gun store counter pistol
Courtesy NSSF
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Historic numbers of law-abiding Americans joined the gun-owning community for the first time in recent years, including large numbers of women and minorities. National gun control groups at the same time continue to shout for stricter gun control laws.

As Americans take up their rights, tune out the gun control industry, and personally navigate the process to legally buy a firearm, one thing’s becoming clearer. They reject stricter gun control.

Support for Gun Control Slides

Nearly 40 million firearms were legally purchased by Americans between January 2020 and December 2021. Industry data revealed that included roughly 10 million first-time buyers. They’d had enough of feeling unsafe due to riots, looting and the defund-the-police movement and they embraced their Second Amendment rights.

The gun-buying pace has continued this year and November marked the 39th month in a row of at least 1 million FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications processed. Surprising no one in the firearm industry, the ongoing gun buying spree has coincided with a drop in support for stricter gun control laws.

According to The Hill, the percentage of Americans supporting stricter gun laws has fallen nine points since June. The latest Gallup poll shows 57 percent of U.S. adults “desire stricter gun laws,” compared to 66 percent in June. When Gallup first began tracking Americans’ feelings on gun control 30 years ago, support for stricter laws registered nearly 80 percent.

The Changing Face of Gun Ownership

National gun control groups and an anti-gun media frequently caricature the American gun owner as an old white man stockpiling firearms. That characterization just doesn’t hold true.

gun store sales counter
(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Gun owners are increasingly female with large percentage jumps in minority gun ownership too, including African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans. Earlier this year, NBC News finally reported on “Why more black people are looking for safety in gun ownership.” The report highlighted NSSF industry data showing 90 percent of gun retailers reported a “general increase” of black customers, including an 87 percent increase among Black women.

A headline from The Cut reads, “The New Face of American Gun Ownership – Black women are pushing against the (white, rural, and male) stereotype.” “In recent years, story after story has furthered the narrative that Black women are the fastest-growing group of gun owners in the country,” The Cut’s report said, adding black women now make up a majority of the 40,000 members of the National African American Gun Association (NAAGA).

These trends are reflected in the new Gallup poll as well.

“Gun ownership among women has swelled from the low teens to more than 20 percent over the past 15 years, while it has remained in the low to mid-40s among men during the same period,” the poll shows.

As more law-abiding Americans learn firsthand about the restrictions forced on them in order to exercise their Constitutional right to own a gun, their understanding of gun control changes and are in turn rejecting it. After all, criminals don’t follow any of these laws when they illegally obtain firearms used in their crimes.

Failing Election Strategy

That message might be starting to resonate with gun control groups. The recent declines in public support for more gun control was reflected in recent advertising campaigns leading up to the midterm elections. In Florida, for example, national gun control groups spent millions trying to persuade voters – specifically Hispanic Americans – that they needed more gun control in their lives. Those voters, turned off by the race-based targeting and also their history with gun control in countries like Cuba, voted pro-Second Amendment, flipping four seats in southern Florida from blue to red.

In Texas, Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke tried yet again to win in Texas with a gun control message platform only to be rejected in the governor’s race. Gun control groups again spent big to help O’Rourke, but the third time wasn’t the charm.

Gun control operations – Everytown for Gun Safety, Giffords and Brady – have been virtually absent from the high-stakes senate runoff race in Georgia, where staunchly pro-gun Gov. Brian Kemp easily won reelection just one month ago, with a strong message of supporting the firearm industry and safe legal gun ownership.

Gun control groups may keep running their same playbook of trying to push for more restrictions and fewer rights. The American people are making their message known loud and clear: they aren’t buying more gun control. They’re buying firearms.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

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32 COMMENTS

  1. I can’t remember the last time the Government tried to sell me something I actually wanted to buy. Now if they had a sale on say criminal control… then maybe but like the stuff you really need it’s never on sale and quantities are limited.

  2. My take on this lead photo. People of color, afraid of the ss/antifa and their racist goons like dacian are tooling up to defend themselves.

    Good on them.

        • That’s only because that demo is most likely to oppose their interests. They despise black conservatives too. There just aren’t that many of them.

        • *That should read non-white conservatives, but they reserve a special ire for black conservatives.

          “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

    • I am guessing a lot of lefty’s are buying guns for drag queen story time open carry like those ones in Texas. We need gun control for them and for the people in chicago and places like that. And red flag orders for trannies in colorado. Enforce The Law!

  3. And when you just cannot believe there are enough reasons to get a gat… there’s this from FOX News:
    More Chinese secret police stations reportedly found; 50 stations worldwide.

    God says that it’s not enough we have bad cops here (amongst the good cops), its time to import some more.
    “Hmm, let’s have them be Chinese…”

      • Officially they are to “assist” Chinese citizens with lodging paperwork such as various renewal forms and to report crimes committed against them by other Chinese citizens.

        Actually they are used to harass and intimidate Chinese citizens living abroad and those of Chinese descent of the reach and might of the CCP. They also “encourage” citizens who have committed “crimes” to return to China for punishment by advising what will happen to the suspect’s family if they don’t. The gangster and criminal traits of Communism are still live and well.

  4. Well actually I have stopped buying guns unless it’s something weird or unusual,but my goodness the ammo I have been getting, it’s stacked up everywhere.

    • If you can still open your doors, it isn’t stacked up everywhere. How’s the garage looking? If there’s room for the car, you need to fill it up with ammo!

  5. There are too many tight races. If gun control were that much of an issue then stroke victims and mental patients would not be winning elections. Too many people either refuse the idea or simply don’t make the mental connection between who they vote for and who will take their guns. Being a gun owner simply does NOT have any bearing on who gets the vote.

    Make no mistake. Gun control wouldn’t mean anything and wouldn’t go anywhere if the politicians that push it didn’t get elected. You want less gun control…DON’T vote Democrat.

    Gallup means nothing. Polls in general mean nothing. What means something is who wins elections. So for the writers at TTAG, you can keep all the Gallup polling you want. All that will do is lie to you.

    • You always wonder how people can be so stupid to vote in 100% morons like Maxine Waters and Sheila Jackson Lee (big hatted gun idiot). But then the last 2 elections we watched the slow motion national trainwreck of Biden and Fetterneck being elected. You then realized that there is at least 45% of the population will vote for a potted plant if it has a D by its name. Pennsylvania was given a once-in-a-lifetime golden goose about 10 years ago called fracking and yet they proceed to vote in Biden and Fetterneck to strangle it. The idiocy is truly stunning.

      • Nice to hear both of you tell it like it is. I sit wondering how people can see all the nonsense going on and still vote for people who are mentally, morally, ethically, deficient. Who in their right mind thinks less than 3 million capable law enforcement in this Country are going to take 150 million plus gun owners firearms away from them. It’s high time people started calling out those in law enforcement federal, state, local who have broken their oaths to the constitution and expect people to obey their ridiculously failing policies while they ignore the law themselves. They should be told straight out either you obey the laws or if you come to this home come to fight. Communities should create their own home guards to protect themselves and their neighbors and let these lawless so-called law enforcers know that if you come to this community to break the law you come to fight. Let’s see how brave they are then when they become the ones who are outnumbered.

  6. Americans aren’t as dumb as Democrats think they are. That, despite the past 30+ years of brainwashing children through the education system. There are a lot of misguided, and misinformed Americans, but they ain’t all dummies!

  7. Well I just bought 2 magazines I didn’t want. And one I did want.Thanks ILLannoy. Dims suck…I see they are doing similar BS in Michigan🙄

  8. Peace is that short period of time when everyone pauses to reload. It appears that the reloading pause is nearly over. History tells us what follows.

  9. Just to point out how foolish these politicians are do they really believe that people are buying firearms at a rate of over 1 million per month to put up with more gun control and potential confiscation? I wonder how many confiscators are going to be shot doing their job? I would assume they would want to go home at night to their families in one piece? Totally ridiculous.

  10. A Conversation with a black lady two weeks ago revealed to me this. She thinks all AR’s AK’s and ” anything that holds all them bullets” , are machine gunms, no use for those, to many kids got machine gunms, anyone can just walk in a store and buy one, the government should do something about it, it’s not safe anymore, I’m buying a gunm to protect myself.
    So you see not everyone purchasing a gunm are 2Ammedment advocates.
    Yes she voted for theBiden and has recently moved here from California.

  11. I’m an “old, white man.” My wife and I spent a lifetime contributing. My taxes are paid. My criminal record does not exist. I served in the military. We raised our kids to be productive adults. We supported our community. We worked careers. We never received even a dime of welfare, or Medicaid, or SNAP. Even if I were a threat to society now, I can’t afford to “stockpile” guns or ammunition at today’s prices and on a pensioner’s income. The few guns I have must last me a lifetime from here. I’m amazed at the amount of hate spewing from such “tolerant” people.

    • The trick is they’re only tolerant and accepting of people they like and agree with. We, as a society, need to figure out how to have more people like you.

      • There are actually alot of us like that and we generally stay quiet and try to stay out of trouble until someone pushes us too far. That point is coming fast. Its time to stop being quiet and tell these people in no uncertain terms that if they continue to break the laws and fail to keep their oath to the Constitution then they better be ready to fight. When you see what they have done to the January 6 people you know that all they need is some flimsy excuse to come after you. Well its about time they were told come and try it and see how long YOU last.

  12. At our Municipal Range we offer Gun Safety Classes every two weeks. They are Free and open to the public. I teach one of the classes and in the past year, there’s rarely any empty seats. In my class, the percentage of women has more than doubled from what it was a year ago. Out of the 30 students in my class last week, 18 were female first time Gun Owners. We don’t high pressure joining the range, but do encourage it, or that they avail themselves of the Open Public Nights we offer. Of that 18 women, 8 joined the association that night. The others were thinking about it. So our membership has increased as well, since this all started.
    The Range Board is considering increasing the classes to weekly sessions temporarily, as there’s a back log of sign ups a month out. In the 30+ years I’ve been a member, that has never happened before, even during the 94/04 AW ban. we saw small increases, but nothing like what we see now.
    So it sure looks like all the Anti-Gun Groups are really achieving is a bite in their a$$es.

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