The network focused on 2,477 U.S. residents surveyed last year who reported owning guns. What CNN uncovered was data that is unquestionably startling for the uninitiated.
Using figures from the journal Injury Prevention, analysts found that a staggering 79% of American gun owners who possess weapons cited self-defense as the primary reason.
That is an astronomical leap from the 26% figure found in 1999. It also rose from the roughly 60% to 70% of gun owners from 2017 to 2021 who reported being motivated by the desire to defend themselves.
Of course, this begs to be explained, and the network spoke with Dr. David Yamane, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University. He noted that the massive wave of citizens taking up arms directly responds to the widespread social unrest the nation witnessed during the volatile summer of 2020.
Yamane compared the tide to a similar societal reaction to social and cultural upheaval in the 1960s that also saw a spike in gun ownership for self-defense reasons.
“It was a time of profound social unrest and social uncertainty, lots of political movements, cultural change, foreign threats, people listening to crazy music, you know, ‘sex, drugs and rock n’ roll,’ political assassination, riots or protest movements in some cities,” he said.
Yamane noted that he owns a gun and backs organizations supporting Second Amendment rights.
He further explained that there are direct correlations between the 1960s and much more recent turmoil.
“If you think about the year of 2020, it really had some of those characteristics,” Yamane declared. “There was COVID, which rolls immediately into the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests, which rolls immediately then into an insane presidential election that rolls immediately into the insurrection at the Capitol.”
Numbers released by the 2021 National Firearms Survey showed that approximately 7.5 million U.S. adults became new gun owners during the unrest and the COVID-19 lockdowns. Most of these lived in homes that previously did not have weapons present.
These individuals joined the wave of good people arming themselves for defensive purposes in a time of uncertainty. And it is not just having a firearm in the comfort of one’s home that is motivating these new gun owners.
The recent survey, which researchers at the University of Michigan carried out, found that a full 52% of U.S. adults said they possessed weapons outside of the home over the previous 12 months for reasons other than their job, hunting or shooting sports.
In other words, they are carrying weapons for self-defense away from the home as fears of random violent crime increase across the nation.
Many recently cited statistics showing that the rate of these criminal acts has leveled off or is even dropping. This may be correct, but such figures tend to compare present crime rates with those shown during the height of the COVID lockdowns and social unrest.
So, though there may currently be a slight decline in violent crime in some parts of the country, that is only compared to the spike the nation suffered at the start of the decade.
The people are clearly not fooled.
They know it is almost always up to them to be their first line of defense. Upstanding citizens know that law enforcement is almost never there on the spot when confronted by those who would harm them or those they love.
No one is claiming that gun ownership is the sole cure for violent crime, and there are multiple factors to consider. But the revolving door system of justice that keeps bad people on the streets is no secret, and those who wish to defend themselves know that it is up to them to be armed and ready for the unexpected.
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