Gun control activists demanded better data. What they got surprised the heck out of them
A Georgetown professor just taught gun control activists an important lesson: When you criticize studies that don’t support anti-gun talking points, be careful what you wish for — you just might get it. In this case, they got an unprecedented amount of new data that obliterates their narrative.
In 2021, professor William English published the findings of his National Firearms Survey, by far the most comprehensive assessment of gun ownership ever conducted. The data demonstrated that defensive gun uses were commonplace, that ordinary Americans really like the weapons gun control activists hate most and that longstanding stereotypes about the "sort" of Americans who exercise their Second Amendment rights were misplaced.
Gun control activists predictably hated this. They attacked the report’s conclusions and author, blasting the survey over nitpicky concerns. English explained how the alleged problems wouldn’t have significantly impacted the results. Critics categorically dismissed the report anyway.
So, English humored them. He re-administered the survey, "fixing" its alleged "mistakes."
If gun control activists hated the 2021 conclusions, they will likely lose their minds over the new ones, which English just released online. The improved and redesigned 2026 survey fails to vindicate their criticisms and deals even mightier blows to anti-gun narratives.
Here are four of the most significant findings from the new report:
Anti-gun activists love to target so-called "assault weapons" and "high-capacity magazines" (magazines holding more than 10 rounds). They frame them as "weapons of war" with "no civilian purpose," claiming they’re not "in common use" for lawful purposes and therefore unprotected by the Second Amendment.
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The 2021 survey tore this argument to shreds, estimating that tens of millions of ordinary Americans own these rifles and magazines for lawful purposes like self-defense, hunting and sport shooting. Critics complained that the questions asked whether respondents had ever owned a magazine holding more than 10 rounds, or an AR-15 or "similarly styled rifle." They argued this language inflated numbers by including former (but not current) owners and semiautomatic rifles that aren’t technically "assault weapons."
The 2026 survey accordingly asked whether respondents currently own an AR-15 or a "similarly styled semiautomatic rifle with a pistol grip" — a feature universally cited in "assault weapon" definitions.
The new data vindicates English. Despite five years of efforts to "get weapons of war off our streets," an estimated 26.4 million American adults now own an AR-15 or its equivalent, up from the 24.6 million Americans estimated by the 2021 survey to have ever owned one.
The same trajectory holds for magazines. In 2021, 48% of gun owners — roughly 39 million Americans — were estimated to have ever owned one capable of holding more than 10 rounds. Five years later, an estimated 44.5 million currently own one, and gun owners are now even slightly more likely to own one (50.5%) than to not own one.
English’s original survey estimated that American adults use firearms to defend themselves, their property or others 1.67 million times annually, excluding military, police and security work.
Critics called that estimate "implausible," arguing that the broad definition — which included incidents where a gun was mentioned but not displayed — and allegedly "leading" questions meant many reported uses may have been "imagined."
Ironically, critics were right that the numbers were off, but wrong about the direction: the 2021 survey may have actually undercounted defensive gun uses.
The new dataset yielded an annual average of 2.2 million defensive gun uses. Part of the increase likely came from asking about protection against animal attacks, which accounted for over 8% of reported uses.
Gun control advocates are losing the public-carry culture war. Seventy percent of gun owners now report at least "some circumstances in which they carry a handgun for self-defense," up from 56% in the original survey.
That doesn’t necessarily reflect public carry, since some may carry only on private property. Still, the new report estimates that 33.6 million Americans are "public carriers" — that is, they have a concealed carry permit and carry for self-defense "at least sometimes." That’s a remarkable 60% increase in five years.
What could possibly explain this?
The original survey ran from Feb. 17 to March 23, 2021. Much has changed in the public-carry landscape over the last five years.
Since July 1, 2021, 12 states with over 117 million people have enacted permitless carry laws, making it easier for law-abiding gun owners to arm themselves in public. Montana’s law took effect during the original survey. The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in "New York State Rifle & Pistol Association" also opened the door for tens of millions of Americans to finally engage in some manner of public carry, even if the 10 states whose public carry laws were implicated still make it incredibly difficult, expensive and time-consuming to get a concealed carry permit.
This increased access to public carry, combined with historically unprecedented violent crime spikes, seems to have facilitated something of a nationwide "come to Jesus" moment about the importance of armed self-defense in public spaces. And it’s fundamentally changing societal perceptions regarding the right to bear arms and not in the direction that gun control activists favor.
Finally, the 2026 survey indicates that more Americans from all walks of life are recognizing the importance of their Second Amendment rights. An even greater proportion of gun owners now hail from demographic groups that historically owned guns at much lower rates. It’s a consequential cultural shift that undermines some of anti-gun activists’ favorite tropes about gun owners.
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Importantly, the new report puts to rest conjectures by anti-gun activists that the original survey found surprisingly high rates of female gun ownership only because women reported their husbands’ "household" guns as their own. The 2026 design explicitly told respondents to count only firearms that they personally own and not to include their spouse’s guns. Even with this change, the estimated proportion of gun owners who are female increased by 3.5% compared to 2021. It tuns out that women weren’t confused by the original question, after all.
In the end, gun control advocates might’ve fared better by just quietly licking their wounds when the original survey shredded their narrative. Instead, they doubled down and dared English to run the play again. He called their bluff and ran up the score.