Rolling Stone and the anti-gun website The Trace are out with a new story that takes aim at concealed carry, selectively quoting from a seven-year-old report by the National Shooting Sports Foundation to present a false narrative that the firearms industry is "selling fear, even to its own customers", as liberal California senator Alex Padilla told the outlets.
Much of the story focuses on a 2018 report from NSSF titled "Multi-Generational Research: Purchases, Perceptions, and Participation for the Firearms Industry". Though the report itself is 52 pages long, Spies zeroed in on a particular couple of paragraphs:
That market-research report, produced in 2018 and titled "Multi-Generational Research: Purchases, Perceptions, and Participation for the Firearms Industry," was based on a survey of 1,800 people, spanning four generations, from baby boomers to Gen Z, and asked a wide range of questions covering a variety of gun-related topics. The researchers concluded that "more Americans feel less safe when it comes to people legally carrying concealed guns in public." The finding applied to non-gun owners and gun owners alike, as well as to both ends of the political spectrum. "While millennials, liberals, and non-owners are more adamant about feeling less safe," the study continued, "a majority of gun owners and conservatives also don't feel safe when it comes to concealed carry."
Spies quoted the report accurately, but the data itself tells a different story. I've looked at the report myself, and here's what it found:
A total of 45% of those surveyed said people legally carrying guns makes them feel less safe, which means 55% (a majority) said that people legally carrying guns either makes them feel safer (28%) or has no impact on their feelings of safety (27%). So, the original authors of this report erred in how they reported the survey results, at least in one portion of the report. Elsewhere, the authors wrote that "a majority of gun owners and conservatives don't feel safer", which is a more accurate summation of the survey results (and another bit of the report that Spies was sure to include in his story).
The only generation with a majority of respondents feeling less safe by people legally carrying guns was the Millennial generation, with 56% of those surveyed saying the practice makes them feel less safe. Among political ideologies, "liberal" was the only one where a majority (66%) felt less safe. While just 28% of gun owners said lawful carry makes them feel less safe, 57% of non-gun owners said the same.
As Spies notes, the survey asked a number of gun-related questions, though for some reason he didn't mention those with results that didn't bode well for the gun control lobby. A majority of respondents (54%), for example, agreed that Americans should have the right to keep and bear arms, while just 25% said private ownership of firearms should be illegal. Similarly, 74% of respondents said Second Amendment rights are important to them personally; including 58% of liberals and 65% of non-gun owners.
Majorities in every generation also supported owning a gun for personal protection, from a low of 73% support among Millennials to a high of 83% among Gen Z. In fact, there was majority support among every generation for hunting with a gun, sport shooting, and collecting as well.
Spies used this report as a way to attack the push for right to carry reciprocity in Congress, concealed carry in general, and the firearms industry as a whole.
In 2018, the NSSF produced a report titled "Concealed Carry Market," a study based on more than 4,500 survey respondents and drawn from lists generated by gun-rights groups. The report overtly ties concealed carry to profit. "The more frequently someone carries a handgun the more they tend to spend on carry handguns, ammunition and accessories," the study reads. It goes on to stipulate the relationship is correlational, but specifies, "This trend is very strong and held across all categories and for both men and women."
The report also noted the "explosive growth" in permit holders, which, it pointed out, "does not include individuals in states that do not require a permit." The report added: "As conceal carry laws continue to ease across the country, it is anticipated that the number of permit holders will continue to increase. As the ranks increase so will the need for carry-friendly handguns, ammunition and carry equipment and accessories."
The National Shooting Sports Foundation doesn't make any secret about being the trade group for the firearms industry, so it shouldn't be shocking that the organization's reports may discuss how gun laws will impact the industry, for better or worse. Is it really shocking that one of their reports would note that an increase in concealed carry permit holders would also likely lead to an increase in demand for firearms and accessories that are useful for folks exercising their right to bear arms? That seems like a common sense conclusion, but one that's also worth pointing out to businesses catering to gun owners.
It's also worth noting that a lot has changed since these reports were released to NSSF members seven years ago; 17 states have adopted permitless carry, for instance, and Republicans haven't suffered the loss of a single legislative chamber as a result. We also had the huge spike in guns sales and gun ownership in 2020, which undoubtably involved some Americans changing their mind about their opposition to the Second Amendment and feeling less safe with people carrying a gun.
Note too that this survey asked people how concealed carry makes them feel. Even if the practice gave a majority of Americans a major case of the icks (which, again, is not the case), just look at what's happening with crime rates at the moment. In city after city shootings and homicides are down by double digits, and we are on pace for the biggest one-year-decline in murder rates in the country's history... for the third year in a row. That's after "may issue" carry laws were struck down and it became easier for folks in places like Maryland, California, and Hawaii to lawfully cary. There's been at least a fourfold increase in the number of licensed carry holders in Maryland since 2022, and Baltimore's on pace for the lowest number of homicides going back to at least 1965.
I don't know that a report from 2018 can tell us much about attitudes towards gun ownership or concealed carry today... but it can still reveal volumes about the desperation of the gun control lobby and their allies in the press to spin false narratives around gun owners, the firearms industry, and our right to keep and bear arms.
Editor’s Note: The Trace regularly finds partners in the mainstream media to help them promote their gun control agenda, which is a luxury pro-2A media outlets will never get.
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