# Guns and Beards **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 3, 2013, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540 "2013-07-03T13:40:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/1 "2013-07-03T13:40:16Z")
In a [recent appearance on the Daily Show](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-may-9-2013/david-sedaris), humorist David Sedaris said that based on informal surveys at his book signings, 80% of men with beards had fathers who owned guns. So let’s test his hypothesis. This poll is primarily for guys, but you girls can answer if your father owns a gun; I’ll take the high road and assume you don’t have beards. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/2 "2013-07-03T13:41:42Z")
I have a beard. My father didn’t own a gun. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/3 "2013-07-03T13:48:25Z")
For the purposes of this poll, if your father is deceased, answer if he had a gun while alive. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/4 "2013-07-03T13:52:47Z")
I used to have a beard, and my father did own guns. But I shaved it off years ago and they all disappeared. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/5 "2013-07-03T14:18:26Z")
Got beard and armed father. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/6 "2013-07-03T14:32:26Z")
I have a beard. My father owns guns. ---
**Author:** ![UncaStuart](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncastuart/32/404_2.png) [@UncaStuart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaStuart)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/7 "2013-07-03T14:36:56Z")
Have a beard, but my dad did not own a gun. However, he did give _me_ guns, like a 1873 Trapdoor Springfield, Type 99 Arisaka, and others. [Forty years later, I still miss that trapdoor, which I loaned to a buddy who did old west reenactments, but died suddenly of a heart attack and his widow left the area with all his stuff, including my rifle, to parts unknown. Sigh.] ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/8 "2013-07-03T14:44:04Z")
No beard (why would I want to hide such a face?) and I don’t count my dad as owning a gun. He does have a shotgun that he last used probably 50 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/9 "2013-07-03T14:51:10Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > No beard (why would I want to hide such a face?) and I don’t count my dad as owning a gun. He does have a shotgun that he last used probably 50 years ago. I counted my dad as a gun owner, but similarly he hasn’t used his .22 or shotgun for decades as far as I know. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/10 "2013-07-03T14:56:51Z")
No beard, and my father was not a gun owner. He always said he had enough of that sort of thing in the war (WWII). I do have guns though, and my son is still beardless at this point (at age 14). ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/11 "2013-07-03T15:06:08Z")
Bearded since early 20’s. My dad owned a pair of shotguns when I was very little but hadn’t hunted in years and sold them sometime before I was 5 or 6 - so “no gun.” This is a pretty weird question unless you’re trying to sniff out hillbillies. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/12 "2013-07-03T15:08:19Z")
I’m in the UK. So obviously my Dad didn’t have a gun (I have a beard.) ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/13 "2013-07-03T15:40:19Z")
I have a beard and so has my brother and our father owned a shotgun, but I can not remember him using it on more than one occasion. He went duck hunting with a friend and came back with a [coot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Coot). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/14 "2013-07-03T15:45:09Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > In a [recent appearance on the Daily Show](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-may-9-2013/david-sedaris), humorist David Sedaris said that based on informal surveys at his book signings, 80% of men with beards had fathers who owned guns. > . What was supposed to be funny?😕 ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/15 "2013-07-03T15:48:55Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > No beard (why would I want to hide such a face?) and I don’t count my dad as owning a gun. He does have a shotgun that he last used probably 50 years ago. > [@hogarth](#): > > I counted my dad as a gun owner, but similarly he hasn’t used his .22 or shotgun for decades as far as I know. > [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Bearded since early 20’s. My dad owned a pair of shotguns when I was very little but hadn’t hunted in years and sold them sometime before I was 5 or 6 - so “no gun.” I consider all of them gun owners, since they owned guns. Some people think too much. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/16 "2013-07-03T15:51:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > What was supposed to be funny?😕 If you watch the clip, it was funny in context. He expressed no conclusion about either guns or beards, only that they seem to correlate with fathers. I think Sedaris is one of the funniest people on the planet, so maybe it’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/17 "2013-07-03T15:59:41Z")
There were never any guns in our house. I’m clean-shaven now but had a beard for large portions of my life, so not sure how to answer. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/18 "2013-07-03T16:07:26Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I consider all of them gun owners, since they owned guns. Some people think too much. ☹ Yes, and alcoholics can’t so much as be in the same room with an ethanol molecule. Says right here. I don’t consider my dad to be a gun owner because he (and my mother) owned a pair of duck guns in the mid-1950s. Neither ever owned so much as a BB gun otherwise. He didn’t grow up with guns. He did his time in WWII and had a good friend who was crazy about bird hunting, so he spent a couple of years trying it. I’m sure anyone indoctrinated by the NRA would firmly declare him to be a “gun owner,” but that’s like “alcoholics” who haven’t touched booze since a few beer parties in college - self-serving BS. Sorry for thinking “too much” - I mean, at all, here. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/19 "2013-07-03T16:16:12Z")
I don’t have a beard. My father did not have any guns. I have guns. So my daughters will have beards apparently. ---
**Author:** ![colander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@colander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colander)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/20 "2013-07-03T16:18:33Z")
I don’t think this question is so strange. There are many style and grooming preferences that happen to correlate with certain social views and personality traits, some of which may influence those of your children. Certainly it currently looks from the poll results that there might be something going on here, although of course to definitively establish a link, a more stringent survey methodology would be necessary. Also, the link is probably stronger between guys who own guns and whose fathers had beards. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540.md?page=2)