To much of the world, the United States is a country defined, at least in part, by its gun culture. And with good reason. The U.S., along with Guatemala and Mexico, is one of only three countries in which gun ownership is a constitutional right. Even more telling, according to a 2020 study by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the U.S. is home to an estimated 433.9 million civilian-owned firearms, equal to about 1.3 guns for every American. No other country comes close to having that many guns, let alone more guns than people.

However, not all Americans are gun owners. Far from it, in fact. According to a 2020 study published by the RAND Corporation, a research and public policy advocacy group, only about 32% of American households own a firearm. Therefore, based on the total number of guns in the U.S. many gun-owning households likely own far more than one.

At the state level, gun ownership rates vary considerably. In some parts of the country, fewer than one in every 10 households own at least one firearm. In others, meanwhile, well over half of all households do.

According to RAND Corporation estimates, approximately 28.8% of households in Florida own at least one gun, the 10th lowest gun ownership rate among the 50 states.

Gun control laws vary considerably at the state level, and in states with the tightest restrictions, firearms can be harder to obtain. On an A to F scale – with A representing the strongest gun control laws and F the weakest – gun violence prevention group Giffords Law Center assigns Florida a C- for its gun control policies.

All data in this story is from the RAND Corporation and the Annual Gun Law Scorecard, published by the Giffords Law Center.

 

Rank	State	Gun ownership rate (%)	Gun control grade (A-F)	Firearm deaths per 100,000 people in 2021
1	Montana	65.0	F	25.1
2	Wyoming	60.7	F	26.1
3	West Virginia	60.0	F	17.3
4	Idaho	57.8	F	16.3
5	Alaska	57.2	F	25.2
6	South Dakota	55.0	F	14.3
7	Oklahoma	54.9	F	21.2
8	Mississippi	54.1	F	33.9
9	North Dakota	53.3	F	16.8
10	Alabama	52.8	F	26.4
11	Missouri	52.8	F	23.2
12	Kentucky	52.5	F	21.1
13	Louisiana	52.3	F	29.1
14	Arkansas	51.8	F	23.3
15	Vermont	50.3	C-	11.9
16	Maine	47.7	F	12.6
17	Wisconsin	47.1	D+	13.5
18	Tennessee	46.9	F	22.8
19	New Hampshire	46.3	F	8.3
20	South Carolina	45.0	F	22.4
21	Indiana	42.4	F	18.4
22	Kansas	42.3	F	17.3
23	Ohio	41.9	F	16.5
24	Oregon	41.4	B+	14.9
25	Pennsylvania	40.2	B-	14.8
26	Utah	39.7	F	13.9
27	Nebraska	39.2	C	10.3
28	Minnesota	39.1	C+	10.0
29	Michigan	38.9	C+	15.4
30	Delaware	38.7	B	16.6
31	Iowa	38.5	F	11.2
32	Colorado	37.9	B	17.8
33	Georgia	37.7	F	20.3
34	North Carolina	37.1	C	17.3
35	Arizona	36.0	F	18.3
36	New Mexico	35.9	C+	27.8
37	Texas	35.5	F	15.6
38	Virginia	35.3	B	14.3
39	Nevada	32.9	C+	19.8
40	Washington	32.1	B+	11.2
41	Florida	28.8	C-	14.1
42	Illinois	22.6	A-	16.1
43	Connecticut	18.8	A-	6.7
44	Maryland	16.7	A-	15.2
45	California	16.3	A	9.0
46	New York	14.5	A-	5.4
47	Rhode Island	13.9	B+	5.6
48	Hawaii	9.1	A-	4.8
49	Massachusetts	9.0	A-	3.4
50	New Jersey	8.9	A	5.2

 

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