<P> What the Pew research does not account for though, is that household firearms ownership hit a high again in the 1993 - 1994 timeframe where household gun ownership exceeded 50% according to Gallup polls . The Gallup polls further show that household firearm ownership currently exceeds 40% and that the long - term trend is a sharp decline in polling for stricter gun control laws . Lastly, Gallup polling has consistently been over 65% against, when asking whether there should be bans on possession of handguns . </P> <P> Gun ownership figures are generally estimated via polling, by such organizations as the General Social Survey (GSS), Harris Interactive, and Gallup . There are significant disparities in the results across polls by different organizations, calling into question their reliability . In Gallup's 1972 survey, 43% reported having a gun in their home, while GSS's 1973 survey resulted in 49% reporting a gun in the home; in 1993, Gallup's poll results were 51%, while GSS's 1994 poll showed 43% . In 2012, Gallup's survey showed 47% of Americans reporting having a gun in their home, while the GSS in 2012 reports 34% . </P> <P> In 1997, estimates were approximately 44 million gun owners in the United States . These owners possessed approximately 192 million firearms, of which an estimated 65 million were handguns . A National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (NSPOF), conducted in 1994, indicated that Americans owned 192 million guns: 36% rifles, 34% handguns, 26% shotguns, and 4% other types of long guns . Most firearm owners owned multiple firearms, with the NSPOF survey indicating 25% of adults owned firearms . In the U.S., 11% of households reported actively being involved in hunting, with the remaining firearm owners having guns for self - protection and other reasons . Throughout the 1970s and much of the 1980s, the rate of gun ownership in the home ranged from 45 - 50% . Rapid increases in gun purchases characterized by exceptionally large crowds accruing at gun vendors and gun shows is consistently observed due to the possibility of increased gun control following highly publicized mass murders . </P> <P> Gun ownership also varied across geographic regions, ranging from 25% rates of ownership in the Northeastern United States to 60% rates of ownership in the East South Central States . A Gallup poll (2004) indicated that 49% of men reported gun ownership, compared to 33% of women, and 44% of whites owned a gun, compared to only 24% of nonwhites . More than half of those living in rural areas (56%) owned a gun, compared with 40% of suburbanites and 29% of those in urban areas . More than half (53%) of Republicans owned guns, compared with 36% of political independents and 31% of Democrats . One criticism of the GSS survey and other proxy measures of gun ownership, is that they do not provide adequate macro-level detail to allow conclusions on the relationship between overall firearm ownership and gun violence . Kleck compared various survey and proxy measures and found no correlation between overall firearm ownership and gun violence . In contrast, studies by David Hemenway and his colleagues, which used GSS data and the fraction of suicides committed with a gun as a proxy for gun ownership rates, found a strong positive association between gun ownership and homicide in the United States . Similarly, a 2006 study by Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, which also used the percent of suicides committed with a gun as a proxy, found that gun prevalence increased homicide rates . This study also found that the elasticity of this effect was between + 0.1 and + 0.3 . </P>

Total number of deaths in us per year