Report: Upwards of Six in Ten Americans May Own Guns

A report from the Washington Examiner claims upwards of 60 percent of Americans may be gun owners, an increase of approximately 25 percent over numbers widely reported heretofore.

The Examiner’s report is based on Rutgers University’s New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, which shows that perhaps as many as half of survey respondents who deny gun ownership may actually be gun owners.

The study was first reported by Reason magazine on July 5, 2023.

Reason pointed to Rutgers doctoral student Allison Bond, who explained that via the study, researchers discovered a group of people who have been reluctant to admit gun ownership in previous surveys.

Bond said, “Some individuals are falsely denying firearm ownership, resulting in research not accurately capturing the experiences of all firearm owners in the U.S.”

The researchers used the phrase “false denials of firearms ownership” to describe hose who may have hidden gun ownership from previous pollsters/surveys, noting:

First, such practices would result in an underestimation of firearms ownership rates and diminish our capacity to test the association between firearm access and various firearm violence-related outcomes. Furthermore, such practices would skew our understanding of the demographics of firearm ownership, such that we would overemphasize the characteristics of those more apt to disclose. Third, the mere existence of a large group of individuals who falsely deny firearm ownership highlights that intervention aimed at promoting firearm safety (e.g., secure firearm storage) may fail to reach communities in need.

The Examiner quoted the Reload’s Stephen Gutowski reacting to the higher number of gun owners” “This is something that we assumed, perhaps, for a long time. But now there is a study that is quantifying it to some degree. I mean, the amount that they put on it is that almost half the people who said that they don’t own guns fit the model, at least to a certain threshold, for people who do own guns. So that’s a huge discrepancy. That put — the number would rocket up from something like 33% into the 60 percentage range.”

FLASHBACK: Hawkins Affirms It’s Still True — More Guns Equals Less Crime

On January 13, 2021, Breitbart News spoke with the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Mark Oliva, who indicated 434 million firearms were manufactured for private ownership over the previous quarter century.

That figure has to be considerably higher at this point, as over 17 million guns were sold in the U.S. during 2022 alone.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..