WASHINGTON — The percentage of Americans who live in a household with at least one gun is lower than it’s ever been, according to a major American trend survey that finds the decline in gun ownership is paralleled by a reduction in the number of Americans who hunt.
According to the latest General Social Survey, 32 percent of Americans either own a firearm or live with someone who does, which ties a record low set in 2010. That’s a significant decline since the late 1970s and early 1980s, when about half of Americans told researchers there was a gun in their household.
The drop probably is linked to a decline in the popularity of hunting, from 32 percent who said they lived in a household with at least one hunter in 1977 to less than half that number now.
All this doesn’t necessarily mean the number being purchased is on the decline. In recent years there’s been an increase in the number of background checks being run, suggesting the total number of firearms being purchased is going up.
