Why Do I Own a Gun? Which One? I Own 12
The Scale Creates the Phenomenon
I can’t remember which of my two mentors in the sociology of religion — Robert Bellah or Richard Schoenherr — taught me the phrase, “The scale creates the phenomenon.” But the idea has stayed with me for decades since I studied with them.
What I take from the phrase is that the social scientific methods we use to gather data don’t just reveal an objective world “out there.” Those methods play a role in constructing the object of our inquiry.
Although some take this observation in a radically relativist direction, I use it as a reminder to exercise humility in interpreting data on human attitudes and behaviors.
Case in point: Studies of the reasons for gun ownership in the United States today.
I recently wrote here about the concept of Gun Culture 2.0 as being a two-edged sword: insightful but also limited.
I see this especially in surveys that ask respondents to give their motivation for gun ownership. Responses to questions like this are useful because they highlight shifts in the reasons for gun ownership from recreation (Gun Culture 1.0) to self-defense (Gun Culture 2.0).
A recent example comes from the University of Michigan’s National Firearms Attitudes and Behaviors Study, fielded by Gallup in 2023. It asked “What is your most important reason for owning handgun(s) such as a pistol or revolver?” and “What is the most important reason for owning a long gun(s), such as a rifle or shotgun?” Results published in Injury Prevention show that 78.8% of gun owners owned a firearm for protection (see graphic above). Among black and Asian women, that proportion increased to 98.8%.
At the same time, the scale creates the phenomenon. A different scale reveals more nuanced results.
The Pew Research Center, for example, tries to get at both the center of gravity and the diversity of motivations for gun ownership by asking respondents whether a particular motivation is a major reason, minor reason, or not a reason for gun ownership.
They find, as expected, that protection is the most common major reason (72% of respondents), and not a reason for only 9% of respondents. But the Pew question also allows us to see that both sport shooting and hunting are a major or minor reason for gun ownership for over half of respondents (59% sport shooting and 52% hunting).
This makes sense because when people ask me, “Why do you own a gun?” my honest response is, “Which one? I own 12.”
Another recent example of the benefits of using more nuanced scales to create the phenomenon of gun ownership motivations comes from the 2023 National Survey of Gun Policy, fielded by the National Opinion Research Center for the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
This survey gave respondents 10 potential reasons for owning guns, organized into 4 categories:
(1) protection at home (i.e., For protection from dangerous people or situations when I am at home), (2) protection out of home (i.e., For protection from dangerous people or situations when I am away from home; For protection at public events, such as sporting events or concerts; or For protection against police violence), (3) protection in ideologic conflict (i.e., For protection during political activities, such as while voting or listening to speeches, For protection at demonstrations, rallies, or protests; For protection against people who do not share my beliefs; or For situations where I think that force or violence is justified to advance an important political objective); and (4) hunting or recreation (i.e., For hunting or For other recreational activities, such as target shooting).
(See also Table 1 above from “Reasons for Gun Ownership Among Demographically Diverse New and Prior Gun Owners.”)
By not forcing respondents to choose one reason over another, we see some interesting results like:
90.6% owning for protection against dangerous people or situations at home
87.1% owning for recreational activities, such as target shooting
73.2% owning for hunting
Again, why do I own a gun? All of the above.
The National Survey of Gun Policy also took the scale a step further down the path of complexity by not forcing respondents to say “yes” or “no” to certain reasons but using a 4-point Likert scale ranging from not important to extremely important.
In the four figures above, from the same American Journal of Preventive Medicine article, we see the demographic breakdown for respondents for the four different categories of gun ownership the authors construct (A: protection at home; B: protection out of home; C: protection in ideologic conflict; D: hunting or recreation). The figures also include all four points on the Likert scale!
These are very complex figures to decipher — which is the point, because so is gun ownership. The bottom line is that many diverse people own guns for many different reasons. The Gun Culture 2.0 reasons shown in Figures 1A and 1B are remarkably similar to the Gun Culture 1.0 reasons shown in Figure 1D.
I don’t have time to discuss the ideological conflict data in Figure 1C — is this Gun Culture 3.0, as Jennifer Carlson has suggested? I will just note an interesting finding in Table 1 (above) when it comes to responses to this prompt:
People have guns for many reasons. These days, how important is each of the following reasons for you? For situations where I think that force or violence is justified to advance an important political objective.
Compared to white respondents, Black and Hispanic respondents were more likely to cite this as a personally important reason to own guns. And compared to those who owned guns prior to January 1, 2020, new gun owners were more likely to cite this as a personally important reason to own guns.
I didn’t have that on my 2025 gun ownership bingo card. Did you?
Well, I recently found another AR at the back of the safe. And I still have some parts left over.
It is always an issue in social science research, be it in your field or my own, psychology. We are measuring what amount to latent variables; if we cannot observe behavior to make inferences, then we are left with finding other ways to measure them. It leads to multiple layers of "science". First, we have the phenomenon of interest, then we have to science of psychometrics, of measurement. Some like to pretend that the measurement issues are bias free. But they are not, so they add an additional level of error.