I have written previously about how survey research underestimates the rate of gun ownership in the United States.
The main sources of “false negatives” (people who own guns but tell survey researchers they do not) are (1) people who don’t want outsiders to know they have guns, (2) people who want to avoid the stigma of gun ownership, (3) people who cannot legally own firearms but do anyway, and (4) people who happen to have guns in their household but don’t really think about them as guns.
A recently published article by scholars associated with the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and the University of Southern Mississippi reinforces this idea: “Predicting Potential Underreporting of Firearms Ownership in a Nationally Representative Sample.”
So, rather than saying 1/3 of Americans personally own guns, I will continue to say that “AT LEAST one-third own guns” or, even better, “probably 40% own guns.” We can never know for sure, but those are certainly statements I would stand behind.
Gun Culture 2.0 
re: “The presence of a firearm in the home increases risk for multiple forms of firearm injury and death. Specifically, having a firearm in or around a home is associated with increased risk for suicide [6], and that risk increases when the firearm is stored unsafely (e.g., unloaded, unlocked). In addition, firearm access is related to increased injury severity during domestic violence incidents [7] increased risk of homicide [8], and unintentional shootings [8].” this paragraph tells you all that you need to know about why gun owners may deny owning a firearm.
If the mere presence increased the risk we would have much higher numbers of deaths and to their minds the only safe storage is locked thus precluding the possibility of using it for self defense. Sorry I would not trust any of their conclusions.
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“… is associated with ….” Correlation is not causation — except when looking for excuses for gun control, that is.
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[…] who have followed this blog for some time will recall that I have long held that gun owner surveys underestimate the actual level of gun ownership in the U.S. And no survey seems to underestimate gun ownership more than the […]
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