Who Are Gun Owners in the United States? A Latent Class Analysis of the 2019 National Lawful Use of Guns Survey

Abstract

We used data from the 2019 National Lawful Use of Guns Survey to segment the gun-owning population into different subcultural categories. Performing a latent class analysis, we introduce six types of indicators: (1) the types of firearm owned, (2) the reported primary reason for owning a firearm, (3) involvement in various gun-related activities, (4) Second Amendment activism, (5) the extent to which those in one’s social network own guns, and (6) measures of symbolic meanings attached to firearms. We introduce gender, race, U.S. region, and political affiliation as covariates. We find six classes of gun owners. The largest group (28 percent) is composed of family protectors who go to the shooting range and feel empowered by their guns. The second largest category (19 percent) is made up of incidental gun owners motivated by protection or family tradition. The third group (18 percent) consists of Second Amendment activists who engage in multiple gun-related activities and are resistant to social change. The fourth category (13 percent) contains target shooters. The fifth group (12 percent) is made up of hunters. The sixth category (11 percent), self-protectors, has a majority of women (51 percent). Our findings add to a very recent body of literature on variations in the meanings that guns have for people. In particular, we demonstrate that there are stark cultural differences between gun owners and that the body of existing research on this topic has mostly focused on the Second Amendment activists, who only represent about 18 percent of all gun owners.

Patterns in pro‐gun beliefs and weapon carrying behaviors in rural White adolescent

“…The results demonstrated that pro‐gun beliefs, peer risk factors, and weapon carrying could be utilized to group individuals into unique classes in a large sample of middle and high school students from rural Pennsylvanian schools. These results support findings that suggest that adolescent weapon carrying, peer risk factors, and pro‐gun beliefs are heterogenous but can be grouped into unique patterns as suggested by previous research (Boine et al, 2021; Ellyson et al, 2022). Multinomial logistic analyses also identified factors that increased or decreased the odds of class membership.…”

“…Consequently, several gun researchers have utilized probability‐based analyses to identify subgroups of gun usage based on more individual‐level traits. For instance, Boine et al (2021), identified gun culture subgroups using a mixture of psychological and behavioral traits (i.e., gun type, motivation for owning a gun, activities, social network, meaning of guns, and other gun‐related behavior; Boine et al, 2021). Their analysis produced six subgroups (i.e., family protectors, incidental gun owners, second amendment activists, target shooters, hunters, and self‐protectors) in which participants in each subgroup clustered around central gun beliefs and behaviors as well as race and gender (Boine et al, 2021).…”

“…For instance, Boine et al (2021), identified gun culture subgroups using a mixture of psychological and behavioral traits (i.e., gun type, motivation for owning a gun, activities, social network, meaning of guns, and other gun‐related behavior; Boine et al, 2021). Their analysis produced six subgroups (i.e., family protectors, incidental gun owners, second amendment activists, target shooters, hunters, and self‐protectors) in which participants in each subgroup clustered around central gun beliefs and behaviors as well as race and gender (Boine et al, 2021). Given the normalization of gun use in rural areas, continued exploration of variations within gun culture is necessitated to accurately identify high‐risk subgroups.…”

Voluntary, temporary, out‐of‐home firearm storage: A qualitative study of stakeholder views

“…Firearm owners are diverse in multiple ways, including their reasons for ownership, engagement in Second Amendment activism, frequency of firearm handling, and connection to the social aspects of "gun culture" (Boine et al, 2020(Boine et al, , 2021Schleimer et al, 2020). Firearm storage practices and views on voluntary, temporary out-of-home storage vary across groups of firearm owners (Bryan et al, 2020;Salhi et al, 2021).…”

More than the Second Amendment: Liberal gun owners, citizenship, and emancipatory democracy in the United States

“…7 See Boine et al (2022), Blithe and Lanterman (2022), Carlson (2015Carlson ( , 2020, Joslyn (2020), Mencken and Froese (2019), and Yamane (2017). 8 See, for example, Bunn (2022), Peyser (2020), Raskin (2023), Sanchez (2023), and Tavernise (2021).…”