The percent of American households owning guns is at a near-40 year low in the latest CBS News poll released this month.
According to the survey, which was conducted among 1,001 Americans in the aftermath of the Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooting, 36 percent of U.S. adults either own a firearm personally, or live with someone who does. That’s the lowest rate of gun ownership in the CBS poll going back to 1978. It’s down 17 points from the highest recorded rate in 1994, and nearly 10 percentage points from 2012.
Gun ownership is not down, given the change in the politics on gun control. In 1994 they could get an assault weapons ban passed. Today they can’t do anything. If tomorrow we were selling as many guns as we did in the nineties, they would declare the entire industry in a hopeless recession. There are not fewer gun owners today. There are far more. They just won’t admit it.
I mainly find it interesting, in that back in 1994 I would probably have told a phone-surveyor that I owned a firearm, just to fly the flag for the NRA. Today, no way would I ever admit that to anyone, just to fly the colors for a survey. Back then I saw a world of rules and safety for those who played by them, where you could be honest. Today, there are no rules, anything and everything is possible, and you never trust anyone who you don’t know completely.
I can’t tell you what did that, or point to any specific event or state of affairs that triggered that change. But my mind hardened, and shifted toward K without my even knowing it.
As a people, we have crossed the boundary of fully distrusting our government and everyone associated with it. Conservative Americans are now becoming full cynics who subconsciously view everyone on the outside as the enemy, and they are proactively preparing for a harsh world with an inherent tendency toward devious and deceptive conflict.
That doesn’t bode well for the stability of our nation, as it careens toward a massive economic collapse. Nor do I think these changes are arising completely by chance. Ancient evolved mechanisms are being triggered in the warrior class, preparing them for harshness. I can only assume that the subtle environmental triggers that are precipitating this shift have evolved to do so in humans, because of what these subtle environmental conditions have been portents of in history.
The amygdala isn’t fully there yet to drive action, but when the shortage begins, that will be taken care of quite quickly, adding a measure of relentless drive to brains that have already been remodeled to plan for survival.
[…] Gun Ownership In Decline […]
Crime rates peaked in the early nineties and then declined for two decades, so the drop in gun ownership makes sense. But in 2015, crime started rising again. I think the perception of danger is only just now starting to sink in, and I expect more people to own and admit to owning guns.
Considering it has become racist and politically incorrect to own firearms, I’m thinking respondents poisoned the data, so the numbers were under reported.
As I read this, Ray Charles: “Your cheating Heart Will Yell On You?” is playing in the background. Many of us lie to random pollsters. All I can say is: “Bring it on.”
Everywhere you see the sort of folk who own guns you see the recurring meme of “Yea, I used to own a lot of guns but then I had a tragic boating accident.”
Gun sales have been running at record levels through most of the Obama administration, carry laws have been liberalized in a lot of new States. Fewer people now own guns? Nah, just a big spike in boating with guns with tragic results.