A recent Rasmussen survey revealed what gun dealers and manufacturers already knew, and anti-gunners didn’t like hearing: Despite a downturn in gun sales, Americans are still buying guns, and for the past five years those purchases have surpassed one million per month.
This is happening despite efforts in several states to make buying guns increasingly difficult.
According to Rasmussen, 19 percent of American adults say they, or someone in their household, bought a gun in the past year. Sixty-four percent (64%) of all American Adults say the main reason most people purchase a gun is for self-defense, the veteran polling firm revealed, which says a lot about the public confidence in the ability of law enforcement to respond quickly to violent crime.
Headline news such as the reported raid on an underground nightclub in Colorado Springs, during which more than 100 people were arrested—allegedly many of them illegal aliens—and police recovered drugs and guns, might alarm more people enough to buy a firearm.
Rasmussen’s polling data on gun ownership might raise some eyebrows, especially the notation that 45 percent of American adults think it is too easy to buy a gun. Perhaps none of them have actually tried to buy a gun lately, and considering that in states such as Oregon and Washington, where Democrat lawmakers are or already have pushed through new gun controls, gun sales in those jurisdictions might spike upwards again.
Likewise, in Colorado, where Gov. Jared Polis recently signed a gun control law which, even CBS News admitted in a headline, is “one of the most restrictive gun laws in the country.”
The Rasmussen survey contacted 1,185 adults between April 7 and 9 and the poll has a +/- 3 percentage point margin of error with a 95 percent level of confidence.
Political persuasion plays into Rasmussen’s findings. Republicans (71%) are far more likely than Democrats (60%) to believe self-defense is the primary reason for owning a gun. Among Independents, 61 percent think personal protection is the main reason. Likewise, according to Rasmussen, Republicans are more likely to say they or someone in their household bought a gun within the last year.
On the flip side, Democrats are much more likely to think it is too easy to buy a gun, Rasmussen noted.
And here’s an alarming—albeit maybe not surprising—revelation in the Rasmussen survey: “A majority (54%) of government employees believe it’s too easy to buy a gun nowadays, compared to 45% of private sector workers and 40% of retirees.”
Earlier this year, the pro-gun-control publication The Trace updated a report originally posted in 2023 in which it was estimated that since 1899, “more than 512 million firearms have been produced for the U.S. market.”
The difficulty of buying firearms is becoming far more obvious in Democrat-controlled states, which accounts for the recent AmmoLand News report about the petition to Attorney General Pam Bondi to direct the focus of her newly-created Second Amendment Task Force on 12 states which have come to be known as “the Dirty Dozen.”
States requiring a permit-to-purchase, which involves training and testing, are drawing considerable gun owner wrath, as many Second Amendment activists have been quick to note on social media that when a citizen is required to get a permit to exercise a right, that right has become a government-regulated privilege. It is against such legislation the firearms community is hoping to see the Department of Justice take legal action.
This may become even more acute now that the Supreme Court has denied certiorari in the B&L Gun Show case in California (B&L Productions v. Newsom). This case challenged the ability of the state to ban gun shows on state land. As explained in the petition for certiorari, “California enacted a trio of laws banning “sales” of firearms and ammunition on any state-owned property. The purpose and effect of these laws is to ban gun shows—and the speech that takes place at those events— at the fairgrounds operated by California’s District Agricultural Associations and at other public forums.”
As noted by one individual involved in the case, “The tragedy here, is what judge is going to stick their neck out now and uphold Bruen, if SCOTUS doesn’t have their back.”
Perhaps it is because the high court has shown a reluctance to take another Second Amendment case that Bondi and the 2A Task Force has arrived at an important moment. If the court declines to review gun rights cases, it isn’t just kicking the can down the road, it is refusing to get its foot anywhere near the can.
However, if the DOJ Task Force brings legal action, rather than an entity such as the Second Amendment Foundation, California Rifle & Pistol Association, National Rifle Association or some other pro-rights organization, it may be difficult, if not impossible, for the court not to act.
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About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
They’re like pringles, once you pop you just cant stop
Dems believe the lies they are told by the Ministry of Propaganda, thus the disparity in poll numbers.