Every so often, a set of statistics comes up where I can show evidence that it is likely false. Like this one:
Look at Florida. This claims that there are under 29% of households with a firearm in it. Let’s take a look at the actual numbers.
There are approximately 14.6 million adults over the age of 21 in Florida. About 2 million of them are ineligible for a concealed weapons permit because of criminal history, immigration status, domestic violence orders, etc.. There are 3 million people licensed to carry firearms in the state (including cops, retired cops, judges, and others), even though they aren’t required for concealed carry. This likely means CCW holders are underrepresented, but it’s the best proxy we have. Still, this means that roughly 24 percent of Florida’s eligible adult population has a CCW permit. Now assume that not all legal gun owners have a CCW permit, and not all people who are ineligible for a permit or gun ownership are without a firearm. (In other words, have a gun despite the fact that it is illegal for them to do so.)
This makes me believe that this number is not accurate. What likely happened was that a survey taker called random people and asked them “Do you have a gun in your house?” and the person said, “Nope, lost them all in a tragic boating accident during the last hurricane, when the gators ate them.”
Now extrapolate that to the three states where less than 10% of the households own guns: Hawaii, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. Do you think the numbers there are likely higher?
In researching this post, I also came across this interesting fact: There were 15 million hunting licenses issued in the entire US in 2018. At the same time, more than 21 million people have concealed weapons permits, even though the number of people with permits is dropping as more states become Constitutional Carry states. This indicates to me that gun culture 2.0, the move from guns being about hunting to guns being about defense, has taken over the entire gun culture.
16 Comments
SiG · October 10, 2025 at 8:02 am
Your title is as good a summary as I can imagine. As if anyone is going to give totally honest answers to someone calling them at random about something like that. In some headline-seeking organization somewhere, “let’s call people at random and ask if they have illegal drugs in their homes!”
The gold standard for propaganda, the most effective propaganda campaign in history, is still vegetarianism. It’s a tough one to compete with.
P-Tar · October 10, 2025 at 8:49 am
“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” ~ Mark Twain
I’d love to parse through their data and pick out the flaws in their logic, but it doesn’t seem to offer any info on sources. Looks like the map came from here:
https://www.instagram.com/bury.politics/reels/?hl=en
On an off-note, I’m so glad that I chose WV as my bug-out location, and that Appalachistan is well-represented here in terms of well-armed states. When I bought my property in early 2021, I knew I was home in the good ol’ USA again. We fly our flags proudly, we keep our guns handy, and we look out for our neighbors out there. Need to acquire patches!
http://www.instagram.com/p/DOLfHwWje02/
Down here in Communist Maryland where I must work, last week we had two shooting incidents in the neighborhood I manage. One jump-out with the victim fleeing (no hits at 10 yards, punks here can’t shoot for shit) another multi-mag dump at the park nearby. Neighborhood was crawling with cops both times, helped them find brass and pull security footage from our cameras.
Guarantee you that _many_ unauthorized persons, felons, and illegals are strapped here.
Honk Honk · October 10, 2025 at 8:58 am
Reading about a census bureaucrat who wouldn’t allow a citizenship question.
Lies and statistics.
TRX · October 10, 2025 at 9:39 am
> more than 21 million people have concealed weapons permits
—
…and in more than half the states, they don’t need a permit.
Divemedic · October 10, 2025 at 10:28 am
I keep my CCW for multiple reasons, even though it isn’t required for actually carrying. For example, it exempts me from a waiting period. It allows me to ignore parts of the gun free school zones act. There are other reasons.
Henry · October 10, 2025 at 9:23 pm
A CCW is also important if you happen to cross state lines regularly. Since we live right by the NC-SC line, it’s an everyday occurrence to find ourselves back and forth. At least in NC, having the CCW means you can walk out of the gun store or gun show with your shiny new acquisition in minutes – just fill out the 4473 and pay. No waiting for background check.
Robert · October 10, 2025 at 9:46 am
When the clinic hands me a new form that asks, “Do you have any firearms in your house”? I say “No”. “It’s just a routine procedure”, they say. I just give them a routine answer.
When the pollsters ask, “Do you own any firearms?”, I say “No”. I am perfectly happy to accept the gift card that comes after giving the “correct” answer to the survey question. If the survey does not come with points for a gift card, I do not answer at all.
Analysts trying to find reliable conclusions from survey data have a difficult task placed before them.
Don in Oregon · October 10, 2025 at 10:08 am
If I lived in Hawaii, Massachusetts, or New Jersey I would not admit I owned a gun.
The charts should be labeled, “Percentage of households who are willing to tell a stranger that they own a gun”.
Don't Curton · October 10, 2025 at 10:14 am
Texas? TEXAS?? 35.5%?? OK, that right there is bullshit. I’m guessing the real number is 75% or better. And if there’s one gun, there’s usually 8 or 10 guns or more. Even people who aren’t in the gun culture have a deer rifle or grandpa’s old shotgun. And I bet most of them would do exactly what I’d do if some rando called and started asking me about guns — say fuck off and hang up.
Divemedic · October 10, 2025 at 10:29 am
Illegals and households with prohibited persons will say no.
Tsgt Joe · October 10, 2025 at 10:44 am
Dont know about the east coast snow birds but a lot of us mid westerners come south strapped.
Sardaukar · October 10, 2025 at 1:14 pm
65.7% for Montana? Utter bullshit. It’s more likely 80+. Even the few lefties I know up here have dad’s / grandad’s Winchester, shotgun, 1911, etc.
Was stationed in Kalistan for 10 years and that 16.3% is a load too. Non- crim ownership SWAG is likely more than 40%. Used to help train folks at Appleseed events when and we would have so many show up we would run a couple of hours later than planned so that everyone got the help they wanted.
billo · October 10, 2025 at 1:57 pm
Gun ownership data is notoriously bad. The last, “least bad” study I know of was a large Rand study that estimated about 35% of households in Florida had guns in 2016, and 45% in Texas. There have been some studies that compared known gun owners and known gun non-owners. Based on those demographic parameters, the authors estimated about a 20% underreporting rate, at least as I read the tables ( Bond, A.E., Karnick, A.T., Capron, D.W. and Anestis, M.D., 2024. Predicting potential underreporting of firearm ownership in a nationally representative sample. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 59(4), pp.715-723.)
However…. More recent trends in gun buying is making these demographic studies difficult as most new buyers are from demographic groups with traditionally lower ownership. As another study notes:
“Overall, 11% of respondents reported purchasing a gun since 1/1/20, 35% for the first time. Among recent purchasers, larger proportions of Democrat, Black, Asian, and Hispanic respondents were new gun owners than Republican or white respondents. ”
Valek, R., Ward, J.A., Jones, V. and Crifasi, C.K., 2024. Political violence, racial violence, and new gun ownership: results from the 2023 National Survey of Gun Policy. Injury Epidemiology, 11(1), p.48.
For the country as a whole,I think it’s useful to look at general firearm availability. This can be estimated at the manufacturing/import/export level or by NICS data. For a comparison of *that* data compared to homicides, see: https://wordpress.forensicpath.us/index.php/2025/09/03/playing-with-chatgpt-firearm-availability-and-homicide-rates/
Danny · October 10, 2025 at 5:55 pm
Nice thing about firearms is that they are tools that serve many purposes. Hunting, defense, target shooting – to name the basics.
Henry · October 10, 2025 at 9:26 pm
I speculate that the number of AR15s in circulation is way undercounted. It would be fascinating to discover the estimated number of DIY rifles built with 80% lowers – odds are they aren’t factored into the usual estimates of ARs in the wild, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the DIY rifles built with stripped lowers aren’t in the usual estimates either.
Aesop · October 11, 2025 at 4:23 am
12% of men admit to masturbation.
88% of men admit to lying on surveys.
And those numbers correspond to survey questions about gun ownership, at about a 1:1 ratio.
One of the last things WeaponsMan accomplished before his untimely death was to work out the details of how many guns there likely are in the US, based on manufacturing and import data.
The number he arrived at was not the oft-quoted 200M.
It was around 600M guns.
As a conservative estimate.
IOW, a billion guns would not be beyond possibility.
For 300+M people.
Making the average 2-3@, for every man, woman, and child in the country.
I know how many I have. It surpassed three quite a few decades ago.
I also know I’m on the right side of the bell curve there.
But I think it’s an article of faith and a firm grasp on reality, to assume 60-80% gun ownership per household in the country is the norm in 48 states, with Alaska being higher, and Hawaii being lower. And that it’s a higher percentage in high-crime states, but people in those very states lie their @$$#$ off when asked a survey question about guns at home, because it’s nobody’s damned business but their own. And no small number of them are felons in possession, and they’re dumb, but they’re not stupid.
Anyone who seriously contends that there’s only a gun in 16% of Califrutopia households ought to have their surveys printed on perforated squares of tissue, so they’d at least have some utility purpose, because as serious researchers they’re quite simply profoundly mentally retarded, and you can’t fix that no matter how big a hammer you use.
Comments are closed.