2021 National Firearms Survey: Updated Analysis Including Types of Firearms Owned

The U.S. military issues 30 round magazines with their infantry rifles since the 1980's. I believe that's sufficient for any legal civilian use. And I do not see a legal limit on number of mags as necessary. Fifteen to eighteen in a handgun is sufficient and no jurisdiction should limit to 10 like NJ & others. Now I know many here will take offense at my opinion, but I've said nothing about voting for or supporting any such limits. These are numbers I am comfortable with for myself.

Generally I hover around 13rd mags.

Nearly nobody follows the mag limits anyways.

Seeing a metric ton of SBR's at the public range. People stopped caring a while ago.

Alllen Bundy said:

What are your thoughts on magazine capacity and the number of magazines that a person should own, budget allowing?

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Capacity should be as many as the manufacturer can fit in a magazine for a particular firearm and you can own as many as you want.

That said, a study about guns done by Georgetown University should really be taken with a grain of salt. They are extrapolating numbers for the entire US population from a sample size of .005%. I am sure there is no room for statistical gymnastics in that formula (<- this is sarcasm).
How about these questions - Who paid for the survey? Who decided the wording of the questions? Who decided where and to whom the surveys were sent to? Who decided what surveys that were returned to be used in the results tabulations...... and on and on.

The assault weapon and high capacity magazine bans are useless empty symbolic gestures and punish the wrong people.

Law enforcement responds to threats society has already faced. If there is a justification for law enforcement to have magazines with capacity greater than ten, then that justification should be sufficient for society at large. As for how many magazines is appropriate, how many firearms, or pocket knives, or cars, or shoes,...

Some items that caught my eye from the abstract.

Methodology & scope:

This online survey was administered to a representative sample of approximately fifty-four thousand U.S. residents aged 18 and over, and it identified 16,708 gun owners who were, in turn, asked in-depth questions about their ownership and their use of firearms, including defensive uses of firearms.

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Ok, far better than "opinion polls" of 3-5 thousand--but it will be interesting to see the demographic & geographic breakdowns.

Consistent with other recent survey research, the survey finds an overall rate of adult firearm ownership of 31.9%,

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One of the reasons I want to dig into the metrics, the numbers I have seen, corrected for geographical bias, are more suggestive of 39-44% ownership rates (this is an area with huge geographic swings, more rural generally equals more ownership, but at lower population densities--Wyoming makes a striking example).

suggesting that in excess of 81.4 million Americans aged 18 and over own firearms.

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Back to looking at the math--this derived number jibes with several prominent studies (from a low of 72 to a high of 85 million).

The survey further finds that approximately a third of gun owners (31.1%) have used a firearm to defend themselves or their property, often on more than one occasion, and it estimates that guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 1.67 million incidents per year.

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Here's where geography is key. Or use of language. Crime is largely urban, and very much part of mega-cities. Which are, perversely, where ownership is least. The suggestion of a high rate of repeat victimization rubs me wrong, too. Not that it does not exist just the suggestion of prevalence annoys. (I may have reviewed too many dissertations, and have become pedantic on language style.)

Handguns are the most common firearm employed for self-defense (used in 65.9% of defensive incidents), and in most defensive incidents (81.9%) no shot was fired. Approximately a quarter (25.2%) of defensive incidents occurred within the gun owner's home, and approximately half (53.9%) occurred outside their home, but on their property. About one out of ten (9.1%) defensive gun uses occurred in public, and about one out of thirty (3.2%) occurred at work.

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This is easily within other published ranges; the number of "at work" incidents" is rather striking.

A majority of gun owners (56.2%) indicate that they carry a handgun for self-defense in at least some circumstances, and about 35% of gun owners report carrying a handgun with some frequency. We estimate that approximately 20.7 million gun owners (26.3%) carry a handgun in public under a ``concealed carry'' regime; and 34.9% of gun owners report that there have been instances in which they had wanted to carry a handgun for self-defense, but local rules did not allow them to carry.

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This wants digging. As actual EDC carry rates are phenomenally low (and self-reported as much higher). Given the number of "Carry" States, especially with Permit-less carry becoming so common, this may be difficult to track. And, "we" on our side probably need to do more to combat the "bad areas only" fallacy (no easy task).

The average gun owner owns about 5 firearms, and handguns are the most common type of firearm owned.

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Grrr, "The average gun owner surveyed..." is how that ought read. THR members, alone, probably leave such numbers in the dust. To me, this suggests a potential "skew" of the survey numbers with a possible over-abundance of "one in the nightstand" owners that must needs want mathematical correction in the results (which could also be a bias by the survey, too, or ignorance of that phenomenon).

48.0% of gun owners -- about 39 million individuals -- have owned magazines that hold over 10 rounds (up to 542 million such magazines in total), and 30.2% of gun owners -- about 24.6 million individuals -- have owned an AR-15 or similarly styled rifle (up to 44 million such rifles in total).

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And such biases skew these numbers as a result. Especially those "AR" numbers. Other surveys have suggested that there are 40+ million ARs, alone, in circulation, with a similar number of AKs.

Demographically, gun owners are diverse. 42.2% are female and 57.8% are male. Approximately 25.4% of Blacks own firearms, 28.3% of Hispanics own firearms, 19.4% of Asians own firearms, and 34.3% of Whites own firearms. In total, Americans own over 415 million firearms, consisting of approximately 171 million handguns, 146 million rifles, and 98 million shotguns.

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Again, these numbers jibe with other published studies, but, methodology is important to me (at least). There are few things as tricky as extrapolating numbers with a Maryland--for instance--bias across to, say, Iowa.

To be clear, I want these numbers to be right, they support my own opinions (and scholarship). They are unlikely to change to type and number of magazines I have or keep ready (I already know I, personally, am skewed way past "average" in such things).

Would I suggest that others change their ways based on this? Maybe. But, for my 2¢, carry is very individual; there's no one, singular, right answer.

Mister Coffee said:

Another false equivalence. Law enforcement is not equal to society at large. Not by a long shot. (See what I did there?)

I think you should have any magazines that you want. Fill your basement with crates of magazines. But your argument, if it can be called an argument, is weak.

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I did not suggest that, for example, accountants face the same perils as law enforcement. However, when an armed and violent criminal attacks an accountant, why would it be assumed the accountant should be relegated to lower capacity magazines to defend himself, than the police officer (with backup) who responds to the attack, facing the same armed and violent criminal?
As I said, I do not see an equivalence between accounting and law enforcement, the attack could have happened to someone else, and the accountant won't be the one pulling over the violent criminal for speeding later that evening. But when police respond to an attack by an armed and violent criminal, society has already faced the same threat.

kidneyboy said:

Capacity should be as many as the manufacturer can fit in a magazine for a particular firearm and you can own as many as you want.

That said, a study about guns done by Georgetown University should really be taken with a grain of salt. They are extrapolating numbers for the entire US population from a sample size of .005%. I am sure there is no room for statistical gymnastics in that formula (<- this is sarcasm).
How about these questions - Who paid for the survey? Who decided the wording of the questions? Who decided where and to whom the surveys were sent to? Who decided what surveys that were returned to be used in the results tabulations...... and on and on.

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Statistics don't lie... Statisticians can...IMHO... I like 15ish rds but carry much more... In case I have to hand any out... figure as I age might as well be an ammo bearer

Meh... I like round numbers... so I have about 10 magazines for my carry pistols (all Kahrs, the magazines interchange except for the shorty 6rd M magazines.) I have about 10 1911 magazines. I have 10 M1a magazines (20rd.) I have about 10 AR magazines for each AR I own.

I am building an AR-10... I only have the upper and lower at the moment, but I already have 2 magazines for it, and I'll pick up more magazines as I pick up parts for the build.

As far as the report of survey... I'd just assume roll it up and use it as a fire starter, or to line the bird cage. There is such a bias against guns, gun owners, and firearms related events, I don't believe a letter of it... meaning statistical honesty.

Alllen Bundy said:

What are your thoughts on magazine capacity and the number of magazines that a person should own, budget allowing?

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My thought is that a person should own whatever he chooses in that regard without owing anyone, particularly the gummint, an explanation.
I own only one gun that holds more than 10 rds in a flush fitting mag; a CZ P-01. My daily carry is a 5 shot J Frame revolver.

Alllen Bundy said:

Why do some people want magazines with more than 10 rd capacity?

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What kind of survey asks the respondent to answer for other people?

John_R said:

What kind of survey asks the respondent to answer for other people?

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One with a preset agenda and the conclusions drawn out in advance.

Alllen Bundy said:

One of the questions asked is: "Why do some people want magazines with more than 10 rd capacity?

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It is questions like this that reveal the bias of the survey. A fair percentage of the population, myself included, is reluctant to participate in telephone surveys at all. In certain parts of the country, people are understandably disinclined to discuss gun ownership with an unknown stranger. In other words, experience suggests approaching the results with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Carl N. Brown said:

The assault weapon and high capacity magazine bans are useless empty symbolic gestures and punish the wrong people.

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Exactly.... it's the same dynamic you experienced in 3rd grade, when they banned chewing gum in school because one dweeb stuck their gum to the bottom of the desk.

Our society will never tame crime until we are ready to punish criminals (regardless of their age, gender, race or creed). Instead we've created "privileged" classes who believe that it's their just due to be able to terrorize their neighbors and steal whatever they see.

It's a spineless response to cave into the whiners and punish the rest of the class for the misdeeds of the few.

SSN Vet said:

Our society will never tame crime until we are ready to punish criminals (regardless of their age, gender, race or creed).

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Bingo!
People will happily bet two dollars on a horse in hopes of winning two hundred but not many people would bet two hundred in hopes of winning two.
Until the risk outweighs the reward by a substantial enough margin crime will continue to get worse.

I don't need a reason or justification to own anything. Public servants have no business possessing/using anything I'm not allowed to have. No compromises.

Alllen Bundy said:

What are your thoughts on magazine capacity and the number of magazines that a person should own, budget allowing?

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"should"

Capacity? IMO, the sky is the limit.

Quantity? I enter my "minimum" comfort zone when I have about a half dozen magazines for a particular firearm or type. That is driven by the fact that I like prefer shooting to filling magazines. With 6 magazines I can actually enjoy a fair amount of shooting before I take a break to start filling the empty mags.

Simple answer: just like Capacity, whatever makes you happy.

Enjoy!

Why?

Because I want to.

How many?

Nunya darn business

Alllen Bundy said:

What are your thoughts on magazine capacity and the number of magazines that a person should own, budget allowing?

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No limits on capacity or number of magazines. If a person carries 19 rounds in his or her carry gun and 3 back up mags and 20 more magazines in the range bag and another 200 at home? Good. If a person owns 12 cars? Good. 300 pair of shoes? Go for it.

Mister Coffee said:

If you don't like the message, then kill the messenger. Is that your argument?

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Well it would almost be interesting to hear how you came to that conclusion.

Carl N. Brown said:

The assault weapon and high capacity magazine bans are useless empty symbolic gestures and punish the wrong people.

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But golly, they made a certain segment of society feel good, like they had really done something...especially to the discomfort of people who weren't like them.
Good questions here about the nature of the study; it is really hard to get an honest broker when it comes to sociological questions. Which, of course, is why gun rights organizations have resisted Federal money being spent on such things.
Any of us who were shooters during the Clinton ban have become terrible magazine whores. Any future ban will have a ginormous reservoir of magazines to deal with....
Moon

John_R said:

What kind of survey asks the respondent to answer for other people?

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Typically less-than good surveys. Your survey methodology is very important to the outcome. Which is a crucial part of "push" polling. Asking leading questions will skew your answers.

The problem will be you are introducing an potential error to the product. Instead of getting an elegant binary response (the Standard Deviation for binary answers allows for a lot of extrapolation and interpolation of your data). So, you pose a leading question, you get four possible answers the binary on the question, a skipped result, or an abandoned survey. None of which get you a useful product.

Now, if a person were attempting the mine field of surveying of opinions about other people's opinions, you want to design your survey questions very narrowly. And, even if well-crafted, you are extrapolating from hearsay at best.

Shanvanvocht said:

is reluctant to participate in telephone surveys at all

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Which is why many academic have shifted to online surveys. Those can be less intrusive, and allow for user-determined pacing, and get a far larger rate of return. There's, typically, less "social compliance response" too--where the surveyed party does not want the surveyor to think ill of them, or that they have ideas perceived as social or political taboos. They have a downside of being less than complete. The survey in OP was an online survey, which was the only way to get that many returned surveys.

Phone surveys are down in the 20:1 ratio of calls to completions. The companies that conduct the surveys pay by the completion, which gives bias n that "cheat sheets" of people known to reliably answer are often used.

If you noticed, it's put out by Georgetown University which is located in or next to Washington DC.
They are only interested in finding reasons for limiting gun, ammo, and accessories owned by law-abiding citizens with the purpose of changing them/us into non-law abiding citizens.

Am I paranoid? No, I am aware of how governmental agencies operate. You should be too.