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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of Americans who live in a household with at least one gun is lower than it's ever been, according to a major American trend survey that finds the decline in gun ownership is paralleled by a reduction in the number of Americans who hunt.

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This sounds like more propaganda to me. Anyone that's been halfway paying attention during the last 6 years with the ammo and gun panics would have to come to the conclusion that gun ownership is rising.

Unless you think that the same people that already owned guns were the only ones buying during the panics.

Note: Editorial "you"... not you personally.

Pawpaw wrote:This sounds like more propaganda to me. Anyone that's been halfway paying attention during the last 6 years with the ammo and gun panics would have to come to the conclusion that gun ownership is rising.

I thought the same thing when I read this yesterday. Of course, any time I have to answer a question to an insurance company, doctor, etc. like, "Do you have firearms in your house?" My answer might be misleading.

How many news stories have we heard in the last 6 years about record gun sales. Maybe they all went to households that don't own guns for surveys. "wink, wink"

my husband and I had the same speculative reaction.....

they've been running article after article about gun sales and CHL's being at an all-time high. This survey makes no sense unless people don't want anyone to know they have guns, geeeee ya think???

I saw this and the thought than went through my head had to do with the level of distrust there is with the government these days. And in someone calling and asking about guns in general. It kinda shocks me a little that as many people actually said that they do own guns. I would have thought far more would have said that they didn't. The left would like everyone to believe that gun ownership is declining so that any gun control legislation they propose can be said to be of minimal impact to the majority of people.

I call foul on the survey. I note at the bottom where they say the survey was primarily conducted using in-person interviews. It also says the survey was done by University of Chicago professors. 1) Unless they jumped on planes and randomly flew around the country to find their 1500 people, I'm betting that the results are only from people in the Chicago area...wonder if that skewed things??
2) If they wanted to avoid the bias of Chicago area only (it did say primarily in-person), then they have to call. I rarely pick up the phone if I don't recognize the number and certainly don't participate in polls. Gee sir, I'm calling to do a poll. Do you have guns? How many? Where are they in the house...in a safe? Do you also keep valuables in your safe?? How do I know who is calling to ask these questions? Even if I did know it was a legitimate poll, I'm certainly not going on record by name and phone number to what I own.
3) Poll is funded by the National Science Foundation. I'm leery of anything presented by the gov't claiming something like this. Polls can be made to say a desired outcome if necessary. Just depends on the type and wording of questions asked.

Polls and surveys that make comparisons between years can be skewed by whatever sampling methodology they used. Most of these entities running polls and surveys change their sampling requirements every few years.

The in person part of this sounds suspect to me. If someone with no LE authority asked me if I owned guns, and I did not know them, I would intentionally attempt to deceive them. I just would not feel comfortable answering that question truthfully to a stranger.

Weg wrote:The in person part of this sounds suspect to me. If someone with no LE authority asked me if I owned guns, and I did not know them, I would intentionally attempt to deceive them. I just would not feel comfortable answering that question truthfully to a stranger.

Same here. I would simply say: :No. Now get off my lawn."

Makes me wish I would have been insightful enough to have switched some of my 401k investments around to firearms and or ammunition manufacturers back on 11.5.08.

Maybe it's just people being cagier about admitting it?

Just give John Lott another day or two, and he'll refute it.