I am more astonished that Massachusetts has more guns than Nebraska and Ohio. Vermont is one of the most rural states and hunting is traditional activity. For as far left as Bernie Sanders is, the NRA marks him fairly moderately especially early in his career.
I was expecting WAY lower percentages. I was expecting that the top three would all be below one or two percent. I live in Chicago, and this would show that probably more than a quarter of the people I know own a gun. That's really messed up; even 5.2 percent is still too much. Pretty much only police or maybe avid hunters should have a gun. Totally shocked that one fifth of households having guns is considered low.
Happily, here in the Netherlands, everyone with a gun (unless for some rare practical reason) is messed up. Happily, also, don't know anyone with a gun or touched one myself. Ever. Different countries, different ways.
I have no friends that own guns, and I no one who has been criminally attacked. If a friend of mine had a gun, I would respect it if they had a reason. I would not respect it if they hid it so little that a criminal stole it and shot someone. A knife is enough protection for anyone. If you need a gun for hunting, and hunting is your main job, that's completely fine. But you shouldn't have a gun without reason.
Sorry if I was confusing, I mean that I have no friends that I know own a gun, but this data would show that maybe a quarter of the people in my city have one.
Knives/bats etc are fine for protecting yourself if you live somewhere where criminals rarely have guns, but in the US? I completely understand having a gun.
Guam, all Americans should have a reason. It's the reason the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment. Protection against a potential government tyranny. While hunting and self-defense are great advantages of the second amendment, the main intent was that Americans should own firearms to protect themselves from a dictatorship that could easily arise if there was no solid resistance.
If the government wished to be tyrannical, your firearm could not stop a tank or a plane. Doesn’t work any more. The wish for security with guns increases the need for guns to have security against others with guns.
tbolt: Well, if you own a gun that implies you have intent to use it. There are no good reasons to have a gun in your house. The only good reason to use a gun at all is for sports (obviously not "sports" that include harming living things though) and in those cases there's no reason to have the gun at home.
If you have reason to believe that you need one for self defence, then you have been messed up by being in an environment so dangerous that it has driven you to take precautions that a civilised person would not think to take.
If you own one because you want to hunt animals, well that's pretty self explanatory.
If you own one because you want to hurt someone that is not an immediate threat to your life, again that is pretty self explanatory
AntarcticLegacy It seems that the american second ammendment and its original purpose is now being used as an excuse. If people want guns for that possible eventuality, then they shouldn't abuse them. It's like giving a kid a laptop for doing schoolwork and it instead just plays games on it all the time, then when the parent comes to take the laptop away it starts crying "but i need to do my schoolwork"
This is the most pathetic thread I've ever read in the comment section. Weak defense and often unintelligible sentences. Gun ownership in the USA for self defense is not only our right but reasonable. Criminals are criminals because they don't obey the law. A well trained gun owner interested in self defense will be prepared to protect his family if a horrible situation ever presents itself.
If a horrible situation ever presents itself the nature of it is more likely to be an accident involving the gun than a situation where a gun will make anything any better.
I am no fan of guns and I don't own one myself, but many of the arguments being advanced here are illogical and intentionally miss the point. Gun ownership for self-defense is reasonable enough. Owning a gun for self-defense doesn't mean you intend to use it any more than owning a fire extinguisher means you intend to it. It's something you keep in case a particular emergency arises. I personally don't think the costs of gun ownership outweigh the benefits (nor do they come anywhere close), but I think a larger problem is the refusal for either side to have a common-sense discussion: how do we weigh the rational desire, generally supported by the Second Amendment, to have a weapon in the home for self-defense against the lethal threat of guns, the endless current of gun violence and mass shootings, and the cultish and myopic hysteria of gun worship in some parts of this country? That, to me, is a question genuinely worth exploring.
imagine how much less gun deaths there would be if there weren't any guns. with the problems in the us, any random person can walk into a shop and buy a gun with little regulation. "self-defense" you don't need a gun to defend yourself, taser, pepper spray, physical self defense? the gun death graph keeps going up, and yet you insist on self defense and hunting. i'm blessed that i don't live in the us
I dunno man, if one were a robber with an illegally obtained gun, I think he'd rather mug the guy without a gun than the guy with. Police can't always respond on time, and everyone has a right to self-preservation.
How would someone mugging you know if you had a gun? You're not allowed to walk around publicly showing your gun. Having a gun won't stop a mugger from initially mugging you. What it will do however is make them way more likely to actually shoot you.
I know very few people who do not own at least one gun, but I know no one who has ever shot a person. We keep venison in the freezer, protect our pets and livestock from predators, and use them for personal protection in a county where it can take a half hour or more for a deputy to arrive. Three times in my life I've been glad we had one - usually just seeing one is enough to make criminals run. People should follow the safety procedures. Convicted felons cannot legally possess one, and new hunters must pass a hunter education course to get a hunting license, which I think is great. I understand both sides of the argument, but living where we do, we feel they are a necessity.
It's a shame to see the some of the states on the list were part of the original 13 colonies that fought so hard for the 2nd amendment. Now they are anti 2nd amendment.
True. But I suspect that the poster was referring to the states (politicians) themselves being anti-second amendment, not the citizens that live there or those who choose to not own a firearm.
Even if this were true and it's not really, why would that be a shame? The 2nd amendment is obsolete. A well regulated militia is no longer necessary for our security. We've got a standing army and a national guard and in some places a pretty thoroughly militarized regular police force. The Constitution was designed to change and be adaptable. Maybe these states understand that.
No, it's to protect us from the government. Because when the tyrants come with their space-age chemical weaponry and state-of-the-art body armor, they will cower at the sight of my rifle. And don't forget that the troops and the police -- before whom we must bow in reverence every ten minutes -- are the government's military and enforcement arms, so they'd probably, heroically, be fine with turning on their own people so the government could enslave us. Or maybe it will just be Eric Holder with a solar-powered bazooka? It's all very confusing.
"It’s everyone’s duty to support the troops, and also to support the Second Amendment should the day come when we need to overthrow the government and kill those troops." https://voices.clickhole.com/it-s-our-duty-to-support-the-troops-and-the-second-amen-1825124050
statistically on a per-encounter basis the people Puzzled would label as "white" are more likely to get shot than those he would label as "black." But anyway, yes, owning a gun will much more likely get you shot than prevent it. It's not going to protect you from predator drones, either. Unless your militia has an aircraft carrier and a nuclear submarine the government is not scared of you at all. Like I said, this amendment is obsolete, regardless of how you (mis)interpret it.
hikiko: no, they're not. The Constitution was designed to be amended. Sometimes amendments get repealed. But I think you got your nonsensical talking point mixed up. The line you are supposed to parrot is: "the 2nd amendment is the one that makes all the others possible"- the staggeringly wrong but oft-repeated line from the gun manufacturer's lobby implies that somehow if we weren't all armed the government would seize upon this to start acting tyrannically and taking away our freedoms. Again, the US government is not afraid of your cute little collection of BB guns. They've got stealth bombers. Further, the current president and his allies are behaving like any tyrannical despot out in plain sight, and most of the people in the country with guns are cheering him on, so, you're not exactly acting as an effective deterrent. If one of you 2nd amendment guys goes to Washington and does some watering of Jefferson's tree of liberty, I'll take this back. But I don't see that happening.
there is a lot more hate going around right now than when the founding fathers were around. maybe we should get rid of the 1st amendment eh? domestic terrorism and the like is much more prevalent as well, so maybe the 4th is obsolete as well. gonna need some unreasonable searches and seizures to take care of all the illegal guns once we abolish the 2nd
yeah the 2nd amendment wasnt for the govt to grant itself the right to bear arms lol. as long as a government or its institutions can become tyrannical then it is not outdated. the "they have stealth jets and tanks" is the worst, most reddit take i see on this subject. is the govt going to vaporize US citizens and cities on its own soil with JDAMs? are tanks just going to be on every street corner? (armored vehicles have low threat visibility in urban setting btw). those jets and tanks sure did a great job in vietnam or better yet afghanistan..or even Ukraine. the fact that you cried about trump and his gun owning supporters in those lowly flyover states as some kind of gotcha is very telling on who you are as a person. i suggest you log off and touch grass.
Does anyone know why, exactly, Nebraska is on there? The rest of the quiz seems to hold that more urbanised blue states are less likely to have gun owners, so as a rural red state it sticks out.
Less meth, maybe? The rural people I know who own guns for protection, rather than hunting or sport, do so because everyone else in the area also owns guns and half of those people are on drugs.
Also, Nebraska has the highest percentage of farmland of any state and very little public land, which would make hunting difficult.
How on earth is New Hampshire here, so high (and the vast majority of people) still got it? I thought they were known to be one of the most pro-gun states in the Union.
I grew up in NJ and the mindset was that if you owned a gun and weren't military or police, you were a gun nut. Then after high school, I moved to the south and everyone had guns. They were all responsible and it wasn't a big deal.
If someone doesn't want to carry, fine. But historically, nations that give up their guns are sitting ducks for tyranny.
Was surprised by this list and did some research, some of the numbers and states listed in this and the other quiz seem wild. For example, this study (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-ownership-by-state) has Nebraska with a 45.2% ownership rate, which would make much more sense.
If you have reason to believe that you need one for self defence, then you have been messed up by being in an environment so dangerous that it has driven you to take precautions that a civilised person would not think to take.
If you own one because you want to hunt animals, well that's pretty self explanatory.
If you own one because you want to hurt someone that is not an immediate threat to your life, again that is pretty self explanatory
Actually, in most states you are.
..well, especially if you’re black
Also, Nebraska has the highest percentage of farmland of any state and very little public land, which would make hunting difficult.
If someone doesn't want to carry, fine. But historically, nations that give up their guns are sitting ducks for tyranny.