Gallup Poll: Guns in 4 of 10 homes; women more likely to use guns for protectio
Date: Dec 4, 2005 7:50 AM
Gallup Poll: Guns in 4 of 10 homes; women more likely to
use guns for protection

Posted on Friday, December 02 @ 00:10:00 EST by cbaus

A recent Gallup Poll entitled “Gun Ownership and Use in
America” shows that 4 in 10 Americans report having a gun in
their homes, that most gun owners say they use their guns to
protect themselves against crime, for hunting, and for
target shooting. What may come as surprise to sexist
anti-gun extremists is that the poll’s findings also found
that women more likely than men to use guns for protection.

From a story by Joseph Carroll, Gallup Poll Assistant
Editor:

The poll, conducted Oct. 13-16, finds that 4 in 10
Americans report they have a gun in their homes,
including 30% who say they personally own a gun and
12% who say another member of their household owns
it. These results show essentially no change since
this question was last asked in 2000. At that
time, 27% of Americans said they personally owned a
gun and 14% said another household member owned
one.

Certain groups of Americans — men, older
Americans, Midwesterners, Southerners, Republicans,
and whites — are more likely than other groups to
say they personally own a gun.

Nearly half of men (47%) report personal ownership,
compared with just 13% of women.

Americans aged 18 to 29 are slightly less likely
than those who are older to be gun owners. Only
one in five 18- to 29-year-olds (21%) say they own
a gun, while 32% of 30- to 49-year-olds and 31% of
those aged 50 and older report ownership.

Roughly one in three Americans who live in the
Midwest (34%) and the South (36%) say they
personally own a gun. Ownership is lower among
those residing in the East (22%) and the West
(23%).

Forty-one percent of Republicans say they own a
gun, compared with 27% of independents and 23% of
Democrats.

One in three whites (33%) own a gun, while only
about one in six nonwhites (18%) do.

Perhaps more interesting than who owns firearms is what the
poll finds about the purposes for which gun owners use their
gun.

Gallup reports that most gun owners use their guns for each
of these three purposes: crime protection (67%), target
shooting (66%), and hunting (58%).

Because there is so little difference in results among the
2000 and 2005 polls, Gallup combined the data from its 2000
and 2005 surveys to provide a more detailed look at the
reasons why different groups use guns.

Male gun owners are more likely than female owners
to say they use a gun for hunting (63% to 45%,
respectively) or for target shooting (68% to 59%),
while female owners are slightly more likely than
male gun owners to use a gun for protection (74% to
63%, respectively).

Gun owners aged 18 to 49, are more likely than
those aged 50 and older to say they use a gun for
hunting (65% to 52%) or for target practice (74% to
58%).

There are essentially no differences between
younger and older gun owners who use their guns for
crime protection (67% among 18- to 49-year-olds and
64% of those aged 50 and older).

Republican and Democratic gun owners are almost
equally likely to say they use a gun for protection
against crime, 64% to 69%, respectively. However,
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say
they use a gun for target shooting (71% to 53%) or
for hunting (64% to 53%).

The results are based on telephone interviews with 1,012
national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Oct. 13-16,
2005. The overall poll has a margin of error of +/-3%,
while the sub-sample of people who say they personally own a
gun had a sampling error of +/-6 percentage points in 2005
and +/-4 percentage points in 2000.