Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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2. Guns and daily life: Identity, experiences, activities and involvement
Party and ideology strongly linked to views on importance of right to own guns
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- 2. Guns and daily life: Identity, experiences, activities and involvement
- Most Republican handgun owners carry outside their home at least sometimes
- About one-in-ten handgun owners say they carry all of the time
- Majority of gun owners who grew up hunting currently hunt at least sometimes
- One-in-six gun owners have used a gun to defend themselves
- Experiences with being shot, or knowing someone who has been, differ along key demographic fault lines
- Roughly four-in-ten Americans say they know someone who has been shot
- Gun owners with five or more guns highly engaged in gun-oriented media, gun shows
- Among gun owners, men consume more gun-oriented media than women
- About one-in-four non-gun owners say they watch gun-oriented TV programs and videos owners
- Americans are divided between those who say the NRA has too much and the right amount of influence
- Among gun owners, men and women equally likely to belong to NRA
- About a third of U.S. gun owners hunt often or sometimes
- Demographic differences emerge in the shares of gun owners who say all or most of their friends also own guns
- Gun ownership more closely linked to overall identity for GOP gun owners
- Party and ideology strongly linked to views on importance of right to own guns
- Gun owners who grew up in a gun-owning household most likely to view gun ownership as an essential right
- For many gun owners, their experiences with guns extend beyond shooting and hunting
- About four-in-ten U.S. adults say they live in a gun-owning household