DOI: 10.3886/icpsr38045.v1
title: National Lawful Use of Guns Survey (NLUGS), [United States], 2020
title: Version 1

description: The National Lawful Use of Guns Survey is a baseline internet-based survey of 2,086 gun owners
who were surveyed in 2019 and again one year later. The survey measured a wide range of variables,
including: (a) psychographics; (b) firearm-related knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, practices, and norms;
(c) a wide range of personal values; (d) level of engagement with guns (emotional and moral attachment to guns);
(e) association between firearms and personal values; (f) mindset towards firearm and other public health policies;
(g) level of inclusion in or alienation from the gun control movement; and (h) level of civic engagement with gun
violence prevention.
The National Lawful Use of Guns Follow-Up Survey was conducted in 2020 and sampled the same 2,086
gun owners who responded to the baseline survey. This survey tested several communication messages intended to
try to increase the willingness of gun owners to participate in gun violence prevention activities.
description: The purpose of this study is to better understand the opinions, beliefs, and practices of gun owners throughout the United States. In particular, to understand the types of guns commonly used by law-abiding gun owners and the benefits that gun ownership provides.
description: For selection of general population samples from KnowledgePanel, a patented methodology has been developed that ensures all samples behave as EPSEM samples. Briefly, this methodology starts by weighting the pool of active members to the geodemographic benchmarks secured from the latest March supplement of the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) along several dimensions. Using the resulting weights as measures of size, a probability-proportional-to-size (PPS) procedure is used to select study specific samples. It is the application of this PPS methodology with the imposed size measures that produces fully self-weighing samples from KnowledgePanel, for which each sample member can carry a design weight of unity. Moreover, in instances where a study design requires any form of oversampling of certain subgroups, such departures from an EPSEM design are accounted for by adjusting the design weights in reference to the CPS benchmarks for the population of interest.
The geodemographic benchmarks used to weight the active panel members for computation of size measures include:
Gender (Male/Female)
Age (18-29, 30-44, 45-59, and 60+)
Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
Education (Less than High School, High School, Some College, Bachelor and beyond)
Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West)
Household income (under $10k, $10K to $25k, $25K to $50k, $50K to $75k, $75K to $100k, $100K to $150k, and $150K+)
Home ownership status (Own, Rent/Other)
Metropolitan Area (Yes, No)
Study-Specific Post-Stratification Weights
Once all survey data have been collected and processed, design weights are adjusted to account for any differential nonresponse that may have occurred. Depending on the specific target population for a given study, geodemographic distributions for the corresponding population are obtained from the CPS, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), or in certain instances from the weighted KnowledgePanel profile data. For this purpose an iterative proportional fitting (raking) procedure is used to produce the final weights. In the final step, calculated weights are examined to identify and, if necessary, trim outliers at the extreme upper and lower tails of the weight distribution. The resulting weights are then scaled to aggregate to the total sample size of all eligible respondents.
For the follow-up study, respondents were weighted to represent 18+ gun owners on the same list of weighting variables and categories from Baseline:
Gender (Male, Female) by Age (18-39, 40-49, ,50-59, 60-69, 70+)
Race-ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic)
Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West) by Metropolitan Status (Metro, Non-Metro)
Education (Less than High School, High School/Some College, Bachelor or higher)
Household Income (under $25K, $25-$49,999, $50K-$74,999, $75K-$99,999, $100K-$149,999, $150K and over)
description: Response Rates: A random sample of 3,698 KP members who
reported owning a gun upon recruitment to KP were sent an email inviting them to participate in the survey. Of these, 2,321 (62.8%) responded by clicking on
the link to go the screener page, which contained a consent form explaining the
study. Of the 2,321 who were screened, 2,086 (89.9%) completed the survey.
Thus, the overall completion rate was 62.8% x 89.9%, or 56.5%.A total of 1,550 respondents completed the follow-up survey, for a follow-up response rate of 74.3%.
description: <b>Baseline Survey</b>
A nationally representative internet-based survey of 2,086 gun owners was conducted using the Ipsos KnowledgePanel
(KP), which is the largest national internet panel whose members were selected
using representative sampling techniques. The panel consisted of 55,000 adult
participants who agreed to take weekly internet-based surveys. Sociodemographic was previously
collected, including gun ownership, NRA support, political ideology and
participation, health behaviors, and media use patterns. There are about 14,000
gun owners in the KP panel of which just over 2,000 were randomly sampled.
The panel was recruited using address-based probability sampling. KP uses the
Delivery Sequence File of the United States Postal Service, which contains
every delivery address in the United States, to recruit its sample. Thus, all
households are eligible for recruitment regardless of their phone status.
Households without computers or internet access are provided with both during
their participation in KP. The sampling methodology uses stratification to
ensure that Hispanic and other hard-to-reach minority groups are oversampled
into the panel. KP panel members are typically offered one survey per week to
complete and receive nominal cash incentives for completing surveys. All panel
participants were anonymous to the investigators and consent was given through a
disclosure screen at the front of the internet-based survey. To enhance survey
participation, a $10 incentive was offered to those who completed the baseline
survey. The research was judged to be exempt from review by the Institutional
Review Board at the Boston University Medical Center because the investigators
collected no data with personal identifying information, other than a link
which is maintained confidentially and securely by Ipsos.
<b>Follow-up Survey</b>

For the follow-up survey, attempts were made to re-contact all 2,086 respondents to the
baseline survey. They were sent an email inviting them to take part in the
follow-up survey.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: National Lawful Use of Guns Survey (NLUGS), [United States], 2020
description: All gun owners (N=2,086) who were surveyed at baseline in the 2019 National Lawful Use of Guns Survey (NLUGS). Smallest Geographic Unit: State
description: web-based surveyThis collection is related to the National Lawful Use of Guns Survey (NLUGS), [United States], 2019, ICPSR 37834. For similar study information and characteristics, please refer to both studies.