So, when a canvasser calls or a survey is filled out, it is not surprising that more than a few decide that it’s no one’s business but their own whether they are exercising their constitutional rights.
A recent study revealed that this phenomenon is larger than previously supposed. This word came from Allison Bond, a doctoral student with Rutgers University’s New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.
Her paper, “Predicting Potential Underreporting of Firearm Ownership in a Nationally Representative Sample,” was published in June in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. She concluded that “some individuals are falsely denying firearm ownership, resulting in research not accurately capturing the experiences of all firearm owners in America.”
Why is this important? According to Bond, these unidentified gun owners are not being reached with safety information such as proper storage techniques for weapons.
But her apprehension goes deeper than this.
The study claims “the implications of false denials of firearms ownership are substantial.” The writer says this leads to underestimating the rate of firearm ownership and thus skewed data on the “association between firearm access and various firearm violence-related outcomes.”
Bond added that gun ownership denial obscures understanding the demographics of those who own weapons and blunts efforts to disperse important information.
She noted that many may see researchers from universities as “anti-firearm access” and willing to disparage gun owners. Further, the owner may live in a community where gun ownership is frowned upon, giving them further reason to keep mum about their weapons.
Every bit of this makes sense. After all, gun owners are regularly demonized and painted as violent criminals just waiting to strike. And most would agree that it is no one’s business but their own if they possess constitutionally protected weapons.
After all, it is difficult to confiscate what you are unaware of.
