A recent survey highlights a significant rise in the number of Americans owning guns for personal protection, reaching unprecedented levels. Gun sales surged during the Covid-19 pandemic, correlating with an increase in gun-related fatalities. In 2021, gun-related deaths reached a record high of 48,830, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey, which also noted that approximately 7.5 million American adults became first-time gun owners during the pandemic, many of whom had not previously lived in a household with firearms.
The latest survey, published in the journal Injury Prevention, queried nearly 2,500 American adults who owned guns between May and June 2023. An overwhelming 80% cited personal protection as their primary motivation for owning a firearm, reflecting a notable increase over the past 25 years. Comparatively, in 1999, around 26% of gun owners reported owning a firearm for protection, with similar studies from 2017 to 2021 indicating that 60% to 70% of gun owners cited protection as their main reason.
Dr. David Yamane, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University who studies American gun culture, notes that this trend has its roots in the social upheaval of the 1960s. The era was marked by political and cultural turmoil, which he believes parallels the social movements and uncertainties experienced during the pandemic years.
“If you think about the year of 2020, it really had some of those characteristics,” Yamane stated. “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.”
The pandemic era has intensified concerns over personal safety, leading many to adopt firearms as a means of coping with uncertainty. Yamane attributes this shift to the growing defensive gun culture, bolstered since the 1980s by the gun industry’s promotion of firearms for personal protection and the advocacy for “stand your ground” laws, which allow the use of deadly force in self-defense.
However, research consistently shows that owning or living with gun owners generally increases the risk of death by homicide. Dr. David Studdert of Stanford University School of Medicine pointed out in a 2022 study that living in a household with a gun owner increases the risk of being shot and killed by a spouse or partner sevenfold.
Moreover, data from the National Crime Victimization Survey indicates that guns are rarely used in self-defense during personal contact crimes. The new survey, conducted by researchers at the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention at the University of Michigan, aimed to explore variations in gun ownership motivations across states with and without “stand your ground” laws.
The findings revealed that 79% of respondents cited protection as the main reason for owning a gun, with 52% having carried a firearm outside their home within the past year for reasons other than work, hunting, or target shooting. Interestingly, the study found no significant difference in the likelihood of carrying a gun for protection between states with and without “stand your ground” laws, although gun owners in these states were more inclined to carry firearms outside their homes.
Demographics such as gender, ethnicity, and race were significant predictors of gun ownership for protection, while political affiliation was not. Women, Black, and Hispanic individuals were more likely to own guns for protection. Notably, nearly all Black and Asian women who owned guns—98%—cited personal protection as their primary reason.
In conclusion, the trend of owning guns for personal protection continues to rise among Americans, driven by a mix of historical social changes and contemporary events, despite the increased risks associated with firearm ownership.
