There has been a drastic surge in the number of Americans becoming first-time gun owners over the past four years according to a press release.
The National Sports Shooting Foundation (NSSF) pointed to data showing a major trend in gun ownership. The number of people who became first-time gun owners since 2020 has reportedly grown to over 22.3 million people, which is equal to the population of Florida.
The impetus behind the rapid increase in first-time gun ownership is attributed to numerous factors, including COVID-era lockdown measures, soft-on-crime prosecutors and skyrocketing violent crime rates, according to the NSSF.
The report highlights Chris Cheng, a competitive shooting champion who testified before Congress about the rise in gun ownership.
The past year-and-a-half or so with COVID-19 has been a pressure cooker … When you couple that with calls to defund the police and taking law enforcement officers off the street … it makes citizens like me less safe, Cheng said during his testimony, according to the report. If I can’t have law enforcement there, then it is a rational conclusion that individual citizens like myself would opt to utilize my Second Amendment right to purchase a firearm and use that firearm in lawful and legal self-defense.
More than 52% of American voters indicated that they or someone in their home owns a firearm, according to an NBC News national poll released in November 2023. Researchers also found that 48% of firearm owners were concerned that the government would not take enough action to restrict access to firearms while 47% worried that the state would go too far in regulating guns.
