More evidence that Democrats should have been nicer to gun owners

Washington Post - Sixty-two percent of gun owners voted for Trump, according to data from the 2016 American National Election Studies. This was 4 percent better than Romney’s share of the gun owners’ vote in 2012 and 10 percent more than McCain’s in 2008.

Let’s note, here, that over the past three presidential elections, a majority of gun owners have supported Republican candidates. But there was a time when gun owners weren’t so overwhelmingly Republican. In 1976, 50 percent of Republicans, 48 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Democrats owned a gun. That changed in the 1980s and 1990s. By 2000, 30 percent of independents and only 27 percent of Democrats reported having a gun in the home. That drop continued among Democrats; by 2016, only 23 percent owned guns.

Meanwhile, Republican gun ownership has stayed fairly constant. In 2012, 54 percent of Republicans owned guns. That’s nearly the same figure reported in 1973.