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...more women are heading households without men, another possible contributor to the decline in household gun ownership." Only 12 percent of unmarried women own guns, according to the 2007 study, with an average of 2.5 guns and a median of two. Not that many single women own guns, and the ones that do don't own that many.
This is something that's come up before (PDF): "Since 1980 the household gun prevalence in the United States has trended down, while the prevalence of individual ownership has been close to constant. The explanation for the difference in trends is in the downward trend in the size of households, and in particular the percentage of households that include a man." If a man owns guns and gets divorced, for example, one household becomes two without doubling the number of guns.
The NYT story also buries another good explanation: "The increase of Hispanics as a share of the American population is also probably having an effect, as they are far less likely to own guns...
All put together, these seemingly intractable trends (evidence of increased gun sales, evidence of decreased household gun ownership) make more sense than at first glance. There are still plenty of white men around to buy weapons—but as heads of household and Americans in general, they make up a smaller percentage of the country than they used to. When you see something like "gun ownership is in decline in America," keep in mind how that's measured. The drop might reflect "a waning culture of guns and violence in the United States"—but it also reflects broader changes in American culture that have nothing to do with guns, but change the percentages.
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