MENU TITLE: Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms. 

Series: NIJ Research in Brief
Published: May 1997
20 pages
41,893 bytes

National Institute of Justice
Research in Brief

Jeremy Travis, Director
May 1997

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Issues and Findings

Discussed in this Brief: Results of a nationally
representative telephone survey (1994) on private
ownership and use of firearms by American adults.
The survey provides the most complete data
available on the private stock of firearms in the
United States.

Key issues: With nearly 200 million guns in private
hands, firearms have an important impact on the
quality of life in America. What is the size and
composition of the Nation's private gun inventory?
What are the methods of, and reasons for, acquiring
firearms? How are firearms stored? How frequently
are guns used against criminal attackers?

Key findings: The survey data and analysis yielded
the following results: 

o In 1994, 44 million Americans owned 192 million
firearms, 65 million of which were handguns.
Although there were enough guns to have provided
every U.S. adult with one, only 25 percent of
adults actually owned firearms; 74 percent of gun
owners possessed two or more.

o The proportion of American households that keep
firearms appears to be declining.

o Sixty-eight percent of handgun owners also
possessed at least one rifle or shotgun.

o Gun ownership was highest among middle-aged,
college- educated people of rural small-town
America. Whites were substantially more likely to
own guns than blacks, and blacks more likely than
Hispanics. 

o The most common motivation for owning firearms
was recreation. Forty-six percent possessed a gun
primarily for protection against crime.

o There were 13.7 million firearm transactions in
1993-1994, including 6.5 million handguns. About 60
percent of gun acquisitions involved federally
licensed dealers.

o About 211,000 handguns and 382,000 long guns were
stolen in noncommercial thefts in 1994.

o Slightly more than half of all privately owned
firearms were stored unlocked; 16 percent of
firearms were stored unlocked and loaded.

o In 1994, about 14 million adults (approximately
one-third of gun owners) at least once carried a
firearm in their vehicles or on their person for
protection.

o Evidence suggests that this survey and others
like it overestimate the frequency with which
firearms were used by private citizens to defend
against criminal attack. 

Target audience: Criminal justice and public health
researchers and practitioners. Legislators and
policymakers at all levels of government.

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Guns in America: National Survey on Private
Ownership and Use of Firearms

by Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig

The United States is unique among wealthy nations
in its vast private inventory of firearms. The
nearly 200 million guns in private hands are used
in part for recreation, mostly hunting and target
shooting. But what engenders the most public
controversy over firearms is their use against
people during either the commission of or defense
against crime. 

Gun advocates regard firearms as an important crime
deterrent and source of protection, while control
advocates denounce guns for the damage they do in
the hands of criminals. What both groups can agree
on is that widespread ownership of firearms has an
important impact on the quality of life in America.

To learn more about the role of firearms, the
National Institute of Justice (NIJ) sponsored--
through a grant to the Police Foundation--a
nationally representative telephone survey in 1994
on private ownership and use of firearms by
American adults (see "Firearms Survey
Methodology"). This Research in Brief reports some
of the survey's more important findings, including
the following:

o Size, composition, and ownership of the Nation's
private gun inventory. 

o Methods of, and reasons for, firearms
acquisition. 

o Storage and carrying of guns.

o Defensive use of firearms against criminal
attackers.

Gun ownership

Prevalence. According to conventional wisdom, about
half of American households own guns, a belief
affirmed by a long series of national polls dating
back to 1959.[1] Yet data from the 1994 telephone
survey (National Survey of Private Ownership of
Firearms--NSPOF) indicate that just 35 percent
(plus or minus 1.3 percent) of households own guns.
This estimate may be somewhat off the mark but not
by much. Conventional wisdom appears out of date.

The best available survey series on gun ownership
is the General Social Survey (GSS), conducted by
the National Opinion Research Center. Its estimates
have been lower than some others, in the range of
40 to 43 percent during the 1990s. In particular,
the GSS estimate for 1994 was just 41 percent.
Another telephone survey in 1994 produced a still
lower estimate for gun ownership, 38 percent of
households.[2]

Concentration. Despite enough guns in private hands
to provide every adult in America with one, only
one-quarter of adults actually own firearms. Those
who have one gun usually have several: 74 percent
possessed two or more in 1994.

Gun ownership is quite concentrated but not more so
than for other durable goods. In marketing circles,
the "80/20 rule" suggests that the top fifth of all
consumers of a product typically account for
four-fifths of all purchases by value. NSPOF data
indicate that the top 20 percent of firearm owners
possessed 55 percent of privately owned
firearms.[3] Of gun owners in 1994, 10 million
individuals owned 105 million guns, while the
remaining 87 million guns were dispersed among 34
million other owners.

Persons owning several guns tended to have varied
collections, including rifles, shotguns, and
handguns.[4] We find that 68 percent of handgun
owners also owned at least one rifle or shotgun,
suggesting some experience and interest in the
sporting uses of guns. Exhibit 1 provides
additional data on the composition of private gun
collections. 

Demographic patterns. In 1994 gun ownership was far
from uniformly distributed across the population,
as is evident from exhibit 2. Most striking is the
gender gap: 42 percent of men but just 9 percent of
women owned guns at the time of NSPOF. (The gap is
even wider when the focus is on whether the
respondent ever owned a gun.) With respect to race,
whites were substantially more likely to own guns
than blacks (27 versus 16 percent), and blacks more
likely than Hispanics (16 versus 11 percent). But
for handguns alone, the ownership rates among
blacks and whites were nearly equal (13.1 versus
16.5 percent).

Gun ownership (and handgun ownership) was highest
among middle-aged,[5] college-educated people of
rural and small-town America. But one of the best
predictors of gun ownership was the presence of
firearms in the respondent's childhood home. People
whose parents possessed guns were three times as
likely as others to own one themselves. In fact, 80
percent of all current gun owners reported that
their parents kept a firearm in the home.

Motivations. The most common motivation for owning
firearms was recreation. As shown in exhibit 3,
about 35 percent of gun owners (15 million people,
8 percent of the adult public) hunted in 1994, and
about an equal percentage engaged in sport shooting
other than hunting. Given the substantial overlap
between the two groups, about half (23 million) of
the Nation's 44 million gun owners participated in
a gun sport during 1994. Of those who owned only
handguns in 1994, 40 percent used them
recreationally, almost entirely for sport shooting
other than hunting.

Another reason cited for firearm ownership was
self-protection. Overall, 46 percent of gun owners
possessed firearms (usually handguns) primarily for
protection against crime (41 percent for males; 67
percent for females). Almost three-quarters of
those who owned only handguns kept them primarily
for self-protection. Of course, some people seek
the protection of a gun because they may be
disproportionately likely to lead risky lives or
associate with violent people.[6] Those who had
been arrested for nontraffic offenses were more
likely to own firearms (37 percent compared to 25
percent in the general population).

But most persons do not own guns, and the NSPOF
included several items to find out why. In 1994,
about two-thirds of gunless adults were actively
opposed to having guns in their homes because they
viewed guns as dangerous, "immoral," or otherwise
objectionable. The remaining one-third were at
least open to the possibility of obtaining firearms
and might do so if their financial condition or
motivation became stronger. For many, the needed
motivation may have come from an increased concern
about crime: nearly 5 percent of respondents
reported that they planned to obtain a gun for
protection against crime within a year.

The stock of guns in private hands

The NSPOF-based estimate for the total number of
privately owned firearms is 192 million: 65 million
handguns, 70 million rifles, 49 million shotguns,
and 8 million other long guns (exhibit 4). Of the
handguns, 48 percent were revolvers, 40 percent
semiautomatics, and 12 percent were reported as
"some other type of handgun" by respondents.

The millions of guns in private hands included
everything from cheap .22-caliber "snubbies" to
finely made high-powered rifles worth thousands of
dollars. The variety of firearm designs reflects
the multiplicity of uses for which they are
intended and also influences the weapons'
capacities for harm. Firearm regulations place
special restrictions on commerce in short-barreled
guns (because they are easily concealed and
disproportionately used in crime) and on
large-capacity magazines.

From our analysis, we find that the magazine
capacity of one-fifth of all handguns was 10 or
more rounds (exhibit 4B). The barrel of about one
in six handguns was 3 inches or shorter (exhibit
4C).[7] Comparing handguns acquired in 1993 or 1994
with those acquired prior to 1993 permitted
examination of changes in the demand for different
kinds of handguns over time. Handguns acquired more
recently were more likely to have large magazine
capacities (37.8 versus 14.1 percent held 10 or
more rounds) and were less likely to be of small
caliber, defined as .32 or under (28.6 versus 38
percent). (See exhibit 4D.)

Transactions

Acquisitions. To date, little information has been
available about gun flows in the United States. The
potential importance of this information is its use
in evaluating regulation of firearms commerce. For
example, the Gun Control Act of 1968 restricts
interstate shipments to federally licensed firearm
dealers (FFLs), who in turn are required to follow
laws regulating retail transfers. Transactions not
involving FFLs, known as the "secondary market,"
typically do not require recordkeeping and are
exempt from the Federal requirement (for handguns)
of a waiting period and criminal record check.[8]
Moreover, secondary market transactions are not
subject to regulatory oversight. Thus, knowing the
volume of informal transfers that do or do not
involve FFLs would be useful.

The average firearm in circulation in 1994 was
acquired by its present owner in 1981, with the
average handgun having been acquired in 1983.
Persons owning handguns in 1994 acquired about 28
percent of them in 1993-1994, compared with 20
percent of long guns. An estimated 13.7 million
transactions occurred during 1993-1994, including
6.5 million involving handguns. Sixty percent of
long guns and 68 percent of handguns were new at
the time of acquisition by their 1994 owners during
the 1993-1994 period.

How do people typically acquire firearms? As shown
in exhibit 5, almost all guns acquired during 1993
and 1994 were either purchased by the respondent
(73 percent) or received as a gift (19 percent).
The remaining 8 percent were obtained through
inheritance, a swap of some kind, or other means. 

The predominant sources of guns, unsurprisingly,
were stores (60 percent). Other important sources
included family members and acquaintances. The 3
percent of respondents who indicated that they
obtained guns "through the mail" (which is illegal
for all but FFLs) may have misremembered or may
have referred to a mail-order purchase arranged
through an FFL.

The average gun obtained in 1993 and 1994 was worth
$392 at the time of transfer, with little
difference between handguns and long guns. Fewer
than 1 in 20 guns acquired during those 2 years
were valued at less than $100.

Fifty-seven percent of firearms were obtained from
stores, pawnshops, or other sources that the
respondents were certain to have been federally
licensed firearm dealers. Some respondents were not
sure about whether the source was an FFL. Others
indicated that the source was an FFL but then
reported that the transaction was a trade rather
than a cash sale or that the source was an
acquaintance or family member. If those cases are
included, the proportion increases to 64 percent. 

We conclude that approximately 60 percent of gun
acquisitions involved an FFL and hence were subject
to Federal regulations on such matters as
out-of-State sales, criminal history checks, and
recordkeeping. A somewhat higher percentage of
handgun acquisitions than long gun acquisitions
involved FFLs. The remaining acquisitions,
amounting to about 2 million per year, were
off-the-books transfers in the secondary market.

Thefts. A major theme highlighted in a 1986 survey
of incarcerated felons was that theft was an
important means of obtaining firearms for those
with criminal intentions: 32 percent of surveyed
felons had stolen their most recently acquired
handgun.[9]

Based on the NSPOF, an estimated 0.9 percent of all
gun-owning households (269,000) experienced the
theft of one or more firearms during 1994. About
211,000 handguns and 382,000 long guns were stolen
in noncommercial thefts that year, for a total of
593,000 stolen firearms. Those estimates are
subject to considerable sampling error but are
consistent with earlier estimates of about half a
million guns stolen annually.[10]

Gun safety

Gun storage. Of 1,356 accidental deaths by gunshot
in 1994, 185 involved children 14 years old and
younger.[11] For each such fatality, there are
several accidental shootings that cause serious
injury. Guns were also the means of destruction in
19,590 suicides, 210 involving children 14 or
younger. For these reasons, safe handling and
storage of firearms have attracted the attention of
the public health community.

We found that 20 percent of all gun-owning
households had an unlocked, loaded gun in the home
at the time of the survey. This figure was
substantially higher among handgun-owning
households than among households with long guns
only--30 percent versus 7 percent. 

Slightly more than half of firearms of either type
were stored unlocked, but handguns were much more
likely to be loaded. Reflecting their predominant
use in self-defense, handguns were likely to be
stored in bedrooms or vehicles of owners or even on
their person, while most long guns were kept in gun
closets or other out-of-the-way places (exhibit 6).

Although training programs usually include
suggestions on how to store guns safely, it does
not appear that trainees are paying attention. More
than half (56 percent) of owners had received some
form of "formal" training from the military, law
enforcement, National Rifle Association, National
Safety Council, or other source. As a group, owners
who received such training were no less likely than
others to keep guns loaded and unlocked. This
surprising result is consistent with other recent
studies.[12] 

However, a more detailed analysis of NSPOF data
that examined the effects of different formal
training programs separately indicated one
exception: training programs such as those offered
by local affiliates of the National Safety Council
were associated with a significant reduction in the
likelihood of keeping a gun unlocked and loaded.
This result speaks well of that training, the
trainees, or both. 

Carrying

Carrying a gun outside the home, especially in an
urban area, is problematic because the public is at
risk if the carrier is reckless or inclined to
violence. For that reason, carrying a firearm in a
vehicle or on the person is subject to a variety of
State and local regulations. In most States,
carrying a concealed gun is prohibited or
restricted to those who have obtained a special
license. At the same time, many States have reacted
to public concerns about crime by enacting laws
under which most citizens can usually obtain a
concealed-carry permit. Currently, 31 States have
passed such laws.

About 14 million adults (approximately one-third of
gun owners) carried firearms for protection at
least once during the 12 months preceding NSPOF.
Four million of them indicated that they carried
guns for protection "in connection with work."
Two-thirds who carried guns kept them in their
vehicles, while the others sometimes carried them
on their person.

The occupations of respondents who report carrying
guns in connection with work are quite diverse.
Somewhat surprisingly, only a quarter of this group
were employed in the protective service field. The
questionnaire does not distinguish between those
who are required by their employers to carry
firearms as part of their occupational duties and
those who do so on their own initiative. In any
event, an estimated 3 million adults who were not
in law enforcement or security carried firearms for
protection on the job in 1994.

The majority (56 percent) of those who carried
firearms outside of work did so fewer than 30 days
per year, but a substantial minority (22 percent)
rarely left home without a gun. On any given day,
1.1 million people were carrying guns on their
person outside the workplace, while another 2.1
million stored guns in their cars or trucks.

Some correlates of gun carrying are worth noting.
Males who carried guns in 1994 were about two and 
a half times as likely to have been arrested for a
nontraffic offense as other men (15 percent versus
6 percent). And a disproportionate share of gun
carriers resided in the South, where the prevalence
of carrying guns was almost double that of the rest
of the Nation.

Defensive gun uses

NSPOF estimates. Private citizens sometimes use
their guns to scare off trespassers and fend off
assaults. Such defensive gun uses (DGUs) are
sometimes invoked as a measure of the public
benefits of private gun ownership. On the basis of
data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics'
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data,
one would conclude that defensive uses are rare
indeed, about 108,000 per year. But other surveys
yield far higher estimates of the number of DGUs.
Most notable has been a much publicized estimate of
2.5 million DGUs, based on data from a 1994
telephone survey conducted by Florida State
University professors Gary Kleck and Mark
Gertz.[13] The 2.5 million figure has been picked
up by the press and now appears regularly in
newspaper articles, letters to the editor,
editorials, and even Congressional Research Service
briefs for public policymakers.

The NSPOF survey is quite similar to the Kleck and
Gertz instrument and provides a basis for
replicating their estimate. Each of the respondents
in the NSPOF was asked the question, "Within the
past 12 months, have you yourself used a gun, even
if it was not fired, to protect yourself or someone
else, or for the protection of property at home,
work, or elsewhere?" Answers in the affirmative
were followed with "How many different times did
you use a gun, even if it was not fired, to protect
yourself or property in the past 12 months?"
Negative answers to the first DGU question were
followed by "Have you ever used a gun to defend
yourself or someone else?" (emphasis in original).
Each respondent who answered yes to either of these
DGU questions was asked a sequence of 30 additional
questions concerning the most recent defensive gun
use in which the respondent was involved, including
the respondent's actions with the gun, the location
and other circumstances of the incident, and the
respondent's relationship to the perpetrator.

Forty-five respondents reported a defensive gun use
in 1994 against a person (exhibit 7). Given the
sampling weights, these respondents constitute 1.6
percent of the sample and represent 3.1 million
adults. Almost half of these respondents reported
multiple DGUs during 1994, which provides the basis
for estimating the 1994 DGU incidence at 23
million. This surprising figure is caused in part
by a few respondents reporting large numbers of
defensive gun uses during the year; for example,
one woman reported 52!

A somewhat more conservative NSPOF estimate is
shown in the column of exhibit 7 that reflects the
application of the criteria used by Kleck and Gertz
to identify "genuine" defensive gun uses.
Respondents were excluded on the basis of the most
recent DGU description for any of the following
reasons: the respondent did not see a perpetrator;
the respondent could not state a specific crime
that was involved in the incident; or the
respondent did not actually display the gun or
mention it to the perpetrator. 

Applying those restrictions leaves 19 NSPOF
respondents (0.8 percent of the sample),
representing 1.5 million defensive users. This
estimate is directly comparable to the well-known
estimate of Kleck and Gertz, shown in the last
column of exhibit 7. While the NSPOF estimate is
smaller, it is statistically plausible that the
difference is due to sampling error. Inclusion of
multiple DGUs reported by half of the 19 NSPOF
respondents increases the estimate to 4.7 million
DGUs.

Some troubling comparisons. If the DGU numbers are
in the right ballpark, millions of attempted
assaults, thefts, and break-ins were foiled by
armed citizens during the 12-month period.
According to these results, guns are used far more
often to defend against crime than to perpetrate
crime. (Firearms were used by perpetrators in 1.07
million incidents of violent crime in 1994,
according to NCVS data.) 

Thus, it is of considerable interest and importance
to check the reasonableness of the NSPOF estimates
before embracing them. Because respondents were
asked to describe only their most recent defensive
gun use, our comparisons are conservative, as they
assume only one defensive gun use per defender. The
results still suggest that DGU estimates are far
too high.

For example, in only a small fraction of rape and
robbery attempts do victims use guns in
self-defense. It does not make sense, then, that
the NSPOF estimate of the number of rapes in which
a woman defended herself with a gun was more than
the total number of rapes estimated from NCVS
(exhibit 8). For other crimes listed in exhibit 8,
the results are almost as absurd: the NSPOF
estimate of DGU robberies is 36 percent of all
NCVS-estimated robberies, while the NSPOF estimate
of DGU assaults is 19 percent of all aggravated
assaults. If those percentages were close to
accurate, crime would be a risky business indeed!

NSPOF estimates also suggest that 130,000 criminals
are wounded or killed by civilian gun defenders.
That number also appears completely out of line
with other, more reliable statistics on the number
of gunshot cases.[14]

The evidence of bias in the DGU estimates is even
stronger when one recalls that the DGU estimates
are calculated using only the most recently
reported DGU incidents of NSPOF respondents; as
noted, about half of the respondents who reported a
DGU indicated two or more in the preceding year.
Although there are no details on the circumstances
of those additional DGUs, presumably they are
similar to the most recent case and provide
evidence for additional millions of violent crimes
foiled and perpetrators shot.

False positives. Regardless of which estimates one
believes, only a small fraction of adults have used
guns defensively in 1994. The only question is
whether that fraction is 1 in 1,800 (as one would
conclude from the NCVS) or 1 in 100 (as indicated
by the NSPOF estimate based on Kleck and Gertz's
criteria). 

Any estimate of the incidence of a rare event based
on screening the general population is likely to
have a positive bias. The reason can best be
explained by use of an epidemiological
framework.[15] Screening tests are always subject
to error, whether the "test" is a medical
examination for cancer or an interview question for
DGUs. The errors are either "false negatives" or
"false positives." If the latter tend to outnumber
the former, the population prevalence will be
exaggerated. 

The reason this sort of bias can be expected in the
case of rare events boils down to a matter of
arithmetic. Suppose the true prevalence is 1 in
1,000. Then out of every 1,000 respondents, only 1
can possibly supply a "false negative," whereas any
of the 999 may provide a "false positive." If even
2 of the 999 provide a false positive, the result
will be a positive bias--regardless of whether the
one true positive tells the truth. 

Respondents might falsely provide a positive
response to the DGU question for any of a number of
reasons: 

o They may want to impress the interviewer by their
heroism and hence exaggerate a trivial event. 

o They may be genuinely confused due to substance
abuse, mental illness, or simply less-than-accurate
memories. 

o They may actually have used a gun defensively
within the last couple of years but falsely report
it as occurring in the previous year--a phenomenon
known as "telescoping." 

Of course, it is easy to imagine the reasons why
that rare respondent who actually did use a gun
defensively within the time frame may have decided
not to report it to the interviewer. But again, the
arithmetic dictates that the false positives will
likely predominate.

In line with the theory that many DGU reports are
exaggerated or falsified, we note that in some of
these reports, the respondents' answers to the
followup items are not consistent with respondents'
reported DGUs. For example, of the 19 NSPOF
respondents meeting the more restrictive Kleck and
Gertz DGU criteria (exhibit 7), 6 indicated that
the circumstance of the DGU was rape, robbery, or
attack--but then responded "no" to a subsequent
question: "Did the perpetrator threaten, attack, or
injure you?"

The key explanation for the difference between the
108,000 NCVS estimate for the annual number of DGUs
and the several million from the surveys discussed
earlier is that NCVS avoids the false-positive
problem by limiting DGU questions to persons who
first reported that they were crime victims. Most
NCVS respondents never have a chance to answer the
DGU question, falsely or otherwise.

Unclear benefits and costs from gun uses. Even if
one were clever enough to design a questionnaire
that would weed out error, a problem in
interpreting the result would remain. Should the
number of DGUs serve as a measure of the public
benefit of private gun possession, even in
principle? When it comes to DGUs, is more better?
That is doubtful, for two kinds of reasons: 

o First, people who draw their guns to defend
themselves against perceived threats are not
necessarily innocent victims; they may have started
fights themselves or they may simply be mistaken
about whether the other persons really intended to
harm them. Survey interviewers must take the
respondent's word for what happened and why; a
competent police investigation of the same incident
would interview all parties before reaching a
conclusion.

o Second and more generally, the number of DGUs
tells us little about the most important effects on
crime of widespread gun ownership. When a high
percentage of homes, vehicles, and even purses
contain guns, that presumably has an important
effect on the behavior of predatory criminals. Some
may be deterred or diverted to other types of
crime. Others may change tactics, acquiring a gun
themselves or in some other way seeking to preempt
gun use by the intended victim.[16] Such
consequences presumably have an important effect on
criminal victimization rates but are in no way
reflected in the DGU count.

Conclusions

The NSPOF provides the most complete data available
on the private stock of firearms in the United
States, including the kinds of guns owned, by whom
they are owned, and for what purpose they were
acquired. When asked, handgun owners usually gave
self-protection as their primary motive for owning
guns, while long-gun owners mentioned hunting or
target shooting. Other findings support the
conclusion that handguns are much more likely than
long guns to be kept unlocked and ready for use in
the home and to be carried in public; they are much
less likely to be used in sporting activities.
Despite those differences, demographic and
socioeconomic patterns of firearm ownership in 1994
were similar for handguns and long guns; in fact,
most handgun owners also owned one or more long
guns. 

A fair conclusion is that the more fundamental
divide is not between handgun and long-gun owners
but between those who own guns and those who do
not. Those who like guns, have some experience with
them, and have the means to obtain them tend to
keep several for various purposes. But most of the
adult public turns elsewhere for recreation and
protection against crime.

Over time, the relative importance of
self-protection and sport as motivations for gun
acquisition and use has changed. Perhaps as a
result of the increasing urbanization of America,
the overall prevalence of gun ownership appears to
be declining, as is participation in hunting.
Proportionately fewer households owned firearms in
1994 than was true in the 1960s and 1970s, and the
younger cohorts are entering into gun ownership at
slower rates than previous ones. When people do
acquire guns now, the motivation is more likely
self-defense than in the past: The mix of new
firearms sold in 1994 was equally divided between
handguns and long guns, whereas 25 years earlier
twice as many long guns were sold.[17] 

The NSPOF does not provide much evidence on whether
consumers who buy guns for protection against crime
get their money's worth. The NSPOF-based estimate
of millions of DGUs each year greatly exaggerates
the true number, as do other estimates based on
similar surveys. Much debated is whether the
widespread ownership of firearms deters crime or
makes it more deadly--or perhaps both--but the DGU
estimates are not informative in this regard.

For other purposes, the NSPOF is a reliable
reference. Such information is vital to the
evaluation of the ongoing debate over government
regulation of gun transactions, possession, and
use.   

Notes

1. For example, the December 1993 Gallup Poll
estimated that 49 percent of households possessed a
gun.

2. Kleck, G., and M. Gertz, "Armed Resistance to
Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense
With a Gun," Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology, 86(1):150-187, Fall 1995.

3. For a discussion of the "80/20" rule, see
Clotfelter, C.T., and P.J. Cook, Selling Hope:
State Lotteries in America, Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1989. It
is possible that if one could adjust for the value
of guns, the degree of concentration would be still
greater and better fit the rule.

4. Fifty-five percent of all individuals who owned
four or more guns had at least one in each of these
three categories.

5. The NSPOF offers evidence that gun ownership is
declining. Not only were middle-aged people more
likely to own a gun in 1994 than those under age
40, but they were also more likely to have acquired
a gun by age 21.

6. Surveys of juvenile delinquents and adult felons
confirm the importance of self-defense as a motive
for gun possession by active criminals. For
juvenile delinquents, see Sheley, J.F., and J.D.
Wright, Gun Acquisition and Possession in Selected
Juvenile Samples, Research in Brief, Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National
Institute of Justice, December 1993. For adult
felons, see Wright, J.D., and P. Rossi, Armed and
Considered Dangerous, Hawthorne, New York: Aldine,
1986.

7. Of some interest, given the controversy over the
"Saturday Night Special," is that most
short-barreled handguns were not .22 caliber;
two-thirds were in excess of .32 caliber, the same
as for longer barreled handguns.

8. Cook, P.J., S. Molliconi, and T.B. Cole,
"Regulating Gun Markets," Journal of Criminal Law
and Criminology, 86(1):59-92, Fall 1995.

9. Wright and Rossi, 1986, 183.

10. The standard error for this point estimate is
about four-tenths of a percentage point. Thus, the
95-percent confidence interval ranges from around
0.1 percent to 1.7 percent of gun-owning
households. Cook, Molliconi, and Cole, 1995, use
data from the National Crime Victimization Survey
for the period 1987-1992 to estimate 511,000 stolen
guns per year. (See Bureau of Justice Statistics, 
Guns and Crime, April 1994, NCJ-147003)

11. Monthly Vital Statistics Report, Department of
Health and Human Services, 45(3S), September 30,
1996. Table 16.

12. Hemenway, D., S.J. Solnick, and D. Azrael,
"Firearm Training and Storage," Journal of the
American Medical Association, 273(1):46-50, 1995.

13. Kleck and Gertz, 1995.

14. In 1994 about 17,000 people were shot dead in
criminal assaults and justifiable homicides. Given
what we know about the case fatality rate, fewer
than 100,000 nonfatal gunshot woundings were known
to the police. (See Cook, P.J., "The Case of the
Missing Victims," Journal of Quantitative
Criminology, 1985). Presumably, the true number of
justifiable shootings was just a fraction of this
total.

15. Hemenway, D., "Survey Research and Self-defense
Gun Use: An Explanation of Extreme Overestimates,"
Harvard Injury Control Center Discussion Paper,
1996.

16. Cook, P.J., "The Technology of Personal
Violence." In M. Tonry (ed.), Crime and Justice: A
Review of Research (Vol. 14), Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1-71, 1991.

17. Cook, P.J., "Notes on the Availability and
Prevalence of Firearms," American Journal of
Preventive Medicine, 9 Supp:33-38, May/June 1993.

------------------------------

Firearms Survey Methodology

The NIJ-sponsored National Survey of Private
Ownership of Firearms (NSPOF) was conducted by
Chilton Research Services of Drexel Hill,
Pennsylvania, during November and December 1994.
Data collected by the survey were analyzed by the
authors of this Research in Brief.

The telephone survey employed a list-
assisted random-digit-dial sampling method, in
which every residential telephone number had the
same likelihood of being selected. Each household
selected in this fashion was scheduled for as many
calls as needed (up to a maximum of six) to make
contact with the appropriate person and complete
the interview. When a household was first
contacted, the interviewer asked to speak with the
adult in the household who had the most recent
birthday. Because this method randomizes the
selection of respondents from among the adults
living in the household, the NSPOF was a
probability sample of adults in the United States.*

Minimums were established for the number of
completed interviews with racial minorities and
gun-owning households. Such households were more
likely than others to be included in the final
sample. Sampling weights were calculated to adjust
for this design feature and for other
sociodemographic differences between the sample and
the U.S. adult population.

Although these adjustments improved the quality of
population estimates based on the NSPOF, some types
of estimates may still be biased. As in every
survey, some sample members refused to cooperate
and others were never home when the interviewer
called. The concern is that these nonrespondents
may tend to differ from the general population (and
the completed sample) in relevant ways. The scope
of that potential problem is usually indicated by
the response rate. 

In the absence of a single accepted definition of
"response rate," two reasonable definitions yield
figures of 44 and 59 percent for the NSPOF. Thus,
nonresponse bias in our estimates is a real
possibility. Nonetheless, the response rate for
this survey is no lower than for other well-
executed telephone surveys, and there 
is no reason to believe that this survey used a
less representative sample than others.**

Most of the estimates contained in this Research in
Brief rely on the responses of those who personally
owned firearms. The estimates do not rely on the
reports of those who did not personally own a gun
but lived in a gun-owning household because our
analysis of the NSPOF data suggests that the survey
respond-ents were often unwilling or unable to
report on guns owned by other adults in the
household. For example, we find that in households
headed by married couples, women were much less
likely to report a gun in the house (which in most
cases would belong to their husbands) than were
men.

* For details about the GENESYS method employed by
Chilton or other survey issues, see Brick, J.M., J.
Waksberg, D. Kulp, and A. Starer, "Bias in List-
Assisted Telephone Samples," Public Opinion
Quarterly, 59:218-235. Also: Waksberg, J.,
"Sampling Methods for Random Digit Dialing,"
Journal of the American Statistical Association,
73:40-46, 1978.

** Kleck, G., and M. Gertz, "Armed Resistance to
Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense
With a Gun," Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology, 86(1):150-187, Fall 1995. They
reported a response rate of 61 percent for their
national telephone survey of gun ownership and
defensive gun use. In calculating this response
rate, they excluded all sample members whom they
were unable to contact. By their definition, the
NSPOF response rate would be higher than 61
percent.

------------------------------

1994 National Survey of Private Ownership of
Firearms (NSPOF)

Objectives: Provide national estimates for:

o Adult ownership of guns, by gun type.

o Sources and motivations for gun acquisition.

o Firearm safety and storage.

o Defensive use of firearms.

o Attitudes toward gun control.

Sample: Probability sample of 2,568
noninstitutionalized adults aged 18 and over who
are fluent in English or Spanish and live in
households with a telephone.

Method: Telephone interview with one randomly
selected adult from each household.

Population estimates: Weighted averages of relevant
responses. Standard errors for estimates of
population-prevalence rates range up to 1.4
percentage points, somewhat higher for prevalence
estimates within subpopulations.

------------------------------

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------------------------------

Philip J. Cook, Ph.D., is ITT/Sanford professor of
public policy studies, Duke University, and Jens
Ludwig, Ph.D., is assistant professor of public
policy, Georgetown University. 

The national survey was supported under grant
number 93-IJ-CX-0017, awarded to the Police
Foundation by the National Institute of Justice,
Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of
Justice. 

This Research in Brief is available online at the
Justice Information Center home page
(http://www.ncjrs.org) and available through
fax-on-demand (800-851-3420 or 301-251-5518; ask
for document number 1026). The full-length report,
as submitted to NIJ by the authors and on which
this Research in Brief is based, may be obtained
through interlibrary loan or, for a fee, as a
photocopy from the National Criminal Justice
Reference Service (call 800-851-3420 for cost and
other information). 

The Police Foundation has published Guns in
America: Results of a Comprehensive National Survey
on Firearms Ownership and Use, which is based on
the full-length report submitted to NIJ by the 
authors. For ordering information, call 202-833-
1460 or write to the Police Foundation, Attn:
Publications, 1001 22nd Street N.W., Washington,
D.C. 20037.

------------------------------

Findings and conclusions of the research reported
here are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or
policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

------------------------------

The National Institute of Justice is a component of
the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes
the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency
Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.
NCJ 165476