Gun ownership

Gun ownership is the act of owning a gun. It can be estimated in multiple ways, including surveys, administrative data pertaining to specific populations or events, and through the use of proxies.

The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership of any country of the world, with an estimated 88.8 guns per 100 people as of 2007, according to the Small Arms Survey.Serbia has the second highest rate, with 75.6 guns per 100 people. Yemen is in third, with 54.8 per 100 people.

In the United States, estimates of the number of privately owned guns vary from 270,000,000 to 310,000,000 as of 2013. A 2002 survey estimated that 32% of all U.S. households own at least one gun. The gun ownership rate was highest in Wyoming, at 62.8%. More recently, a 2015 study found that about one-third of Americans owned a gun, and that this figure was highest in Alaska (61.7%) and lowest in Delaware (5.2%).

A 2016 survey found that nearly half of privately owned guns in the United States are owned by 3% of the population. The same survey reported an estimate of 265,000,000 privately owned guns in the United States, which is slightly more than the number of adults living in the US (242,000,000). Since 1976, the percent of Democrats who own a gun has declined from 45% to 27% in 2000. In contrast, the percent of Republicans who own a gun has remained almost constant from 1976-2012.

Gun ownership (also sometimes called "gun availability" or "gun prevalence") has been measured via numerous proxies, including the % of suicides committed with firearms, the % of homicides committed with firearms, the "Cook index" (the average of the % of homicides committed with firearms and the % of suicides committed with firearms), and the number of officially issued firearm licenses. The % of suicides committed with firearms (often abbreviated "FS/S" for "firearm suicides/overall suicides") correlates most strongly with survey estimates of gun ownership. Accordingly, it is considered the best proxy for examining the relationship between gun ownership and crime across multiple U.S. states or large counties.

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