Secondly on the matter of how many Americans own guns and the size of the ‘gun culture’, I am going to violate what I just said and refer to polling data! I don’t remember where I saw it, but some poll indicated that 10 percent of the public owned 77 percent of all the guns. From my own experience in the ‘gun culture’ that is a number that feels intuitively correct. The real size of the American gun culture is probably about that small and the other gun owners are either casual or accidental owners of guns, such as the widow who inherits some guns.

But conversely the size of the ‘anti-gun culture’, that constellation of crusaders, activists, bigots, and true believers who want to legislate the gun culture out of existence is probably much much smaller than the gun culture. Taking a rough guess based on HCI vs NRA membership rolls I’d say the anti-gun culture is about 1/10 the size of the gun culture.

So the real battle over gun control in the U.S. is of a tiny bigoted minority of Americans who belong to the anti-gun culture trying to persecute the larger group, but still small minority, of Americans who belong to gun culture. The vast great majority of Americans are really indifferent to the issue of guns. This is the key to understanding the politics of gun control in America.

Even though some polls might sometimes indicate ‘majority’ support for increasing some kind of stricter gun control, this almost never plays out in public when it comes to actual election results because the public by and large doesn’t care enough about the issue to effect their vote. Of those who DO care enough about the issue, the pro-gun side outnumbers the anti-gun side by about 10 to 1. That is why gun control is ultimately a political loser at the national level. Only in a small area of the nation in certain localities, such as San Francisco, is their a real majority in favor of gun prohibition.

“Actually, I call bullshit on the very first statistic.

“I wish.”

Concur with you there, Kim. Not even close. No way there were some 130 million gun owners then, not even including those with wall-hangers and non-functioning family heirlooms. The author (whoever the hell it really was) cooked the books.

Stipulating that the plural of anecdote is not “data”, I think there’s also an underlying demographic phenomenon going on here. I’m a tail-end boomer (born 1959) and graduated high school in ‘77, a member of the largest class to have graduated from that particular high school — before or since. Now I’ll grant that the district is in rural far northwestern Kansas, where populations are declining anyway, but what I think may be going on here is that folks my age didn’t have a lot of disposable cash to play with during the ’80s and ’90s.

We were busy paying for our educations, applying for entry-level professional positions, starting families and buying homes, for example — and dealing with Jimmeh’s stagflation and astronomical interest rates. Now that us boomers are in our late forties, fifties, and early sixties we’ve got some jingle in our jeans and can afford to buy the sorts of firepower we couldn’t back then. In my own case, although I owned, and had since early high school, a 12-guage shotgun, I couldn’t (and didn’t) afford to spring for much more than a fifth-hand Raven or Jennings until I was almost 30 — and those aren’t firearms anyway, they’re paperweights.

Stats geeks (like Kim) could probably dig up the relevant data and analyze what I’m suggesting here.

‘Berg

So… the other thing? The never was a ‘gun-culture’ that is some kind of monolithinc entity…There are legal owners that have their reasons, and there are criminals that… are criminals.

U.S. pop in 1980 (close enough): 226 million.

If the “54% gun owners” number is correct, does that mean that there were 100-odd million gun owners in 1977?

I wish.

It’s been my experience since this time, both with friends and on online forums, that there is less and less uneasiness and ignorance of guns, especially the evil black rifles. It’s seems like everyone is getting or owns an AR-15 now. Furthermore, the gunowners of today do not take their freedoms for granted like the fudds of old and are, as a result, much more politically active.

So even if the total number of gunowners has decreased, more and more are valuing guns for defense instead of hunting. Consequently, the number who are willing to vote to protect their rights has increased as well.

As to gun culture, to what extent has culture in this regard been affected by government coercion through limitations imposed by bans and extensive bureaucratic checks and paperwork? People need to remember that the Caesars, Hitlers, segregations and genocides were put in force by majority-supported governments and those governments, in turn, supported the related cultural values.

Just because somebody purchases a .22 or .38, maybe gets some training (often of dubious quality), and then leaves the gun in the nightstand for a few years does not make him a member of the gun culture. Or even dependable pro-gun voters.

The big problem is the dwindling access of to places to shoot. I don’t know about the rest of the nation, but where I live (Colorado), population increase and development have closed a few ranges. The ones that remain — an hour or more drive away — are more crowded. Add to the mix that Range Officers often act like elitist dicks — in the name of “safety,” of course, and not some power trip — and other gun club members are only slight less pleasant to be around, I’ve given up on trying to get people involved in shooing many years ago.

It’s simply not worth it to drive 60 or so miles each way (especially with today’s gas prices) to have an experience that’s often more stressful than enjoyable. Perhaps when I have my own private shooting range someday, that will change. Until then, Ive let my CCW expire. And I’m selling off my gun collection that’s so large, the inmates in Canon City know me as “Crazy Gun Guy.” Not only is shooting “a hell of a lot of work if you don’t like it,” it’s become a lot more work for those of us that do.

pisses me off too. Like the First Amendment wasn’t.

so much for your blood pressue though…