For generations, gun ownership in America has been a man's world. But that's changing, and fast. Between 2020 and 2022, more than 7.5 million people bought their first gun, and an estimated 60 million new firearms entered the U.S. civilian market. An unprecedented number of these purchasers were women. In recent years, women made up almost half of all new gun owners, a striking shift from the historical norm, when women accounted for about 24 percent of gun owners. While previous reports on increased gun ownership among women have been overstated, our analysis confirms a notable uptick in female gun ownership that was widespread across geographic and demographic subgroups. What remains unknown are the implications of this trend for public health and safety.
The General Social Survey (GSS) is a large, nationally representative survey of adults in the United States, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago; it has asked about household and personal gun ownership roughly every two years for the past five decades. The GSS also asks about a wide range of social, economic, and political measures, supporting descriptions of how ownership trends have varied across subgroups and how the landscape of gun ownership may or may not be changing. (An important note: These are survey data and thus subject to error if people do not know or are unwilling to disclose whether they own guns. But because there are no administrative datasets that capture gun ownership or sales, survey data are the best we have to work with.)
Based on the GSS, women's personal ownership of firearms increased substantially in recent years. After more than a decade of stable gun ownership, women's ownership rose starkly between 2018 and 2021, going from 10 percent of adult women owning guns in 2018 to 15 percent in 2021, then up again slightly to 16 percent by 2024. Other national surveys, such as Pew's American Trends Panel, report similar trends in women's gun ownership over this period (although prevalence estimates differ from GSS, likely due to differences in question wording and sampling). Over the same period, men's gun ownership remained relatively flat; the percentage of men who own guns as of 2024 (36 percent) is now quite a bit lower than the ownership rate from two decades prior (40 percent). The result is a continued narrowing of the gender gap in gun ownership, which has fallen from 29 percentage points in 2004 to 19 percentage points in 2024.
In 2018, less than a quarter of gun owners were women (22 percent); by 2024, women made up nearly a third of all gun owners (32 percent).
Figure 1. Trends in Personal Firearm Ownership by Gender, 2004–2024
Shaded areas represent 95% confidence intervals
| Year | Women | Men | Women: Lower CI | Men: Lower CI | Women: Upper CI | Men: Upper CI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | 10.94 | 40.2 | 7.51 | 34.46 | 14.37 | 45.93 |
| 2006 | 10.34 | 34.3 | 8.49 | 30.71 | 12.18 | 37.9 |
| 2008 | 10.59 | 37.68 | 7.91 | 32.85 | 13.27 | 42.5 |
| 2010 | 9.81 | 32.91 | 7.12 | 28.15 | 12.5 | 37.67 |
| 2012 | 10.57 | 36.25 | 7.83 | 31.91 | 13.32 | 40.6 |
| 2014 | 11.89 | 35.78 | 9.01 | 32.43 | 14.77 | 39.14 |
| 2016 | 10.5 | 30.76 | 8.11 | 26.62 | 12.89 | 34.91 |
| 2018 | 9.95 | 36.51 | 7.25 | 31.88 | 12.65 | 41.14 |
| 2021 | 14.68 | 36.74 | 13 | 34.01 | 16.35 | 39.47 |
| 2022 | 12.78 | 38.93 | 10.42 | 34.7 | 15.15 | 43.17 |
| 2024 | 16.38 | 35.83 | 13.86 | 31.41 | 18.9 | 40.24 |
Source: General Social Survey (GSS), NORC at the University of Chicago, 2004–2024
To understand which women newly obtained guns in the past decade, we looked at changes in ownership across different subgroups, comparing averaged rates of ownership from the 2014, 2016, and 2018 GSS surveys to those in the 2021, 2022, and 2024 surveys.
Since 2018, women in nearly every category of race, age, marital status, education level, and income have increased their gun ownership. In most of these cases, women's percentage increases in firearm ownership exceeded those of men belonging to the same group, often by 50 percent or more.
Figure 2. Personal Firearm Ownership Among Women by Demographic and Geographic Characteristics
Age
| Age | 2014-2018 | 2021-2024 |
|---|---|---|
| 51+ | 15.098889 | 17.870144 |
| 36-50 | 8.340175 | 15.396515 |
| 18-35 | 6.824811 | 9.771875 |
Race/ethnicity
| Race/ethnicity | 2014-2018 | 2021-2024 |
|---|---|---|
| White, Non-Hispanic | 14.402809 | 18.557892 |
| Black, Non-Hispanic | 6.9192 | 11.476293 |
| Other | 4.688821 | 6.91269 |
| Hispanic | 2.583527 | 6.199153 |
Education
| Education | 2014-2018 | 2021-2024 |
|---|---|---|
| More than High School | 9.524153 | 15.914541 |
| High School | 12.512722 | 15.492478 |
| Less than High School | 7.91282 | 6.83878 |
Marital Status
| Martial Status | 2014-2018 | 2021-2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Married | 13.128801 | 18.399529 |
| Other Status | 12.364315 | 15.979645 |
| Never Married | 4.396896 | 7.507008 |
Children
| Children | 2014-2018 | 2021-2024 |
|---|---|---|
| One or More | 10.874807 | 16.306443 |
| None | 10.585534 | 10.378938 |
Income
| Income | 2014-2018 | 2021-2024 |
|---|---|---|
| $75,000 or More | 14.147899 | 17.789619 |
| Less than $75,000 | 8.40432 | 14.20581 |
Party Identification
| Party identification | 2014-2018 | 2021-2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Republican | 18.075695 | 27.393548 |
| Independent/Other | 10.024577 | 13.907186 |
| Democrat | 7.463878 | 7.319251 |
Urbanicity
| Urbanicity | 2014-2018 | 2021-2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Rural | 19.156894 | 25.468155 |
| Suburban | 10.585481 | 13.494699 |
| Urban | 5.940688 | 9.131496 |
Region
| Region | 2014-2018 | 2021-2024 |
|---|---|---|
| East South Central | 24.178806 | 23.84296 |
| West North Central | 7.846882 | 19.589185 |
| West South Central | 17.673933 | 18.57321 |
| Mountain | 13.542264 | 18.317492 |
| South Atlantic | 11.595384 | 17.316951 |
| East North Central | 11.284792 | 15.379629 |
| New England | 5.287125 | 7.958488 |
| Middle Atlantic | 4.467129 | 7.850422 |
| Pacific | 5.765503 | 7.337355 |
Source: General Social Survey (GSS), NORC at the University of Chicago, 2014–2024
Standard errors (not shown) are 2 percentage points or less, except for region and urbanicity groups, which range from 2-4 percentage points. The states that comprise each Census Region are as follows: East South Central (KY, TN, MS, AL), West North Central (ND, SD, NE, KS, MN, IA, MO), West South Central (OK, TX, AR, LA), Mountain (MT, ID, WY, NV, UT, CO, AZ, NM), South Atlantic (WV, MD, DE, DC, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL), East North Central (WI, MI, IL, IN, OH), New England (ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT), Middle Atlantic (NY, PA, NJ), and Pacific (AK, HI, WA, OR, CA).
Some of the largest relative increases were among groups of women with historically low rates of gun ownership, such as Hispanic women and those living in the Upper Midwest, who saw ownership rates more than double after 2018. To be fair, given low baseline rates of ownership, a doubling may correspond to a relatively small percentage point change, and these groups remain less likely to own guns than traditionally high-ownership groups. Still, these historically low-propensity gun owners are narrowing the relative gaps in ownership across most demographic categories, with three notable exceptions: political affiliation, education, and motherhood.
Political affiliation now marks one of the starkest divides. Gun ownership has risen among Republican and independent women, while remaining consistently low among Democratic women. From 2021 to 2024, Republican women were 3.7 times more likely to own a firearm than a Democrat, whereas in 2014 to 2018 they were only 2.5 times more likely to own firearms. For comparison, male conservatives and Republicans own guns at a little more than twice the rate of liberal and Democratic males, and these differences have remained generally stable over the past decade. Because Republican women tend to express more support for restrictive firearm policies than Republican men, it will be interesting to track whether long-standing gender and partisan divisions in gun policy attitudes start to shift.
Educational differences in women's gun ownership have also widened. Across all categories we examined, women with less than a high school education—about 8 percent of adult women—were the only group to show a (small) decline in ownership. In contrast, ownership increased among women with more than a high school education, who are now equally likely to own a gun as high school graduates and twice as likely as women without a high school degree or equivalent.
The relationship between household structure and ownership has changed significantly. Married women and women with children have seen faster growth in gun ownership than unmarried women and those without children. From 2014 to 2018, women with children were equally likely to own a gun as women without children, but by 2021 to 2024, they were 1.5 times more likely to own one. This shift has been driven almost entirely by single (not cohabitating) mothers, a group that may have been particularly affected by changing attitudes toward personal empowerment and safety concerns during a period of rising violence.
Married women and women with children have seen faster growth in gun ownership than unmarried women and those without children.
While the composition of female and male gun owners is similar to one another as of 2024—they are mostly Republican, older, non-Hispanic white, and live in rural areas—men and women differ in the types of guns they own and how many, as well as why they own. On average, women own 1.5 fewer guns (PDF) than men, and they are much more likely to own only handguns. Women's reasons for gun ownership focus more on self-protection, with less importance given to protecting family or to recreational uses. Past victimization and fear of violent crime are important motivators of gun ownership broadly, but particularly for women (PDF).
Will the rise in female gun ownership make women safer? Not necessarily. Most studies of how gun ownership affects victimization risk to women look at community-level firearm prevalence or household gun ownership. But risks associated with living with or around people who own firearms are likely different from the risks associated with owning a gun oneself. Unfortunately, available evidence doesn't clearly support or refute the idea that more women owning guns has reduced fatal or nonfatal victimization of women. National Crime Victimization Survey data from 2018 to 2024 show nationally that violent victimization rates for women have fallen even as men's have edged upward. But the groups of women whose ownership increased the most have not been those with the greatest declines in victimization. For instance, violent victimization rates fell among white women but increased among Black and Hispanic women. Overall, comparing descriptive trends can be suggestive, but more rigorous studies are needed to answer whether owning a gun tends to make women more or less likely to be a victim of violence.
The long-standing relationship between American women and guns is changing.
The implications of women's gun ownership for suicide are also ambiguous. A study of new handgun owners in California found that the correlation between handgun ownership and risk of suicide death was significantly higher for female versus male gun owners. Yet nationally, female suicide rates have remained relatively stable since 2018. The share of female suicides involving a firearm has increased slightly (from 31 percent in 2018 to 35 percent in 2023), suggesting a potential shift in mechanisms used to complete suicides rather than a major change in overall risk. Notably, even as women increasingly reported personally owning guns, the percentage of women living in households with a gun remained relatively unchanged, suggesting many women who became new gun owners during this period already lived with somebody who owned at least one gun. If what matters for safety and suicide prevention is gun availability rather than gun ownership, we may not see particularly large increases in women's suicide rates.
The growth in women's gun ownership might not generate the higher rates of firearm homicide or injury than prior research would predict, since women are known to engage in less risky behavior than men. Women are less likely to report carrying a loaded handgun in public, brandishing a firearm defensively, or storing their firearm loaded. Women gun owners also tend to engage in fewer risky health behaviors (e.g., binge drinking, drug use, risky sex) than men. If women are more likely to keep their guns stored securely and are less likely to carry in public or while engaging in risky activities, their new guns may not contribute to community violence at the levels that men's firearms have.
The long-standing relationship between American women and guns is changing. As more women become gun owners, the ripple effects—on safety, public health, and even cultural attitudes—will likely change too, although we cannot yet say in what ways. What's certain is that the old assumptions about who owns guns and why, changed markedly in the 2020s. Policymakers, researchers, and communities alike will need to pay attention to how this new era of firearm ownership develops.
