Is owning a firearma political stance?
Firearm ownership is one of the most argued-over subjects in American life. Many people view it as a constitutional right; others see it as a threat to public safety. Somewhere in that argument, owning a firearm picked up a political label — along with an assumption that gun owners all sit on one side of it. The picture is less tidy than that.
National Safety Center · · Updated
Most owners are answering a personal question
Owning a firearm is not necessarily a political statement. Some people do own for political reasons — a belief in the Second Amendment, or a wish to be able to protect themselves from government overreach. Plenty of others are not making that argument at all.
A firearm may be for hunting, or for sport shooting, or for protecting a household against a threat the owner believes is real. In those cases the decision is a personal one, and it is usually worth taking at face value rather than reading a politics into it.
Gun owners do not belong to one party
Firearm ownership is not limited to Republicans. It is true that Republicans are generally more supportive of gun rights than Democrats, but there are gun owners across the political spectrum. In a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults, one in five Democrats and Democratic leaners said they personally own a gun, against a little under half of Republicans and Republican leaners.
- 20%
- of Democrats and Democratic leaners personally own a gun
- 45%
- of Republicans and Republican leaners personally own a gun
Pew Research Center, survey of U.S. adults conducted June 5–11, 2023.
Ownership varies by more than party. The same survey put personal ownership at 38% among white adults, 24% among Black adults and 20% among Hispanic adults, and at 40% of men against 25% of women. Party is one line running through this. It is not the only one, and for any individual owner it is rarely the one that explains the decision.
The argument does not split cleanly either
It is worth noting that the gun ownership debate is not purely partisan. There are gun owners who support increased gun control measures, and there are people who own nothing at all and support gun rights. Organizations such as the Pink Pistols advocate for the right of the LGBTQ+ community to own firearms for self-defense.
The issue is not black and white. Recognizing the diversity of opinion and experience inside the conversation is most of what separates a useful discussion from a shouting match.
What changed after 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic touched a great many parts of American life, and firearm ownership was one of them. It may still be early to judge the full extent of that, but a few trends emerged clearly enough to name.
- 21mBackground checks in 2020
- Background checks tied to the sale of a firearm reached an all-time high that year: 21 million, a 60% increase over 2019, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. As people grew uncertain about the future and about the possibility of civil unrest, many turned to firearms for personal protection.
- 8.4mFirst-time buyers
- The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates that 40% of those sales went to first-time buyers — 8.4 million new gun owners in a single year, many of them people who had previously had little or no interest in firearms and who now felt the need for personal protection.
- 56%The sharpest increase
- Gun ownership has historically been more common among older, white, conservative men. That widened in 2020: firearm retailers surveyed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation reported purchases by African American customers up 56% on 2019, the largest increase of any group they recorded.
Where that leaves the conversation
Those trends point to a changing landscape, but they do not settle the question. Gun ownership remains a controversial issue in the United States, and the reasons people own are varied and complex. They are not always about personal protection or self-defense: for some it is a hobby or a sport, and for others it genuinely is a symbol of patriotism or a statement of political belief.
The bottom line is that owning a firearm is not necessarily a political statement, and it is not limited to Republicans. Some people do own for political reasons; many simply own for personal ones. What is worth holding onto is the range of opinion and experience inside the debate, and the value of conversations that look for common ground and for responsible gun ownership.
That is truer after 2020 than it was before. The surge in sales, the arrival of first-time buyers and the shift in who owns firearms have all widened the group of people involved. It remains a complex issue, and one likely to be debated in this country for a long time yet.
Our own position on it is deliberately narrow. Whoever owns a firearm should know how to handle it safely, and should have been taught properly by someone who does this for a living. That is the whole of it, and it is the same class whoever walks through the door.
A note on Florida law
This article was written in the spring of 2023. Florida law changed shortly afterwards: since July 1, 2023, a permit is no longer required to carry a concealed firearm in Florida for people who are legally able to possess one.
A Florida Concealed Weapon License is still worth holding. It is what other states recognize when you travel, and it carries other conveniences at home. It is simply no longer the thing that makes concealed carry lawful here.
Requirements do change. Confirm the current rules with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which issues the license, before you rely on anything written here.