Anyone have statistics on what percentage of U.S. households owned guns, specifically long guns, in the 1960s?
I don’t know that anybody would. Records weren’t kept back then. You could get weapons via mail order. There were thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of bring-backs from World War II. The only weapons that were tracked were NFA weapons, and those only for tax purposes when transferred or purchased. It wasn’t until the Gun Control Act of 1968 that there were notable restrictions on ownership.
Don’t necessarily need government records. Most of the statistics we have on household ownership of guns are from private surveys.
From a 1968 newspaper story, supposedly Lou Harris said a poll showed 51% of US households owned a gun. Sharp regional variations. 34% in East, 55% Midwest, 64% South, 53% West. No mention, in the article, of type of gun.
I’ll try to find more.