Debunking Anti-Gunners: The 2026 National Firearms Survey

In August of this year, the results of the 2026 National Firearms Survey, directed by William English, PhD, of Georgetown University, were published. The findings easily debunk so many of the gun control lobby’s favorite talking points. Not that they haven’t been debunked many times before, but the survey brings the receipts, to put it into modern parlance, with statistics compiled from the responses of 51,398 US residents aged 18 and over. Conducted between July and August, the survey “identified 16,688 internally validated gun owners who answered in-depth questions concerning their ownership and use of firearms, including questions about using a firearm in self-defense.”

This is almost certainly the most comprehensive national firearms survey since the “first wave” of English’s 2021 study, and the questions have been refined to negate some of the criticisms of the 2021 poll thrown up by the anti-gun community. One example is the rather demeaning suggestion that, in the previous survey, women who provided responses about gun ownership may have based their answers on other members of their households who own guns. The 2026 effort specifically instructs respondents to answer the questions with regard only to their personal ownership and use of firearms.

Gun Culture Myths

First, a review of the gun-grabbers’ favorite arguments against the ownership of firearms by civilians. American gun culture is a white male thing. Though the anti-gun legacy media wouldn’t put this in print, the inference is that most of the guns are owned by “rednecks.” Picture a poorly educated blue-collar white guy in a flannel shirt, sporting long hair (probably a mullet), a beard, and tattoos.

He spends his spare time hunting, fishing, and drinking. His heavy-duty pickup is replete with as many spotlights as he could attach to it, and he delights in driving recklessly down the backroads of rural America – his hound-dog in the truck bed – while listening to extremely loud country music.

Women, blacks, and Hispanics mostly don’t own guns. Anti-gunners often imply that this is the way the white male gun owner prefers it.

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The Second Amendment does not apply to modern firearms because the Founding Fathers couldn’t have foreseen the advances in firearms technology or how much more deadly guns would become, compared to the weapons of their era.

Civilians do not need guns to protect themselves because the police will do so – even if their departments are defunded, apparently. And it is very rare for civilians to use guns to defend themselves or prevent crime.

Last but not least in this summary of the major anti-gun talking points, stricter gun laws reduce violent crime, while the wide availability of firearms is the principal driving factor behind crime rates.

To be clear, again, none of the above statements are accurate, and the 2026 National Firearms Survey debunks most of them – while the others can be dismissed using logical argument and additional documented facts.

Firearms Survey Demographics Stats

The survey found that, of the respondents whose ownership of firearms was validated, 54.3% are male and 45.7% are female. The 2021 firearms survey found that females made up 42.2% of the gun-owning population. A significant increase, then, in five years. According to the new survey, 26.8% of females own guns.

Of all firearm owners, approximately 17.5% identify as black and 11.3% describe themselves as Hispanic (of any ancestry). Take into account the Census Bureau’s June 2025 estimates that blacks make up 15.2% of the total US population. The Census Bureau also estimates that Hispanics make up 21% of the population.

Within demographic groups, 33.0% of blacks and 31.3% of Hispanics own guns, compared to 34.6% of whites. It is also interesting to note that, among the respondents who do own guns, the percentage of whites who own the dreaded AR-15s, AR-15 platform rifles, or other so-called “assault weapons” is lower (27.0%) than any other ethnic group: Hispanic (38.2%), black (36.4%), Native American (33.1%), Pacific Islander (32.4%), and Asian (30.7%). Across all ethnicities, 37.2% of males and 21.3% of females own such weapons.

As the 2026 National Firearms Survey puts it, “In sum [sic], firearms ownership has continued to grow, and firearms owners are more diverse than ever.”

Defensive Gun Use

According to the survey, “37.6% of gun owners, or approximately 33.1 million adult Americans, have used a gun in defense of themselves, their property, a family member, or a member of their household.” This is known as defensive gun use, or DGU – something the anti-gun lobby claims almost never happens.

Not every DGU incident ends with someone being shot. Far from it, in fact. In 76.3% of such confrontations, the armed civilian using a gun for defensive purposes did not fire a shot. Approximately 2.2 million such incidents take place every year.

While the gun was fired in 23.7% of DGU incidents, the situation ended when a gun was merely displayed in 50.9% of cases, and, in 25.3% of these situations, it took only the statement “I have a gun,” or something similar, to end the confrontation.

The defense succeeded – that is, no crime was committed – in 70.6% of cases. In 21.0% of such occurrences, a crime remained. The rest of these situations involved a defense against animal attack.

Contrary to what the anti-gunners claim, then, defensive gun use is relatively common and, in most cases, produces a successful and non-violent outcome.

This firearms survey found that 32.7% of US adults over the age of 18 own a firearm. Among those over the age of 21 – because some states continue to impose unconstitutional restrictions on adults under 21 – the rate of gun ownership stands at 33.3%. The 32.7% figure represents a slight increase over the 2021 survey (31.9%).

The 2021 survey estimates that Americans owned a total of 451 million firearms. Now, in 2026, that estimate stands at 461 million. Around 10 million more guns in civilian hands than just five years ago. And yet, apart from certain sections of perhaps 10 or 15 of America’s larger cities, all categories of violent crime continue to decline. Ironically, the highest rates of violent crime persist mostly in cities that have the strictest gun laws.

About Those Weapons of War

Finally – and moving away from the survey findings – there is the question of “weapons of war,” a scary-sounding label the anti-gun lobby likes to throw around when discussing modern military-style semiautomatic rifles. The Second Amendment states the principal reason for civilian ownership of firearms is so that, if necessary, those very civilians can be mustered to form militias – bringing with them their own guns – to defend their state. Clearly, it follows that civilians are permitted, and expected, to own weapons that can be used effectively on the field of battle. Weapons of war are exactly the weapons the Second Amendment protects.

Moreover, there is nothing in the Second Amendment that suggests an expiration date – that it would no longer apply if future weapons became more lethal. If the unthinkable happened today, and certain states found themselves facing massive civil unrest, civil war, or foreign invasion, would citizen militias be expected to face down modern weaponry with 18th-century muskets?

The 2026 National Firearms Survey findings demonstrate, pretty conclusively, that legal gun owners are a diverse and law-abiding segment of the US population. Millions of times a year, they use firearms to defend themselves or prevent the commission of other crimes – in most cases, without any loss of life.

And despite that, there are more firearms in circulation than ever before – and that trend is increasing – yet America continues to experience an overall decline in violent crime.

If you’re interested in diving in deeper, we provide a copy of the study results here for you to read in full: