Texas is the state with the most guns, while Delaware is the state with the least. In Tennessee, 51.6% of adults have guns in their homes. However, as a living document, it encompasses the legal right to own and bear guns, and the amount of guns owned by law-abiding US citizens illustrates just how seriously they take this right. The best of the best: the portal for top lists & rankings: Strategy and business building for the data-driven economy: Industry-specific and extensively researched technical data (partially from exclusive partnerships). For people between the ages of 30 and 49, 28% own a firearm. Just 20% of women say they used airsoft guns at least sometimes when they were growing up. But women are quickly gaining ground in this department. The three other states with the lowest guns per capita, all with 5 per 1,000, are: Delaware, Hawaii, and Massachusetts. (November 15, 2022). 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According to the Pew Research Center, handguns are the most common type of firearm among gun owners. Fewer gun owners cite a gun collection (13%) or their job (8%) as major reasons. Estimates show that there are anywhere from over 200 million to more than 350 million guns in the U.S. Because of variances in regulations throughout the nation, its impossible to get exact numbers when it comes to the total number of guns in the nation and the number of guns in each state. Interestingly, gun owners who see their local community as unsafe are not significantly more likely than those who say they live in a safe community to say protection is central to why they own a gun. Moore is right that Canada has a far lower rate of firearm homicides than its . Information on estimated standard errors for each state-year estimate is provided in the full data set. In fact, most gun owners who cite only one reason for owning a gun say they own a single gun (65%); in contrast, 74% of those who say they own a gun for more than one reason report having at least two guns. Additionally, given that not every person in the U.S. owns a gun, many people own multiple or many. Both Massachusetts and New Jersey have some of America's most stringent gun ownership laws. Both Massachusetts and New Jersey have some of the strictest gun ownership laws in the United States. Is Mental Illness a Risk Factor for Gun Violence? In the Northeast, gun ownership was below the. On the other side of the scale, we have the states with the lowest percentage of gun owners. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. For more information about how the estimates were developed, or to download the database, see State-Level Estimates of Household Firearm Ownership. 30-34% of 70-80 million Americans own a gun. In addition to the three-in-ten adults who currently own a gun, another 10% say they have owned one in the past; 58% say they have never owned a gun. Assistant Kansas Attorney General Amy Hanley shows a jury a Ruger Redhawk gun during a 2013 murder trial. And across community types, about three-in-ten cite sport shooting as a major reason. The lowest is 3 per 1,000 people in Rhode Island and New York, to 229 per 1,000 people in Wyoming. When it comes to airsoft guns, such as paintball, BB or pellet guns, 57% of men including 72% of those who grew up with guns in their household and 42% of those who didnt say they used them often or sometimes when they were growing up. About eight-in-ten young adults who grew up in a gun-owning household (79%) say this was a reason, compared with 66% of those ages 30 to 49, 60% of those ages 50 to 64, and just 34% of those ages 65 and older. "Gun Ownership and Gun Violence in America, by the Numbers." For example, 89% of gun owners who see owning a gun as very or somewhat important to their overall identity say they cant see themselves ever not owning a gun, compared with 58% of those who say owning a gun is not too important or not at all important their sense of identity. While about seven-in-ten gun owners who say the world has become more dangerous cite protection as a major reason they own a gun (72%), half of those who dont see the world that way say protection is central to why they own a gun. Still, even after controlling for the number of reasons they own a gun, male gun owners remain more likely than their female counterparts to own multiple guns. And while 68% of those who live in rural areas who have never owned a gun say they have fired one, about half of those who live in urban (48%) or suburban (56%) areas have had this experience. For the most part, gun owners in urban, suburban and rural areas offer similar reasons for owning guns. In the wake of the most recent U.S. mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 pupils and two teachers were killed by an 18-year-old with an . Furthermore, the survey was conducted among adults who have responded to Pew Research Center surveys in the past as part of the American Trends Panel and thus may be more comfortable answering the questions. Firearm related crime, deaths and injuries, Facebook: quarterly number of MAU (monthly active users) worldwide 2008-2022, Quarterly smartphone market share worldwide by vendor 2009-2022, Number of apps available in leading app stores Q3 2022, Profit from additional features with an Employee Account. Fortunately, these states also have the lowest numbers of gun deaths. FYI: People purchase firearms for a variety of reasons, one of which is home protection. The top 5 states that currently have the most guns include: But these are large states, with large populations. CBS News staff. The U.S. has over 50% more firearms per capita than the next two highest nations, Serbia and Yemen at about 0.55 and three times as many as major European countries such as France and Germany. Other proxies, some of which have been used in combination with firearm suicides, include per capita measures of hunting licenses, firearm background checks, and even subscriptions to Guns & Ammo magazine. Here are the results: As shown, when considered from a global perspective, there is no correlation between the number of guns per capita in a country and the number of firearm-related homicides. Among all current and past gun owners, the average age at which Americans say they first became gun owners is 22 years. In this photo, Rick Berg target shoots at the National Guard Armory in Bismarck. And while 85% of gun owners who say the right to own guns is essential to their sense of freedom say they cant see themselves ever not owning a gun at some point, 41% of those who dont see the right to own guns as essential say the same. First, they used a small-area estimation technique to create state-level ownership estimates for each of 51 nationally representative surveys . To delve into this alarming statistic, U.S.-trained Universit de Montral economist . The United States has nearly twice as many guns per 100 people as the next closest country, Yemen 88.8 guns per 100 as opposed to 54.8 in Yemen: ( The Guardian/Phillybdizzle ) Here, cut-up firearms are piled on the ground at the Falmouth Police Department in 2021. An estimated 14.7% of Massachusetts adults have a gun in their home. The wording of this has been contested time and again in various courts, but in 2008, theDistrict of Columbia vs Heller case concluded that that the Second Amendment right to bear arms vests in individuals, not merely collective militias, while also ruling that the right is not unlimited. This does not mean that every US citizen can legally carry a firearm, nor does it mean that you can purchase or own any type of firearm, but it does recognize the individuals right to own and carry legally on a federal level. This is a decline of about 17 percentage points from the peak ownership years in 1977-1980. Overall, about three-in-ten adults with a high school diploma or less (31%) and 34% of those with some college education say they own a gun; a quarter of those with a bachelors degree or more say the same. Among women who grew up with guns in their household, the average age at which they first fired a gun is 17. As soon as this statistic is updated, you will immediately be notified via e-mail. The United States is ranked number one globally when it comes to gun ownership. These five states are the only state to have gun ownership rates below 20%. Yemen came second to the US with 52.8 guns per 100 residents, or less than half the US figure. About seven-in-ten adults (72%) say they have fired a gun at some point in their lives. Large majorities of about nine-in-ten or more among current and past gun owners say they have fired a gun, and this is true across demographic groups. For example, while 66% of urban gun owners say people in their community generally have a positive view of most gun owners, less than half of those who do not own guns in urban areas say this is the case (42%). For example, New Jersey requires guns to be registered, requires a permit to purchase, a permit to carry, and does not allow open carry. 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