I’ve got to admit that when imagining something quintessential rural American, I imagine someone shooting at cans on a fence. But how much of actually using guns / practicing is just a stereotype I’ve got stuck in my head? Do people just own guns for self-defence / inherit / cultural reasons or do the majority of gun owners actually use them for practice and for fun? Are there differences in ages / regions etc.? Do people really train their kids and show them?
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For me, every few months. Ammo is expensive now.
Varies a lot, including people who literally never use them. My parents have a few rifles that were passed down from their fathers and grandfathers, as far as I know they have not been used in decades.
On the other hand, some people go shooting regularly. I know a guy who goes shooting nearly every weekend, it’s his primary hobby.
If you don’t train you’re not going to be able to use it effectively. There’s a bunch of places around me (rural area) where people shoot all the time. I know quite a few people downstate who live in suburbia and go to indoor ranges regularly. With the price of ammo these days though, it’s an increasingly expensive hobby.
Yes, people absolutely train their kids, it’s an important part of safety in your household and completely normal.
In my family my grandpa taught me how to shoot, and I inherited a revolver from him I practice every few months at the range if i lived out in the sticks I’d probably practice at home monthly if ammo was cheap. I own my guns for self defense, hunting and sport.
Very difficult to know that for sure in terms of statistics. That isn’t data you could really collect easily without a huge margin of error.
A lot of people do own guns they rarely shoot. My dad is one of these people he can shoot well enough but he only shoots maybe once a year. There are people who shoot even less than that. I know people with guns I don’t think they have ever fired aside from when they first got it to make sure it works. I shoot maybe once a month or every 2 months, and do a few hundred rounds worth of practice. I think I’m probably on the high end relative to most people.
Other people obviously use them for hunting. People definitely teach their kids how to shoot. Educating children on gun safety is a pretty obvious thing to do if they are ever going to be around guns.
Most Americans don’t actually own guns at all. Of those that do, some people shoot multiple times per week for fun or sport. Some have large collections and may not do much with them. Others keep one gun locked up for emergencies and only ever handle or shoot it rarely.
Many of us don’t own guns
Different people do different things.
You might as well be asking how often do Americans actually read books, watch movies, or listen to music.
There are gun owners who basically never shoot, gun owners who shoot daily, and all sorts of people in between.
Every other week or so, I go shoot at cans or something.
I shoot quarterly at a minimum.
It’s usually an all day thing with a few friends and we grab a meal and a couple beers after.
I have shot at cans on a fence. That said, I was in my twenties the first time I did it or fired a gun at all. We were on my grandparents’ farm.
It varies a lot. I knew people who were up on deer stands with rifles when they were in their teens, and there are those like me who just never had the family culture or interest.
There are certainly people who teach their children (ages thirteen or so and up) to shoot (which often comes side by side with lessons on gun safety and storage when done right).
Not as often as I used to. Buying ammo for plinking around is very expensive right now.
Worth noting, 2/3 of Americans don’t own guns at all, and guns are present in fewer than half of all households.
I don’t (and won’t) own any guns, but my dad used to have 2. I think he used them a total of 2-3 times in the 18 years I lived with my parents.
I’m at the range weekly, but then again I work at one so….
I carry my pistol daily and try to go the range at least once a month
So a couple of people have mentioned that ammunition has gotten too expensive – as someone who has absolutely no idea about guns: how much ammunition would you need for one practice? Or how much money would it be? Let’s say you practice, how many shots are in a practice session? 20? 100? I know it varies from person to person, but just to get a general idea of it.
Much more often in my youth as we hunter virtually everything their was a season for.
Now that I’m older I live in a city and can’t practice shooting cans as you say. I have two lifetime memberships(both inherited) at two ranges and go usually once a week. I have two presses to make hand and rifle rounds so my ammo reasonably cheap due to being allowed to pickup spent brass at both ranges. I always pickup at least what I shoot and usually 25-50% more.
I had quite a dry spell 18-30 but when I had my daughter I got back into it and now always carry when I’m with her.
I know people with none, who have them but rarely ever touch them and people who make the range weekly, it just depends.
I do intend to teach my kids in a few years (they’re 4 and 6 now so a bit young). I don’t keep mine in the house, they’re locked up at my parent’s place, but there are a LOT of people that just have guns laying around the house or barely hidden in the top of a closet or a bedroom drawer. I need to know that my kids understand how not to be stupid around them and to GTFO if someone is being stupid with one before they start going to other homes unsupervised.
It’s not that I love guns and desperately want them to take up shooting or anything, that’s up to them, it’s just a safety issue to learn the basics if this many people are going to have them with this little liability or oversight on storage.
I go to a range about once a month and hunt about once a year. Aside from that I’ve only used a rifle for self defense once, and that was a wild hog that wandered into my back yard.
I use my guns for target shooting, defense, and hunting. I shoot pretty regularly for fun and practical and hunt on occasion.
Depends.
Theres a lot of people who are gun enthusiasts that collect, build, and go shoot as their hobby. There’s others that keep them tucked away for defense.
Some people do train their kids on gun safety and how to properly handle firearms.
I don’t own any guns and none of my friends do, except the one who lives on a ranch. He uses it for coyotes in regards to his chickens but is experimenting in urine distribution instead.
I train draw/blank firing every now and then when I’m bored.
I go to the outdoor range every few weeks.
If you carry, you should train with it, and that just doesn’t mean shooting a target 10 yard away with one shot every 10 seconds lol.
I haven’t been to a range and fired one in at least 5 years. It had been years that i was at a range before that. I have never fired one other than at a range.
I go out deer hunting once a year on first day and a few days small game. I have a .308 that gets fired maybe once or twice a year and a 12-gauge I might fire 2-3 times. That’s it. Ammo’s just too expensive anymore to justify target shooting like I used to.
Regularly. There are a lot of hunters here.
I shoot a couple times a month. I used to shoot more often, and probably will shoot more in the summer, but it’s been winter for a while here.
Growing up, I lived in the country, and shot at least every week for fun, and whenever mom spotted a woodchuck, or a rabbit in the garden for pest removal.
As far as teaching kids, I started shooting airguns when I was 5 and real guns when I was 7. We have a “Kids on the Range Day” coming up at my range, where in the past we’ve had kids as young as 4, I think. That’s a safety training event where they get to shoot a bit, with one-on-one focused supervision.
I carry basically every day, though.
Not often on people because of having to go to court after but weekly on practice
So I’m gonna be an outlier here because I used to shoot competitively. I was shooting once a week at least those days. I’m not really active now, so I’m down to once or maybe twice a month if I’m lucky. I shoot at a local range but if I could shoot on my own property I 1000% would, and I’d probably shoot more too. I’m just not rural enough for it rn.
I don’t have kids, but when I do, as soon as they are old enough to both hold things and concentrate enough to remember safety rules, I’ll show them how. At that point it would be to eliminate the mystery of it and to make sure they know how to be safe around guns. Beyond that, Id only keep teaching them if they want to learn, it’s up to them if they want to share my hobbies lol
I shoot for fun maybe twice a year. Not real often.
I don’t because I don’t own one. I’ve handled them a handful of times while in Scouting, and that’s about it.
My in-laws are “gun owners” but the gun hasn’t been shot in 20+ years and is just sitting on a wall.
Despite what right wing and America Bad media will have you believe, the US isn’t the wild west and not everyone owns a gun. In fact, most Americans don’t own a firearm.
A few times a year at a shooting range. I take one just about everywhere I go though. Not because I think I’m Rambo, too many shootings to not want to increase my odds of survival if someone decides to shoot up the mall, grocery store, etc. 🇺🇲🥳🇺🇲🥳🇺🇲
My father trained all of us as kids on how to safely handle guns, and when we were around 12, my brother and I took firearms safety classes at the VFW so we could go on the big bore rifle range. I’ve been given most of the guns I own either as gifts or as an inheritance.
I mostly do target practice. Either at a local gun ranges, or back home on the farm with my brother, who has set up a whole shooting range complete with a shooting shack and various types of targets.
Skeet shooting is the most fun to me by far. But honestly, ammo is expensive these days, so I don’t go often. I’ve never hunted, but my husband does.
Since I reload my own ammo I usually go to the range once a month.
I learned to shoot around the age of 7. I taught my kids how to shoot around the age of 15 because my Ex had issues with it. But they learned about guns from a very young age. They learned that they were not to touch them. They learned where they were stored and that Dad was the only one that could open the safe. And they learned about the dangers of what could happen.
Not everyone in the US owns guns. About 30% of the population owns firearms. However there are more guns in private hands than there are people in the country. So it’s something that is ingrained in our culture for a lot of us. We grew up around them and see them as another useful tool.
I shoot almost weekly and carry my pistol daily.
Weekly or so but I’m starting to get into comp shooting so there’s a routine there
Depends on season. People have thier own schedules for ranges and recreational shooting but for the most part they tend to get used heavily in the fall were people are hunting more often.
I grew up in a rural area and have never shot a gun in my life. I’m 41
Because of the price of ammo I tend to only go once every few months to the target range . I used to go often .
Firing an AR-15 backwards from a skateboard will get you to work and back in most well paved places.
Well my last boss said she forwent oral surgery to buy her kid a gun so like. I imagine many more make dumbass decisions like that
I use mine to turn the lights off.
Almost every weekend, more if I can get a day off work.
PRS matches.
How often do Americans play golf? Some folks everyday, and some haven’t pulled their clubs out the garage in years
> But how much of actually using guns / practicing is just a stereotype I’ve got stuck in my head?
This depends heavily on the person and their situation. Some people almost never shoot, some people literally incorporate ammo into their monthly budget.
> Do people just own guns for self-defence / inherit / cultural reasons
Yes. They do. They own guns for a variety of reasons from collecting to inheritance to hunting to self defense to politics to culture. Some people own guns just because they want to.
> do the majority of gun owners actually use them for practice and for fun?
That is a pretty complicated question as there’s not great hard data to point to as that’s part of how guns work in American society. We can make estimates but actually knowing what people do with guns or even how many guns there are isn’t a straightforward answer.
The NSSF does a reasonably good job of comprehensive reporting on the estimates based on market trends. People buy ammo at a certain rate, people buy targets at a certain rate, that idea.
https://www.nssf.org/research/nsga-participation-reports/
It’s a huge report and not cheap, but there’s a lot of Americans who are estimated to target shoot.
There’s another level to this and it’s more competitive and more realistic shooting oriented and that’s called 2 gun shooting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IK2RUxVq3A
That gives a good overview. Basically you go between different stages with par times and shoot the stage against other people who are doing the same. It’s a competition and 2 gun has really caught on since this video was made. There’s a lot of gun clubs that host a variety of shooting events. There’s not really a single thing that completely controls shooting competition either.
I mention 2 gun, but there’s IDPA, which is pistols only, 3 gun, which includes a shotgun, trap, skeet, High power, Bowling pin shoots, Precision pistol, Rimfire, if there’s a gun type, there’s a shooting competition for it.
> Are there differences in ages / regions etc.
Yes. That is a rabbit hole unto itself. There’s pretty large chunks of America who have almost no interactions with firearms. There’s pretty large chunks of America that start interacting with them as children, which leads to the next question.
> Do people really train their kids and show them?
Yes, they do. Part of the overall fabric of gun culture is to teach children to shoot. So much so, there are specific guns and training built for kids to learn how to safely shoot.
I was given my first firearm when I was 5. I was given my second when I was 6. I was allowed to keep ammo in my room once I proved I was both safe and responsible with the guns. I grew up on a hobby farm of 100 acres with a lot of woods. I spent many afternoons and evenings as a child shooting squirrels by myself in the woods.
While this definitely isn’t everyone’s experience, it was mine and other gun owners that I know with kids are teaching them how to safely and responsibly shoot guns.
There’s a lot of really big complex questions around what was asked here. I hope this answer helps.
I carry a gun on me every time I leave my house and I have for years and will until I’m dead. It’s a decision I’ve made for myself and I take it seriously, including practice and work almost daily.