Nearly 20% of Americans said they bought a gun in the past year, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll.
In the latest Rasmussen Reports survey, 19% of American adults said they or someone in their immediate family has bought a gun in the past year; 73% said they have not purchased a gun in the past year, and 8% saying they weren’t sure.
The findings were similar to those in the April 2024 survey.
Rasmussen also asked participants whether it’s “too easy or too hard to buy a gun in the U.S. today? Or is the level of difficulty about right?”
A share of 45% said it’s too easy, down from 49% from April 2024; 13% said it’s too hard, 33% said the difficulty is about right, and 19% said they were not sure.
Asked about the main reason most people purchase a gun, 64% said for self-defense, 8% said to commit a criminal act, 4% said for job purposes, 17% said for some other reason, and 8% said they were not sure.
Republicans (71%) were more likely than Democrats (60%) or those not affiliated with either major party (61%) to say self-defense is the main reason most people buy guns.
GOP supporters (24%) were more likely than Democrats (16%) to say they or someone in their immediate family has bought a gun in the past year.
Democrats (64%) were much more likely than Republicans (28%) to say it’s too easy to buy a gun. GOP members (43%) were more likely than Democrats (23%) to say the level of difficulty in buying a gun is about right.
Americans have been buying firearms at the rate of more than 1 million a month during the past five years, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The group’s study of consumers that purchased their first firearm during 2021-24 showed that 70.5% were women.
The Rasmussen survey found that more men (21%) than women (16%) said they or someone in their immediate family has bought a gun in the past year, while women (47%) were more likely than men (42%) to say it’s too easy to buy a gun.
The Rasmussen Reports survey was conducted April 7-9 among 1,185 American adults. It has a margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
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