Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
HARRISBURG — Richard Reisinger, of New Bloomfield in Perry County, leaned in as David Walker of Savage Guns, a Massachusetts-based firearm company, showed him how to work a new innovation that allows the owner to adjust a gun for right- or left-handed users.
“I have grandchildren; some of them are left-handed, some are right-handed, so now if you purchase a gun, all you have to do is place this on the handle and it accommodates either, so you buy one gun and multiple kids can shoot it,” Mr. Reisinger said, admiring the practicality of the design.
“It is really nice.”
Mr. Reisinger — who was visiting the Savage booth at the Great American Outdoor Show at the Pennsylvania Farm Show complex recently — said he comes from a long line of hunters, a tradition he now enjoys with his grandchildren.
“I do a lot of whitetail hunting at the moment — but with grandchildren, I’ll take them out to hunt pretty much anything that they’re interested in. I love coming to the outdoors show because I get to see, and touch, and feel a lot of different firearms that I might be interested in down the road,” he explained.
Mr. Reisinger — like dozens of other people interviewed that day — said gun ownership is about a lot of things: “Putting food on the table and providing for my family, self-protection and the motor and dexterity skills it sharpens when you go target practicing. You meet more and more new gun owners all of the time; most of them said they bought their first gun for those exact same reasons ... they found all of it personally empowering.”
This is a truth that conflicts with our culture’s misconceptions about who “the American gun owner” really is and what his or her motivations are for enjoying firearms. If you turn on the national news or log onto social media, you’re likely to find lawful gun owners portrayed as cultish, backwoods white males who have a gluttonous appetite for violence.
Gun owners see themselves quite differently — and their demographics and motivations don’t fit neatly into the stereotypes.
Despite the millions spent in digital advertisements by gun control advocates like former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the appeal of gun ownership is only increasing. Of all the firearms sold last year, 30% — 5.4 million purchases — went to new gun owners, according to a retailer survey conducted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
A new interest in self-sufficiency, caused by collapses in our supply chain, has also led to an explosion in applications for hunting licenses.
According to Stateline, a Pew Trust initiative, many states across the country saw a dramatic rise in both men and women taking a hunter safety class for the first time — with states like Michigan seeing a 67% hike in new hunting license buyers in 2021 compared with 2019, including a 15% increase in female hunters.
People who would never have considered owning a gun were now curious about hunting to provide for their families — and about target practice to learn how to defend themselves and their homes.
This expansion of gun culture is also reflected in the demographics of the new gun owner: The same survey showed a 58% increase in firearm purchases by Black people and 49% by Latinos, compared to 2019.
Further, one-third of people buying their first firearm in 2021 were women.
Those changes were evident in the cavernous halls of the outdoor show, which at times was filled shoulder-to-shoulder with a melting pot of all races, ages and genders. Vehicles in the parking lot sported license plates from as far as Maine, Mississippi and Colorado.
“If Disneyland is the happiest place on earth for kids, this might be the happiest place on earth for adults,” said Corina Novo of Warsaw, Ind., who was at a booth showcasing the Single Action Shooting Society, the governing body of the sport of cowboy action shooting.
Ms. Novo said that stereotypes of gun owners often come from people who have never shot a gun or known anyone who does: “When you lack curiosity about why someone would enjoy anything that is different from what your experiences are, no matter what the issue may be, it is easy to demonize it; I have seen attitudes change dramatically once a person learns to properly use a gun and understand all of the advantages that skill gives them.”
The biggest stereotype Ms. Novo dismisses is that educated, successful women shy away from gun ownership. “A lot of women are very surprised the first time that they handle a firearm and go out to the range — whether with their family, their husband or some friends — how well they actually do. There is also something to be said about the empowerment it gives a woman, not only because going to the range sharpens your motor skills, but also that you are developing the skills to protect yourself and your family and to also provide for them,” she said.
“It is a confidence that transfers in different parts of your life,” she said, as four women walked up to her booth with questions about the sport she’s advocating.
Political attitudes about guns seem to be following cultural ones. A December Quinnipiac poll found 47% of registered voters supported calls for more gun control, with 48% opposed. That marked the lowest level of support for gun control in six years of Quinnipiac’s annual polling.
Meanwhile, Gallup’s November poll found that support for stricter laws covering the sale of firearms had dropped to 52% — a huge 12-point decline since 2019.
Mr. Reisinger doesn’t say where his politics lie. It’d be easy to assume from his Perry County address and passion for guns that he’s a Republican, but assumptions are how distant pundits and analysts get elections wrong.
“I am an independent voter,” he said, “literally registered independent, and I always make sure that I vote every election I can — and do the research ahead of time. Again, I try to vote based on what makes the most sense for me, my family and my community.”
New gun owners don’t just live in the rural patches of the country — they are found in cities, suburbs and exurbs all across the nation, and they are less likely than ever to be old white men. And they will certainly have an impact on our elections and our culture — but precisely what impact will likely depend on how they feel treated. Ignoring them, dismissing them or boxing them into stereotypes won’t help and won’t make them go away.
And they might continue to rearrange American political coalitions, which will continue to be misread by activists and pundits, despite all of the evidence and data to guide them otherwise.
North Side native Salena Zito is a national political reporter for The Washington Examiner, a New York Post columnist and co-author of “The Great Revolt.” zito.salena@gmail.com.
First Published February 20, 2022, 12:00am