Getting Past the "Duck Dynasty" Stereotype of Gun Owners

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

The New York Times recently published a super multimedia article about new, nontraditional gun owners called “The Tipping Point” (16 February 2025). Subtitle: “America’s newest gun owners are upending preconceptions about who buys and gun and why.”

I read it with interest and was later told by someone at the Times that the piece took two years to put together. Bravo for real journalism.

In an otherwise fascinating and well-reported story on the changing face of gun owners in America today, the authors include a significant misstatement. They write, “a majority of gun owners are white, conservative, male and from rural areas.”

This “Duck Dynasty” stereotype of gun owners is one I have challenged for years now, from my 2019 presentation on Gun Culture 2.0 to my recent opinion essay in The Hill on the unrecognized diversity of gun owners.

To build a better gun debate, we need to ground our arguments in the diverse reality of contemporary gun ownership, rather than perpetuating divisive mythologies.

Are politically conservative white men from rural areas overrepresented among gun owners relative to their portion of the population? Bullseye!

Are they “a majority of gun owners”? Not by a long shot.

I delved into this issue recently using publicly accessible data from the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (Wave 129 from June 5-June 11, 2023).

I created a variable called “Duck Dynasty Stereotype” by combining those who identified as white + male + politically conservative + rural. They were coded as “1.” All others were coded as “0.” I cross-tabulated the Duck Dynasty Stereotype variable with respondents’ answers to the question: “Do you own a gun?” The result can be seen below.

Of those fitting the Duck Dynasty Stereotype, 75.6% said they owned a gun. Notably, 5.9% refused to answer the gun question. For reasons I discuss elsewhere, we have good reason to believe that many of these refusers are actually gun owners. So it is likely that 80% or more Duck Dynasty Stereotype respondents own guns. This is about 2.5 times the rate of gun ownership of the non-Duck Dynasty Stereotype respondents (30.4%, with 2.1% refusals).

Those who fit the Duck Dynasty Stereotype definitely like their guns. But what proportion of all gun owners fit that stereotype? Is it true, as many believe and as the Times wrote, that “a majority of gun owners are white, conservative, male and from rural areas”?

The table below shows the answer to be an emphatic “no.” Only 12.2% of all gun owners fit the Duck Dynasty Stereotype. Even allowing for the refusals, this accounts for well below 1 in 5 gun owners.

The authors could have accurately written, “a majority of gun owners are white, conservative, male, OR from rural areas.” But that “or” (rather than “and”) significantly dilutes the counterpoint to trans gun owners being highlighted in the article.

Alternatively, the authors could have accurately written, “the statistically average gun owner is a white, conservative male from a rural area.” (I.e., a multivariate statistical model using those variables to predict gun ownership would likely find them each to be statistically significant predictors.) Unfortunately, such statistical averages often conceal more than they reveal. Consider the fact that the average American has one testicle and one ovary.

Indeed, the greatest strength of the New York Times story was the fact that it highlights the problem with just looking at the “average” gun owner.

This is not simply a matter of damned lies and statistics, either. There are different legitimate ways to slice the data pie. Hopefully by showing these different ways of seeing the Duck Dynasty Stereotype in relation to gun ownership, I have used the Times misstatement to shed light on the issue, rather than merely stoking the rampant fire directed toward “the media.”