Guns per household have doubled over the last 20 years, according to The Washington Post.
After looking at data from the Bureau of the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive, the Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham determined that guns per house increased from 4.2 in 1994 to 8.1 in 2014.
Ingraham, who writes for the Post’s Wonkblog, concluded that guns per households are on the rise, while households with guns was is on the decline. Meaning that the data shows a fewer percentage of households owned guns in 2014 then did in 1994.
Ingraham calculated the averages of each year with data from the U.S. Census that determined the amount of households in the U.S. and data from the General Social Survey and Gallup.
The numbers showing the rise in guns are in a stark contrast to studies that show that gun ownership has declined over the past 40 years. Statistics show that while guns are increasing, the amount of gun owners has been on the decline.
A 2006 study referenced in the Post story backs up this claim. According to the study, 20 percent of gun owners own 65 percent of the guns in the U.S. This number likely is an outlier, meaning that minorities of gun owners are raising the average guns per household in the U.S.
Ingraham speculates that the rise in guns per household could be due to, “fear-stoking by some gun rights groups,” and the “rising popularity of ‘prepper groups’” that are preparing for a pending apocalypses by hoarding food and guns.