Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: Exactly what is "an open and honest conversation about guns"? [View all]gejohnston
(17,502 posts)but I do know instructors who have first time gun owners, or claim to be, signing up in droves. If there is a drop, it looks like it is going back to the levels of the 1950s. I don't see that as either a good or a bad thing. In short, the "gun culture" remains constant but fewer what I would call casual gun owners. The guy who fears rising crime, buys a pistol and throws it in the sock drawer for 40 years. I can picture that rise through the 1960s and 1970s. Kids discover it when mom or dad goes to the old folks home or passes away. My inlaws were like that. They were not gun people by any stretch of the imagination. They bought some "ring of fire" revolver when my wife and siblings were kids, we guess. The rounds were corroded and could not be removed and I was not about to fire it. We dumped off on the cops. If was taken care of and made by a company that valued craftsmanship, he could have sold it to an FFL for a couple of hundred bucks. He did have a CCW for a few years and carried a different pistol, a small .32 ACP, when he had business where he handled a lot of cash, legally. When he sold the business he sold the pistol and let the permit expire.
Personally, I think rising crime, or perception of, increases causal gun ownership to some degree.