It’s easy to mock House and Senate members for being out of touch with “real America,” but there is one topic that many are remarkably engaged on: guns.
Just shy of 21% of Congress own guns — and that’s just those who have publicly acknowledged packing heat. It’s likely that far more are keeping their gun ownership private, according to a new analysis and survey.
According to the Pew Research Center, 110 members have said they own guns.
In the House, 83 members own guns. Of those, 68 are Republicans, or 83%. In the Senate, 27 have guns, and 17 are Republicans.
That 20.9% ownership isn’t far off the nation’s gun ownership of about 30%, said Pew, especially when also figuring for members who keep their ownership private.
Pew said that as in U.S. gun ownership, most of the House and Senate members who own guns live in rural and suburban areas.
“Confirmed gun owners in Congress tend to represent more rural parts of the country. Just under eight-in-ten confirmed House gun owners (79%) represent ‘pure rural,’ ‘rural-suburban’ or ‘sparse suburban’ districts, as classified by the CityLab Congressional Density Index. The remaining 16% of confirmed gun owners represent ‘dense suburban’ or ‘urban-suburban’ districts. Among the 34 House representatives from ‘pure urban’ districts, there are no confirmed gun owners,” said Pew.
While gun owners are also typically strong supporters of the Second Amendment, Pew found that several voted for the recent gun control legislation. Some 75, all Republicans, voted against the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, but 35 backed it, including 10 Republicans.
And Pew noted that for many lawmakers, gun ownership is a part of their image, especially among Republicans. For example, Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have been in videos featuring guns.
And Sen. Ted Cruz has been filmed doing tricks of sorts with his rifles, maybe the most famous when he cooked bacon on a hot AR-15 barrel.
