Study Looks at Whether Gun Owners are Really 'Packing'

AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell

How many times have you mentioned owning a gun, only to have some anti-gunner make a crack about your penis size?

Obviously, this is even funnier when they say this to a woman, but the gist of the dig is that we're overcompensating for something downstairs.

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Massad Ayoob has always had the best comeback for this, arguing that if that were true, no man would ever carry something like a subcompact firearm. Fantasy author Larry Correia, by contrast, notes that yes, he is compensating...for the fact that his junk won't sling projectiles at hundreds of feet per second.

But these clever quips are amusing, not convincing to those not open to be convinced.

So what about science? 

A recent study looked at the question, which is absolutely hilarious, and what they found isn't going to be good news for some.

A new study published in the American Journal of Men’s Health has debunked the long-held assumption that men dissatisfied with their penis size are more likely to own guns. Contrary to popular belief, the research found that men who are more satisfied with their penis size are actually more likely to own guns.

The relationship between penis size dissatisfaction and gun ownership has been a topic of widespread speculation in popular culture for years. Many believe that men who feel insecure about their penis size may compensate by owning guns, which are often seen as symbols of power and masculinity.

This idea has been discussed in various media outlets and has persisted as a cultural trope. The researchers aimed to test this theory empirically to provide evidence-based insights into the validity of these claims.


“As a social scientist, my primary interest is to understand the role of guns in society. This includes the social causes and social consequences of gun ownership,” said study author Terrence D. Hill, a professor of sociology and demography at The University of Texas at San Antonio.

“There is a lot of speculation in society that men who have trouble with their penises (e.g., erection issues or smaller than desired penises) are more likely to own guns. This raises questions about the causes of gun ownership or which groups in society are more or less likely to own guns.”

In a previous study, the researchers found no relationship between sexual dysfunction and gun ownership among men. The findings were based on data from 780 men who had participated in the 2021 Crime, Health, and Politics Survey. But Hill and his colleagues sought to conduct a more direct test of the connection between penis size and gun ownership.

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Gun owners aren't compensating for sexual organ inadequacies. Anti-gunners repeating tired nonsense hardest hit.

Honestly, I've had people make this crack to me more times than I can count. In fact, it's to the point that most of us mock the suggestion out of hand, simply because it's such a tired line of attack.

Yet the truth of the matter is that many people likely believe that those of us who own guns are actually compensating for something.

The reality is that if we were, a firearm is a terrible substitute simply because there would be no overlap in their uses. I could be built like a male adult film star down below, but it won't help me one bit if someone decides they value my wallet more than my life.

"Oh, I was going to rob you, but you have a large penis, so I'll go about my way," said no robber ever.

"I was going to kill you in this mass shooting, but you're so well endowed, I just can't," said no psychotic mass killer.

And if you are poorly blessed in that region, your partner isn't going to say, "It's OK. At least you carry a 1911. That makes up for everything."

That's not how either situation works.

What most people do is try to make this correlation because they want to shame you into giving up your guns. They want to insult us in an effort to bully us into disarming ourselves and supporting legislation that will disarm other people.

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Unfortunately for them, the science is in, and it looks like when we say we're packing, we mean it in more ways than one.

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