, baseball bat had more incommon with each other than the local gun murderers had in common with local gun owners. To those obsessed with gun violence, non-gun violence is a non-concern when, violence should be the focus, not guns or lawabiding gun owners.)
"It is undergoing peer review, and a summary will be posted by the Russell Sage Foundation next year." - The Trace. In the meantime it has been released in pre-academic referee draft form to The Guardian, The Trace, et al. and will be spun in the name of gun politics.
Be on the look out for:
2015 National Firearm Survey
Russell Sage Foundation
when it is released after academic peer-review. Comparison of the actual results with media smears and political posturing supposedly based on it may prove to be interesting.
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* Bureau of Justice Statistics Firearms Use by Offenders
Firearms Using Offenders (inmates who carried or used a firearm in the offense for which they were imprisoned)
2004 Source of firearms
11.3% Retail Purchase or trade
_ 7.3 - Retail store
_ 2.6 - Pawnshop
_ 0.6 - Flea market
_ 0.8 - Gun show
37.4% Family or friend*
_ 12.2 - Purchased or traded
_ 14.1 - Rented or borrowed
_ 11.1 - Other
40.0% Street/illegal source
_ 7.5 - Theft or burglary
_ 25.2 - Drug dealer/off street
_ 7.4 - Fence/black market
11.2% Other sources
Quite not like the NSPOF survey of non-institutionalized adults (firearms-owning law-abiding citizens).
* CNB note: Friend or family of a state prison inmate who is a Firearms Using Offender are often criminals themselves or at least aid, abet or associate with a criminal.