President Obama may think guns are running rampant and outpacing the sale of vegetables, but gun ownership in America has actually plunged back down to its lowest recorded level, according to a recent survey.
The General Social Survey found that just 32 percent of Americans own or live with someone who owns a firearm—the lowest percentage to date, tied with 2010.
In the 1970s and 80s, about 50 percent of Americans kept a gun or lived with someone who did. Now only 22 percent of Americans own a gun, versus 31 percent in 1985. A possible reason for the decline: the percentage of people who hunt for sport has halved since the 1970s.
Most of the decline appears to be coming from men—the percentage of women who own guns is about the same as it was in the 80s, whereas the percentage of male gun owners dipped from 50 percent in 1980 to just 35 percent in 2014.
There are also sharper differences across age groups than there used to be: in the 80s, young people were about as likely as their elders to own a gun. Now, only 14 percent of Americans under 35 own a gun, while 31 percent of those over 65 years of age are gun owners.
And, unsurprisingly, gun ownership varies distinctly by political ideology: the percentage of Republicans who owned a gun was twice as high as Democrats.
