The National Shooting Sports Foundation reports that 74 percent of U.S. gun retailers saw an increase in female patrons from 2011 to 2012, with women making up 20 percent of sales. Since 2005, female gun ownership in America has doubled in the $8 billion industry. In contrast, a General Social Survey shows that the number of Americans who live in a household with at least one gun is lower than it’s ever been, with 32 percent either owning a firearm themselves or living with someone who does. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, roughly half of Americans told researchers there was a gun in their household.
