This word came Tuesday from a nationwide NBC News poll. Researchers discovered that 52% of registered voters reported that they or someone in their household owns a weapon.
The media outlet began tracking this number in 1999, and the current percentage of gun-owning households is the highest on record.
Micah Roberts of Public Opinion Strategies, the group that conducted the survey, noted that the 52% tally for gun ownership is ten points higher in just the past decade.
“That’s a very stunning number,” he explained. “By and large, things don’t change that dramatically that quickly when it comes to something as fundamental as whether you own a gun.
Experts note the uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic and the simultaneous widespread social unrest along with a two-year spike in violent crime.
As recently as 2019, the year before the pandemic, the national gun ownership figure was 46%. Back in Feb. 2013 it stood at 42%.
One of the major contributing factors to the dramatic surge in gun ownership is the growing number of minority households that now own firearms. According to the NBC News results, 41% of Black voters now say they live in a gun-owning household.
This is a sharp increase of 17 percentage points from just 2019.
The number for White households rose just three points from 2019 to 56%.
Along party lines, two-thirds of Republican voters confirmed that they reside in a household with at least one firearm. But gun ownership is hardly limited to GOP voters. A full 45% of independents and 41% of Democrats reported gun ownership within their residence.
The independent ownership rate remained flat, but both Democrats and Republicans saw an 11% rise in gun ownership in the last decade.
The NBC News poll was not nearly so clear on attitudes toward gun control. Registered voters were roughly evenly split over their concerns that the federal government was either going too far to regulate firearms or falling short of their expectations.
This marked a small turn in the direction of concerns over too much gun control in years past. When polled from late 2015 through mid-2017, voters expressed more worry about their gun rights than now.
However, surveys in more recent times show that American voters are moving away from the desire to see Washington regulate gun ownership. In 1995, a large majority of respondents by a 58% to 35% margin believed the government was not doing enough to control access to firearms.
Clearly there is a significant shift away from wanting lawmakers to enact tougher gun control measures. This may be reflected in the now-majority of Americans who live in a gun-owning household.
Gun rights advocates cheered the NBC News results. Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, expressed satisfaction with what he termed a “cultural shift in America.” The combination of extreme staffing shortages for law enforcement along with the rise in violent crime simply means more Americans are taking their self-defense personally.
“More people, of all backgrounds, are taking personal responsibility for their safety and that of their families,” he said.
What is clear is that Americans realize even more the value of the Second Amendment in protecting themselves and their families. They are not leaving defending their lives and property to chance, and despite the best intentions, they know that authorities will likely not be present when a violent encounter occurs.
For generations dating back to the founding of the Republic, it was a personal responsibility to ensure the safety of those we cherish. That has not changed.
The NBC News poll was conducted Nov. 10-14.
