Just wondering how common it is for people to have a gun (or guns) in the house, and whether it’s perceived as “normal”.
Depends on the location. In certain places it is “normal” to have guns in other places it is not.
I’d think that there’s plenty of gun owners who don’t feel the need to broadcast their gun ownership to others. While many people here know I’m a gun owner, plenty of people in my day to day life don’t. It’s not always a popular subject, some people get very testy about it and then you have to shoot them. 
Some people put the figure at 70 million in the US. I don’t think most people find it peculiar, but I certainly do.
My husband owns a few, but they’re locked up so tight it would take a weekend to figure out how to get at them.
It’s ‘normal’ enough that it’s part of the Bill of Rights. (If you’re in the United States)
Makes it more normal than drinking alcohol. (Where that right was repealed, then restored)
IMVHO.
Around here, hell yeah. It’s kinda assumed that a home is armed unless proven otherwise. But then I’m in a semi-rural part of Southern California. (Or at least it used to be. Damned developers!)
Everyone is a gun nut around here - Fresno, CA area. I understand the desire to have a gun for home protection (Though I don’t have one), and I understand hunting (Though I don’t hunt), and I understand collecting antique guns (Though I don’t), but I just do not get the guys around here who compare the stats of their 6 different handguns against their friends’ collections. I mean, it’s a gun! Point at the thing you want to shoot and pull the trigger! I don’t get the rabid devotion…
Joe
That’s because you think it’s rabid devotion. It’s no different from people who have several different cars that they enjoy driving. They all have different feel, different characteristics, and while the skill is the same the technique is often different.
I don’t get the car thing either. Nor die-hard sports fans. Rabid is rabid.
I don’t know about lots of people, but most people I have been close to in my life (family, friends, etc.) are gun owners. I am a gun owner and have been for over a decade. I grew up in an armed home and it wasn’t the only one in the neighborhood.
I would call it common, but I don’t know that it’s normal. Lots of people have tattoos, and I wouldn’t call that normal, per se.
I don’t know if lots of people own guns, but I own lots of guns. OK, not lots, only 4. And I share them with my husband. I got my first gun (.22 single-shot bolt-action, I still have it) when I was in the fifth grade. I wasn’t allowed to keep it of course, but it was mine. It’s about 10 feet behind me in the rifle case. Fun as hell to plink cans with, and cheap, too.
I’m having a shotgun craving at the moment, personally. Might need it if zombies attack. Zombies don’t stand a chance against 12 gauge.
I *think *- I’m not sure - that NY has one of the stricter set of gun laws around. So that’s probably kind of discouraging to some There are gun clubs and associations here but what people mostly own here is rifles for hunting and shotguns for skeet shooting and the like.
Not really being part of that circle I couldn’t tell you how many but I bet the percentage of people who have a rifle is pretty high. You only have to go maybe 20 miles outside of Albany for it to get pretty rural, after all. And I have even considered, when I get a house, to have a shotgun - and I am not particularly fond of guns.
Should have answered the main thrust of the OP. I consider it normal. In my family and around my peers anyways, it’s normal. I don’t think we’re out and out “gun nuts”, but I learned to be respectful and how to operate them at a young age. I’m not in the NRA (I was, but their rhetoric was a little too heavy for me, the gun-toting liberal) and I don’t go to the range more than a few times a year.
Everything stays secure, even though we don’t have kids. No trigger locks or anything, but I don’t have a big sign over my house that says, “ARSENAL IN HERE,” either.
All my students have guns. We can get into an excited debate between those who favor the AK family or the Armalites. They claim to also have RPGs, apparently “In case the Ottomans come back.”
Sounds like a perfectly rational reason to me. 
We have about 10 guns in the house. And ***lots ** * of ammo. Noteworthy guns include a FAL, AR-15, and a .50 BMG bolt action.
I consider it very normal. 
Gun owner here, consider it normal.
I know a few people who don’t have a gun, which I consider abnormal. As far as I know, the vast majority of my acquaintances have at least one.
If the 70 million gun owners number mentioned is true, that’s about 1 for every 4 people, or 66% of households (2000 census). I suppose it’s probable that there’s more than one owner per household, but 66% sounds about right to me - Thinking of any 10 of my friends, 7 of them probably have a firearm.
I haven’t seen the source of that number, so my opinion is worth almost every penny you paid for it 
I don’t consider it abnormal, but I don’t consider it abnormal to not own a gun, either.
Right where I live, nearly every household has a gun, but nobody talks about it much. It’s quite rural and a gun is needed for pest control, or in the case of our neighbor, to kill the extremely aggressive coydog that used to be eating one of your calves and is now aimed at you. :eek:
However, 20 miles away and in a more populated area (though it would still be called a small town by any self-respecting city dweller), it’s much less common to own a gun. At least as far as I know. I don’t take polls at the local Wally World or anything.
Guns. No one can say what will happen in the future. If, God-forbid, the Islamo nut jobs wipe out D.C. and New York City and the square jawed news guys then get on TV and say your money is worthless … and everyone is on their own, you’ll then wish like hell that you had a gun because, as they say, nice guys finish last.