97Percent releases full results of 2024 Gun Owner Survey
97Percent’s 2024 Gun Owner Survey Reveals Strong Support for Gun Safety Policies
New survey of gun owners offers key insights for lawmakers.
LOS ANGELES (Dec. 10, 2024): 97Percent, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose mission is to reduce gun deaths by including gun owners in the solutions, has announced the findings of its 2024 Gun Owner Survey. This wide-ranging, national survey of 5,100 American gun owners who are also registered voters provides critical insights into gun owners’ policy preferences, concerns, and trusted messengers.
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Key Findings
Widespread Policy Support: Nearly 85% of gun owners support universal background checks and policies disqualifying violent offenders from owning guns.
Red Flag Laws and Gun Permits: Approximately 72% of respondents support red flag laws, which allow for the temporary removal of firearms from individuals deemed dangerous. Slightly less popular, but still earning majority support with 62%, is requiring state-level permits to purchase and possess a gun.
Top Concerns: Mass shootings are the top gun violence-related concern across party affiliation. Gen Z, Millennials, Hispanics, and Latinos are especially concerned about suicide. Black gun owners and those with children under 18 are particularly concerned about gun safety issues across the board.
Messaging Insights: Gun owners trust local law enforcement, veterans, and nonpartisan organizations over traditional media for policy information. Identity-based messaging emphasizing responsibility and safety resonates most strongly, reinforcing the compatibility of gun safety with gun rights.
The survey data highlights opportunities for lawmakers to build bipartisan consensus on policies like universal background checks, disqualification of violent offenders, state-level permitting systems, and even red flag laws. While the gun-owning community still skews male, White, and older, increasingly women, people of color, and parents of young children are becoming gun owners, and they are especially receptive to reasonable gun safety laws.
Survey Methodology
The survey was developed in coordination with and fielded by Citizen Data. It was conducted from September 5-20, 2024, with a nationally representative sample of 5,100 registered voters who own guns, and weighted by party ID, age, gender, and education. With a margin of error of just ±1.4%, the findings are a reliable indicator of gun owners' perspectives on gun safety issues nationwide.
Next Steps for 97Percent
These survey findings enable us at 97Percent to refine our efforts. Moving forward, we intend to implement a model based on these insights to map gun owner support for gun safety policies, making it easier to identify key areas and populations for strategic outreach.
We also plan further research, through focus groups and targeted surveys, to help deepen our understanding of gun owners’ policy preferences. By staying attuned to gun owners' evolving concerns, as shifting social and political climates affect Americans’ viewpoints, 97Percent can help develop effective, evidence-based advocacy strategies to foster a safer environment for all.
About 97Percent
97Percent is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization uniting gun owners and non-gun owners around common-ground measures to reduce gun deaths in America. Our name was inspired by a 2018 Quinnipiac University poll, which found that 97% of Americans support universal background checks—a figure that represents unprecedented agreement on gun safety, despite many believing the issue is intractable.
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Media Contact:
Molly Smith
molly@97percent.us