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Comment by paulie_a | Hacker News Reader

Honestly no. If anything the gun industry holds a substantial bit of political power considering the average American doesn't even own a gun.

Edit:. Touchy subject but it's a fact the average American doesn't own a gun. The political influence is substantial on the other hand. I'm not anti gun because it should be an inconsequential topic. It's like vegans had the big seat at the table.

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30% of American adults own a gun and 43% live in a gun household [1] and only about 40% of Americans bother to vote in presidential elections. Gun owners are more political than non-owners [2] so it's not unlikely that half of all voters or more are gun owners or live in gun households. That's a significant political force.

Vegans, in contrast, make up around 0.4-3% of Americans depending on the poll [3].

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own...

[2] https://today.ku.edu/2018/08/21/gun-owners-are-more-active-p...

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country

I was being absurd in my comparison to veganism But 70 percent of Americans do not own a gun. Am I being obtuse to say a minority of Americans own a gun?

Living in a household is completely irrelevant.

70% of Americans are white but we still care about the minority vote. (Living in a gun-owning household is not irrelevant. For the reasons people buy guns—hunting, self-defense, etc., you don’t need everyone to have a gun in their own name.)

So was I incorrect in my statementt that a minority of Americans own a gun.

And yes it is irrelevant. I do not control, perhaps do not even know what a roommate owns and vice versa. And that only pushed the needle up a but, to still being in the minority. You mention minorities? Gun owners are a minority

You were not incorrect to say they are a minority. Nobody factually disputed you on this detail. However, other folks added relevant details to show the prevalence of fun ownership and to give context to the political influence of gun owners.

So a minority of a minority when it comes to actual voting power.

Not incorrect? Yes that was directly disputed btw.

Gun ownership and gun influence in the US is vastly overstated.

> I do not control, perhaps do not even know what a roommate owns and vice versa.

Households with "roommates" are a small minority of all households. About 40 million of 250 million adults live in a household with other people that they're not related to or romantically involved with. The vast majority of households that aren't individuals living alone are are families or unmarried couples. In those contexts, it would be typical for one member of the household to own the firearms as a legal matter, but others might use it or rely on it. For example, Breonna Taylor was living with her boyfriend, who was licensed to own a firearm. If the couple bought a gun for self-defense, it seems fair to attribute the gun to the whole household, not just the individual who purchased it. Or in another example, a parent might purchase a firearm that other adult family members in the household use for hunting or target practice.

You're also forgetting about voting. Gun owners are much more likely to be older, married, and live outside the city. (Many people who don't own a gun when they're young and living in the city purchase one when they move out to the 'burbs and start af family!) The same groups of people are also more likely to vote.

If you have a gun owner in a household (a traditional family with kids) everyone that have voting rights will vote pro guns, that is 2-3-4 times that minority of owners translating in a majority of voters.

In my case if I would own a gun there would be 7 voters supporting it. Quite a multiplier.

It's definitely touchy, but I think even in abstract it's a bit misleading to say in isolation that the average American doesn't own a gun. There are areas of the country where guns are rare, but there are also many areas where they're very normalized and most households have one.

There’s a town in Georgia where owning a gun is mandatory.

It's "mandstory"

The same way in some town in Maryland you can't feed ducks on Sunday. Its a law that is left on the book, completely ignored and largely forgotten about

What happens if you are a foreigner and you choose to live there?

If you've got a valid green card you can own a gun, no question. Pretty sure you can own a gun on working visas as well, though there is the logistical issue of if/when the visa expires -- chances are you're not taking it with you.

Yes - my co-worker is Serbian/Canadian, has a green card, and owns a bunch of guns.

IIRC they did it as a political statement and have a bunch of exceptions/loopholes that more or less make it so that anyone who doesn't want to doesn't have to.

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