# Just how common was gun ownership at the inception of the US? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 22, 2007, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466 "2007-11-22T23:04:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466/1 "2007-11-22T23:04:06Z")
Is there any real way to know? Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466/2 "2007-11-23T00:41:43Z")
[QUOTE=mangeorge] Is there any real way to know? Peace, mangeorge [/QUOTE] I’d start here: > **[Arming America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Bellesiles)** > > Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture is a discredited 2000 book by historian Michael A. Bellesiles about American gun culture, an expansion of a 1996 article he published in The Journal of American History. Bellesiles, then a professor at Emory University, used research missing context to argue that during the early period of US history, guns were uncommon during peacetime and that a culture of gun ownership did not arise until the mid-nineteenth century. > Although the book was a... Bellesiles wrote a book (Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture) that was later found to be based on questionable data. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466/3 "2007-11-23T02:28:25Z")
What little I can tell you is that the weapons in the hands of the Mass militia at Lexington and Concord were for the most part Tower muskets provided by the British Crown. On the frontier it appears that everybody had some sort of fire arm, both for hunting and for defense. A Pennsylvania or Kentucky rifle, however, was a pretty expensive item and probably identified the owner as a long hunter - a man who spent at least part of the year in the western wilderness hunting and claiming land. In town, New York, Boston, Richmond, Charleston and the like, gun ownership was probably not widespread. No particular citations for this, just general reading. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466/4 "2007-11-23T02:44:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Congressman Varnum drew on data familiar to the committee and reprinted in the Militia Census of 1806, a document officially communicated to Congress by the president nine days later on April 11, 1806. . . . In the report itself, Varnum’ s committee informed Congress: > > ``` > "[t]hat, by the laws of the United States, each citizen enrolled in the militia is put under obligations to provide himself with a good musket or rifle, and all the other military equipments prescribed by law. **From the best estimate which the committee have been able to form, there is upwards of 250,000 fire arms and rifles in the hands of the militia, which have, a few instances excepted, been provided by, and are the property of, the individuals who hold them.** It is highly probable, that many more of the militia would have provided themselves with fire arms in the same way, if they had been for sale in those parts of the United States where the deficiencies have happened; but the wars in Europe have had a tendency to prevent the importation of fire arms from thence into the United States, which, together with the limited establishments for the manufacture of that implement in the United States, has rendered it impossible for individuals to procure them." > > ``` William G. Merkel, _Mandatory Gun Ownership, the Militia Census of 1806, and Background Assumptions concerning the Early American Right to Arms_, 25 Law & Hist. Rev. 187, 189 (2007) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466/5 "2007-11-23T02:54:35Z")
From the Wiki article on the US miliita: [Militia (United States) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)) > [@](#): > > A major factor that made universal militia service during this period impossible was the drastic lack of guns. The vast majority of New England men in the late Eighteenth Century did not own a working firearm. A study of probate records from that time found only 7% of white males owned a working gun. The predominate source of meat for food was either by hunting by trapping, not guns, or the slaughter of domesticated pigs and cows. Additionally there was a serious problem mobilizing the militia prior to the Revolutionary war because so few men had any experience shooting a rifle, and so few blacksmith had any experience repairing guns. The predominate source of guns was Europe, a source cut off by the British embargo.[7] ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466/6 "2007-11-23T03:32:52Z")
There are a variety of variables that need to be considered. The population of the country was mostly divided among small, individual farms. About 95% of the population farmed. Few of these farms were in what even then were considered frontier areas. The vast majority of the population lived within 100 miles of the Atlantic Coast. These were relatively civilized areas, with few immediate threats, either from Indians, wild game, raiders, or other menaces. And farmers were not well off. Most lived subsistence lives, caring for their families but not exactly prosperous. People in cities probably dealt with more danger, in the form of crime, drunkenness, vagrants, escaped prisoners and whatnot, than people on farms. However, they also depended more on whatever formal or informal constables or police their city offered than on their own efforts to control this crime. Plantation owners in the south, and large estate owners in the north, tended to be recreational and professional hunters. Their estates obviously bordered more wild land as a norm (although George Washington and George Mason had adjacent plantations on the Potomac far away from the wilderness), and they had potentially unruly populations of slaves to control. However, while their influence was huge their absolute numbers were tiny. What almost none of them had were access to industry. Gun-making was not yet standardized with interchangeable parts. It needed to be crafted by a blacksmith or other specialist or imported. So, without looking at individual statistics, the odds are that, in general, only a small percentage of the population needed guns for safety or for garnering food. Guns would be helpful to eliminate pests, to hunt game, or for gentlemanly pleasure sport. For all except the tiny elite, guns were an expensive luxury. In most places, at most times, for most people, there was no urgent physical need for a gun prior to the revolution. Whether there was a psychological need, i.e., whether people wanted to be armed or felt more secure with a rifle or musket handy is a much harder question to answer and that’s where most of the controversy comes in. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466/7 "2007-11-23T03:33:46Z")
[QUOTE=mks57] I’d start here: > **[Arming America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Bellesiles)** > > Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture is a discredited 2000 book by historian Michael A. Bellesiles about American gun culture, an expansion of a 1996 article he published in The Journal of American History. Bellesiles, then a professor at Emory University, used research missing context to argue that during the early period of US history, guns were uncommon during peacetime and that a culture of gun ownership did not arise until the mid-nineteenth century. > Although the book was a... Bellesiles wrote a book (Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture) that was later found to be based on questionable data. [/QUOTE] Questionable data? How about totally discredited, as he was forced to surrender his award… ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466/8 "2007-11-23T03:38:26Z")
[QUOTE=jtgain] Questionable data? How about totally discredited, as he was forced to surrender his award… [/QUOTE] I was being charitable. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466/9 "2007-11-23T03:45:53Z")
The gentleman in question that exposed Bellesiles as a fraud wrote a paper that has actual research in it on this topic. You can find the abstract [here](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=268583) and you can download the full paper from that page. Warning: the paper is a PDF and is 67 pages long, so be forewarned. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-was-gun-ownership-at-the-inception-of-the-us/427466/10 "2007-11-23T03:49:02Z")
[QUOTE=mks57] I was being charitable. [/QUOTE] Unfortunately, being charitable toward Bellesiles’ work gives it even just a small amount of credibility, which it does not deserve. If the OP is looking for a serious answer, that is certainly NOT the place to start.