by David Yamane | May 28, 2020 | Data, gun ownership, Guns, US Census Bureau
Although I’ve addressed U.S. gun ownership levels previously, I realize that I have done so by looking at percentages of individuals and households rather than numbers. Given changing population sizes (the all important denominator), percentages are usually the...
by David Yamane | Apr 29, 2020 | Data, Gun Culture, gun ownership, Matthew Lacombe, National Rifle Association
The political power of the National Rifle Association (NRA) is both frustrating to and badly misunderstood by many of its critics (as I highlighted recently in response to PBS Frontline’s program on the NRA). According to Barnard College political scientist...
by David Yamane | Apr 28, 2020 | Data, Gun Culture, gun ownership, identity, Matthew Lacombe, Pew Research Center
Whenever someone asks me, “Are you a golfer?” I offer a canned response: “No, but I play golf.” I resist the label golfer. To embrace it seems to heighten expectations in an uncomfortable way. The same can be said of the label gun owner. Do I own guns? Yes. Is being a...
by David Yamane | Apr 20, 2020 | coronavirus, Data, gun sales, Guns, National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), sociology, Trent Steidley
In his third and final guest post in this series (see his first and second), Trent Steidley takes up the claim that the COVID-19 gun purchasing spree of March 2020 was driven by handgun purchases (a claim I made myself, which helped begin this dialogue). Was March...
by David Yamane | Apr 19, 2020 | coronavirus, Data, gun sales, Guns, National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), sociology, Trent Steidley
In his guest post yesterday, Trent Steidley challenged the simplistic use of data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) as a measure of “gun sales.” Today he critically engages the second of three common narratives emerging from...
by David Yamane | Apr 18, 2020 | coronavirus, Data, gun sales, Guns, sociology, Trent Steidley
My recent posts about the great COVID19 gun buying spree of March 2020 (especially handguns) elicited some helpful clarifying and corrective tweets from my colleague Trent Steidley (bio below). I don’t know any sociologist as familiar or adept with National Instant...
