POLL: Historic Number of American Voters Have Firearms in Their Homes
Jose Nino
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According to a NBC News poll published on November 21, 2023, 52% of registered voters indicated that they or someone in their household owns a firearm. Jake Fogleman of The Reload observed that this is “the highest-ever percentage of voters who acknowledge being in a gun-owning household since the outlet began tracking the question in 1999.”
“In the last ten years, we’ve grown [10 points] in gun ownership,” Micah Roberts, who is employed by the poll’s creator Public Opinion Strategies, said to NBC News. “That’s a very stunning number. By and large, things don’t change that dramatically that quickly when it comes to something as fundamental as whether you own a gun.”
Since the outbreak of the Wuhan virus and the George Floyd mania that followed it, gun sales have gone through the roof as people have lost trust in policing institutions and have become overwhelmed by the rising crime nationwide. In this time period, many of these people were first-time gun buyers.
On the racial front, the NBC poll discovered that 41% of black voters currently indicated that they or someone they live with owns a firearm, which represents a 17% increase from 2019. White voters remain the most likely demographic cohort to report living in a household where firearms are owned at 56%. However, that number grew by only 3 points from 2019.
As far as Republican voters are concerned, two-thirds indicated that they or an individual they live with owns a firearm. By contrast, 45% of independent and 41% of Democrat voters expressed similar sentiments. Per the polls, both Democrat and Republican voters witnessed an 11-point uptick in reported gun ownership over the past decade, per the poll.
Indeed, gun ownership remains strong in the US. The culture of the right to bear arms is firmly embedded in America’s political consciousness. For gun controllers, this presents a major obstacle in their unholy quest to destroy the right to bear arms.
Eternal vigilance and the responsible teaching of firearm usage are the best ways of maintaining this pro-gun culture.
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