Predicting the Size of Household Firearm Collections: Do Correlates of Types of Firearm Ownership Help?

We know a lot about what types of households have firearms in the United States. We also know some about different types of gun-owning households or individuals. Little attention has been paid, however, to understanding the determinants of the size of household firearm collections. The current study tries to predict collection size using what we know about different types of firearms owners, while simultaneously controlling for the propensity to be a gun-owning household. The current study uses data from the 1996 Hemenway and Azrael Survey of Gun Owners in the United States Demographic and contextual variables are used to predict gun owning household propensity. Controlling for this propensity, and analyzing 713 gun-owning households which also reported collection size, Poisson regression showed that respondents who owned guns for protection and hunting possess a smaller gun collection compared to gun-owning household for the purpose of work and as a collector. Additionally, it was revealed that after controlling for the probability of being a gun-owning household and whether respondents personally own a gun or not there is no effect of gun purchase purposes on the size of household gun collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]