56% of men who don’t own a gun say they could see themselves owning one someday; 40% of women nonowners say the same.

56% of Black nonowners say they could see themselves owning a gun one day...

The public remains closely divided over whether it’s more important to protect gun rights or control gun ownership, according to an April 2024 survey. Overall, 51% of U.S. adults say it’s more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns, while a similar share (48%) say controlling gun ownership is more important.

Around half of Americans (52%) say gun ownership does more to increase safety by allowing law-abiding citizens to protect themselves, while a slightly smaller share (47%) say gun ownership does more to reduce safety by giving too many people access to firearms and increasing misuse. Views were evenly divided (49% vs. 49%) when we last asked in 2023.

Consistent with other recent survey research, the survey finds an overall rate of adult firearm ownership of 31.9%, suggesting that in excess of 81.4 million Americans aged 18 and over own firearms. The survey further finds that approximately a third of gun owners (31.1%) have used a firearm to defend themselves or their property, often on more than one occasion, and it estimates that guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 1.67 million incidents per year. Handguns are the most common firearm employed for self-defense (used in 65.9% of defensive incidents), and in most defensive incidents (81.9%) no shot was fired. Approximately a quarter (25.2%) of defensive incidents occurred within the gun owner's home, and approximately half (53.9%) occurred outside their home, but on their property. About one out of ten (9.1%) defensive gun uses occurred in public, and about one out of thirty (3.2%) occurred at work.

A majority of gun owners (56.2%) indicate that they carry a handgun for self-defense in at least some circumstances, and about 35% of gun owners report carrying a handgun with some frequency. We estimate that approximately 20.7 million gun owners (26.3%) carry a handgun in public under a ``concealed carry'' regime; and 34.9% of gun owners report that there have been instances in which they had wanted to carry a handgun for self-defense, but local rules did not allow them to carry.

The average gun owner owns about 5 firearms, and handguns are the most common type of firearm owned. 48.0% of gun owners -- about 39 million individuals -- have owned magazines that hold over 10 rounds (up to 542 million such magazines in total), and 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). Demographically, gun owners are diverse. 42.2% are female and 57.8% are male. Approximately 25.4% of Blacks own firearms, 28.3% of Hispanics own firearms, 19.4% of Asians own firearms, and 34.3% of Whites own firearms. In total, Americans own over 415 million firearms, consisting of approximately 171 million handguns, 146 million rifles, and 98 million shotguns.