Win With The Facts

Protecting Your Rights
Begins At The GrassRoots Level
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Education begins at home and defending the Second Amendment means educating people about gun-related topics.

We’re talking about telling your friends, neighbors, co-workers and shooting buddies about things they might want to know so they can pass it along. Anti-gunners have gotten a free ride for decades from the establishment media, but you can counter with the facts.
For example, how many of you know about the 2021 National Firearms Survey, conducted by William English at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University? The 46-page updated analysis of guns in America contains some interesting facts in need of dissemination, which usually is most efficient at the ground level.

The abstract is loaded with information, such as:

• Firearms are used defensively by gun owners approximately 1.67 million times annually.

• The overall rate of adult gun ownership in the U.S. is 31.9%.

• Most defensive gun use involves handguns (65.9%).

• The overwhelming majority of defensive gun uses (81.9%) did not involve an actual shot being fired. The mere display of a firearm, as a late friend of mine once observed, “is a great deterrent to violence.”

• Just over one-fourth (25.2%) of defensive gun uses occurred in the home of the gun owner while 53.9% occurred outside of the home but on their property.

• An impressive 56.2% of gun owners acknowledged carrying a sidearm for personal protection “in at least some circumstances.” About 35% of gun owners said they carry a handgun “with some frequency.”

It’s a fascinating report and English has done a good job of publishing the data without a lot of rhetoric. The abstract says English estimated about 20.7 million gun owners — 26.3% — carry concealed handguns. On the downside, an alarming 34.9% of the 16,708 identified gun owners involved in the survey, which included about 54,000 U.S. residents, reported occasions when they had wanted to carry a defensive sidearm but were prevented from doing so by local regulations.

What does this tell you? It is a stark reminder about the value of state preemption statutes, which prohibit “local regulations” from disarming law-abiding citizens. This is a good argument in support of state preemption. Colorado lawmakers repealed preemption in the Centennial State allowing for local officials to adopt their own mishmash of ordinances and it will be telling to see whether any good comes of it. Personally, it doesn’t seem likely.

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More Impressive Data

According to the study abstract, “the average gun owner owns about five firearms.” Nearly half (48%) of gun owners — an estimated 39 million of us — “have owned magazines that hold over 10 rounds” of ammunition, and there may be as many as 542 million so-called “high capacity” magazines in circulation today.

Here’s another tidbit, especially right now while most state legislatures are in session and you can bet someone is considering legislation to ban so-called “assault weapons.” According to the survey, “30.2% of gun owners — about 24.6 million individuals — have owned an AR-15 or similarly styled rifle (up to 44 million such rifles in total).” This would meet the definition of “in common use” if, or when, you may wind up testifying before a legislative committee or writing a message to your local representative.

Lawmakers like facts, and this kind of information helps them make informed decisions so they don’t look foolish during debates.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation provided some interesting data about semiautomatic modern sporting rifles (MSRs) as this column was being written. In 1990, U.S. production of MSRs was a benign 43,000 and another 31,000 semi-autos were imported, for a grand total of 74,000 such firearms.

To be clear, these numbers are Industry estimates based on data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other sources, including the Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Exportation Report (AFMER) and United States International Trade Commission (US ITC).

By 2000, the number of domestically produced MSRs had climbed to 86,000, with another 130,000 being imported, for a total of 216,000 guns. This was during the ban on so-called “assault rifles.”

By 2010, domestic MSR production had skyrocketed to 444,000, surpassing the additional 189,000 that were imported, bringing the total for that year to 584,000.

And in 2020 — the most recent year for which data was available — the MSR had cemented itself as the most popular rifle in America. With a total domestic production of 2,466,000 rifles, plus another 332,000 imports, bringing the total to a staggering 2,798,000 semi-auto MSRs, the overwhelming majority of which will never be involved in a criminal act.

Indeed, according to the annual FBI Uniform Crime Report, rifles of any kind, including modern semi-autos, are involved in only 2% to 4% of all homicides in any given year. Anti-gunners know this, and they carefully avoid bringing it up because it does not fit the narrative they want to push.

Today, according to the estimates, there are somewhere above 24,446,000 modern sporting rifles in private ownership. This is a number any court in the country would consider an affirmation such guns are “in common use.”

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Don’t Let Them Lie

We all know a lie can spread faster than the truth, so we’ve got to be on our toes. The gun prohibition lobby and its allies in Congress, state legislatures, county and city councils and the media are good at spreading disinformation about guns. Unless somebody challenges them, they get away with it.

If you’re one of the people reading this column who sends letters to the editor and/or emails to your elected representative, keep this information handy so you can call them out at a moment’s notice when they make a mistake or just outright engage in a canard. Defense of the Second Amendment is a virtual contact sport and we’ve got to be prepared to nip this stuff in the bud.

Use the information included here to educate your friends and keep them up to date. If you belong to a gun club holding regular meetings, make a few copies of this column and post it on the wall at the range or clubhouse.

As mentioned earlier, state legislatures are in session all over the country, or soon will be. Nobody is asking you to be a “Chief Activist,” just be a citizen willing to share pertinent information from reliable sources.

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