April, 26 2011, 11:01am EDT
Household Gun Ownership Hits New Low--Fewer Than One Out of Three American Households Has a Gun
Gun-Free Households are a Substantial Majority, Gun-Owning Households a Shrinking Minority
WASHINGTON
Household gun ownership in the United States has dropped to its lowest level since it peaked in 1977 according to a report issued today by the Violence Policy Center (VPC) analyzing new data from the General Social Survey (GSS) conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. The GSS has tracked household and personal gun ownership since the early 1970s and, except for the U.S. Census, is the most frequently analyzed source of information in the social sciences.
The VPC report, "A Shrinking Minority: The Continuing Decline of Gun Ownership in America" (https://www.vpc.org/studies/ownership.pdf), comes out two days before the National Rifle Association (NRA) begins its annual convention this Thursday in Pittsburgh, PA.
KEY FINDINGS
According to decades of GSS data analyzed in the VPC report--
Household gun ownershippeaked in 1977, when more than half (54 percent) of American households reported having any guns. By 2010, this number had dropped more than 20 percentage points to 32.3 percent of American households reporting having any guns in the home--the lowest level ever recorded by the GSS. In 2010, fewer than a third of America households reported having a gun in the home.
Personal gun ownershippeaked in 1985, when 30.7 percent of Americans reported personally owning a gun. By 2010, this number had dropped nearly 10 percentage points to 20.8 percent--the lowest level ever recorded by the GSS. In 2010, slightly more than one out of five Americans reported personally owning a gun.
Male gun ownershippeaked in 1990, when 52.4 percent of males reported personally owning a gun. By 2010, this number had dropped more than 19 percentage points to 33.2 percent--the lowest level ever recorded by the GSS. In 2010, only one out of three American males reported personally owning a gun.
Female gun ownershiphas fluctuated within a narrow range with no recent signs of increase. Relatively rare, female gun ownership peaked in 1982 at 14.3 percent. In 2010 the female personal gun ownership rate was 9.9 percent. Only one out of 10 American females reported personally owning a gun in 2010.
VIOLENCE POLICY CENTER QUOTE
VPC Executive Director Josh Sugarmann states, "This new data is the latest confirmation of the ongoing, long-term trend of decreasing gun ownership in America. Despite the short-lived uptick in gun sales that occurred after the election of President Obama, the fact is that gun-free households are an increasing majority while gun-owning households are a shrinking minority."
REASONS FOR CONTINUED DECLINE IN GUN OWNERSHIP
Key factors cited by the report contributing to the continuing decline in household and personal gun ownership include: the aging of the current-gun owning population and a lack of interest in guns by youth; the end of military conscription; the decreasing popularity of hunting; land-use issues that limit hunting and other shooting activities; environmental and zoning issues that force shooting ranges to close and limit new range construction; and, the increase in single-parent homes headed by women.
The Violence Policy Center (VPC) works to stop gun death and injury through research, education, advocacy, and collaboration. Founded in 1988 by Executive Director Josh Sugarmann, a native of Newtown, Connecticut, the VPC informs the public about the impact of gun violence on their daily lives, exposes the profit-driven marketing and lobbying activities of the firearms industry and gun lobby, offers unique technical expertise to policymakers, organizations, and advocates on the federal, state, and local levels, and works for policy changes that save lives. The VPC has a long and proven record of policy successes on the federal, state, and local levels, leading the National Rifle Association to acknowledge us as "the most effective ... anti-gun rabble-rouser in Washington."
LATEST NEWS
Database Exposes 'Illicit Network Undermining Democracy Around the World'
Yanis Varoufakis hailed the effort as "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
Apr 17, 2024
"Coups. Assassinations. Riots. Detentions. Disinformation. We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?"
Progressive International (PI) asks and answers this and other questions with an extensive new database published Wednesday that connects the dots in what the leftist group calls the "Reactionary International"—a loose global network of right-wing leaders and organizations working to subvert democratic institutions.
PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
"Today is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it," PI said.
"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
"The twin insurrections at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and Brasília's Three Powers Plaza in 2023 left no doubt about the international coordination of reactionary forces," PI argued. "Yet far too little is known about the entities of this network, their sources of financing, and their institutional allies operating inside our political systems."
Ultimately, PI aims to "support democratic systems to become more resilient to their insidious tactics."
From leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and former U.S. President Donald Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee—to evangelical Christian groups influencing laws in African countries criminalizing LGBTQ+ people and tech companies empowering ubiquitous state surveillance, Reactionary International is a who's-who of the world's right-wing forces.
A cursory search of the database's contents shows users can:
- Learn about Israel's NSO, Rayzone, and Team Jorge, and how a team of Tel Aviv tech entrepreneurs fuel unrest in Latin America;
- Meet the Grey Wolves, Turkey's roving death squad with links to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ethno-nationalists in his governing coalition; and
- Explore the global network of the Falun Gong, its Trump-connected media outlet The Epoch Times, and its traveling dance troupe known as Shen Yun.
Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
PI invites the public to contribute to the database.
"Together, we will not only name, shame, and expose the forces of the far right—but also dismantle their network of complicity," the group said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
GOP State AGs Ask EPA to 'Eviscerate' Crucial Environmental Justice Tool
"Many of the states that have signed the petition have historically allowed these harmful facilities to be placed in predominantly Black and brown communities," said one advocate.
Apr 17, 2024
Led by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, Republican leaders in 23 states on Tuesday filed a petition making clear their aim to allow petrochemical companies and other corporations to continue operating pollution-causing facilities without regard for the "disparate impact" they can have on low-income communities of color.
The attorneys general of states including Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas wrote to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan, asking him to amend Title VI under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The law prohibits recipients of federal funds from discriminating against residents based on race and national origin and allows residents to petition the EPA arguing that state agencies have intentionally discriminated or disparately impacted a particular community.
Title VI has underpinned hundreds of legal cases, including recent EPA investigations into the 85-mile stretch of land in Louisiana known as Cancer Alley, where dozens of petrochemical plants have been built and health experts have observed a disproportionate number of cancer cases and other medical problems among the predominantly Black population.
The attorneys general said they object to the Biden administration's use of Title VI to "advance what it calls 'environmental justice,'" and complained that the EPA aims to create "a condition in which no racially or economically defined group experiences adverse environmental impacts."
Andre Segura, vice president of litigation at the environmental legal group Earthjustice, said Wednesday that the Republican attorneys general aim to "eviscerate civil rights protections just to make it easier for industrial polluters to continue with business as usual."
"Everyone should be alarmed by these outrageous efforts," said Segura. "The fact is, many of the states that have signed the petition have historically allowed these harmful facilities to be placed in predominantly Black and brown communities, without regard for the health and safety of residents."
Manuel Fernandez, president of Miami-Dade County Democrats in Florida, said the effort was "embarrassing" and called on Moody to resign.
The petition was filed three months after U.S. District Court Judge James Cain Jr., an appointee of former President Donald Trump in Louisiana, ruled that Title VI requirements amount to "government overreach."
The EPA halted its Title VI investigation into the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) last year a month after Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, sued the agency over its Title VI regulations. The EPA had been probing whether the LDEQ placed the historically Black town of St. John the Baptist Parish at risk by allowing companies to build petrochemical plants nearby.
There are more than 50 pending cases regarding Title VI violations, Earthjustice said.
"These decades-old Title VI regulations are critical tools for the federal government to use to ensure that funding is not used to perpetuate this toxic legacy," said Segura, "and the EPA should swiftly reject this petition."
Keep ReadingShow Less
GOP Governors Show 'How Scared They Are' of Workers Organizing With UAW
Congressman Greg Casar said the Republicans behind a new joint statement "sound more like corporate lobbyists than governors."
Apr 17, 2024
As Volkswagen workers in Tennessee began voting on whether to join the United Auto Workers, progressive critics on Wednesday continued to call out six Southern GOP governors for jointly saying they "are highly concerned about the unionization campaign driven by misinformation and scare tactics that the UAW has brought into our states."
Govs. Kay Ivey of Alabama, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Tate Reeves of Mississippi, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Bill Lee of Tennessee, and Greg Abbott of Texas issued their statement in response to "the largest organizing drive in modern American history," which the UAW launched after major contract wins following a strike targeting the Big Three automakers—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis—last year.
"As governors, we have a responsibility to our constituents to speak up when we see special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by," the Republican leaders said, claiming that "unionization would certainly put our states' jobs in jeopardy" and the UAW is "making big promises to our constituents that they can't deliver on."
"We have serious reservations that the UAW leadership can represent our values. They proudly call themselves democratic socialists and seem more focused on helping President [Joe] Biden get reelected than on the autoworker jobs being cut at plants they already represent," the governors added, nodding to the union's January endorsement of the Democrat—UAW president Shawn Fain also called the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, a "scab."
What actually threatens American workers?\n\u274c Anti-union, anti-worker propaganda like this\n\ud83d\udcb0 Corps that put profits over people\n\u26d1\ufe0f Safety standards not being met\n\n@GovAbbott & @GovernorKayIvey sound more like corporate lobbyists than governors here. @UAW backs American workers!— (@)
The Economic Policy Institutesaid Wednesday that the governors' anti-union statement "clearly shows how scared they are that workers organizing with UAW to improve jobs and wages will upend the highly unequal, failed anti-worker economic development model of Southern states."
Responding to the statement on social media, the Congressional Labor Caucus declared that "we speak up when we see threats to workers' rights. Workers must be allowed to choose whether to form a union on their own—free from influence from their employers or politicians. Shame on these governors for putting out this anti-union propaganda."
After Ivey shared the statement on social media, Nina Turner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy, asked, "Better wages and working conditions are against the values of your state?"
MSNBC's Chris Hayes was even snarkier, jokingly calling the statement "yet more evidence of the populist, pro-worker turn of the Trump-era GOP."
The UAW vote in Chattanooga, Tennessee is set to wrap up on Friday. Then, attention is expected to shift to Vance, Alabama. Workers at a nonunion Mercedes-Benz plant there submitted a petition to the National Labor Relations Board earlier this month requesting an election to join the union.
Noting Ivey's social media post about the statement, Diana Hussein, who does communications work for the UAW, said: "She's mad cuz she wants to keep the Alabama discount that leaves workers behind. No more! #StandUpUAW."
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, also took aim at Ivey, saying, "You used Alabama taxpayers' money to have state troopers escort out-of-state scabs to break the strike of YOUR constituents."
Nelson explained that she was referring to the "hardworking" United Mine Workers of America members employed by Warrior Met, "who were fighting for the right to see their families more than a few days a year."
More Perfect Union told Ivey that "unions only threaten your values if you value denying workers a living wage and good benefits."
In contrast with the Republican governors, around two-thirds of the Senate Democratic Caucus in January wrote to 13 nonunion automakers—including Mercedes and Volkswagen—urging them not to illegally block UAW organizing at their plants.
"We are concerned by reporting at numerous automakers that management has acted illegally to block unionization efforts," the senators stressed, citing multiple examples. "These retaliatory actions are hostile to workers' rights and must not be repeated if further organizing efforts are made by these companies' workers. We therefore urge you all to commit to implementation of a neutrality agreement at your manufacturing plants."
Welcoming their letter, Fain said that "every autoworker in this country deserves their fair share of the auto industry's record profits, whether at the Big Three or the Nonunion 13. We applaud these U.S. senators for standing with workers who are standing up for economic justice on the job."
"It's time for the auto companies to stop breaking the law and take their boot off the neck of the American autoworker," the union leader added, "whether they're at Volkswagen, Toyota, Tesla, or any other corporation doing business in this country."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular