9781422273517

Mapping America’s Guns

Although there are as many guns in the United States as there are Americans (or more), the distribution of guns to people is not a one-to-one ratio. Instead, different regions of the nation have higher gun ownership rates, while the types of guns owned also vary from location to location. Gun ownership throughout the United States does peak, however, in rural areas, where half of all Americans living outside of cities say they own guns, compared to just one in five Americans living in urban areas who report owning guns. This imbalance in ownership, furthermore, means that 82 percent of rural Americans say the right to own a gun is essential to their beliefs about freedom, while just 59 percent of urban Americans agree. The Northeast: A Diversity of Ownership and Regulations No part of the nation owns fewer guns per capita than the northeastern states, encompassing the entire Atlantic seaboard north of Washington, D.C. New York State has the fewest registered gun owners of any state, with just 3.3 guns per 1,000 residents, or about 83,000 registered firearms

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