Poster #106 - Firearm Divestment: Findings from the 2024 National Firearm Survey

• In Event: ASC Poster Session II

Abstract

Many approaches to reducing firearm violence—including buyback programs and lethal means counseling— depend on motivating people to temporarily or permanently divest of their guns. While many studies have characterized who owns firearms, almost nothing is known about divestors, let alone about how and why they divested. This study begins to fill this gap using data from the 2024 National Firearm Survey (NFS), a national web-based survey conducted in December 2024 by the research firm Ipsos. The 2024 NFS comprises a nationally representative sample of 5,0xx US adults. Of these, 202 respondents (representing 2.1% of the US population) reported they did not currently own guns but had done so within the preceding 5 years. Compared to current gun owners, divestors were more likely to be younger, female, and members of racial minorities. While most (95/202) divested for reasons they characterized as no longer needing their firearms, only 15% did so to prevent access to guns in their home (31/202). Future qualitative work with divestors identified in the NFS will further characterize their reasons for divestment. The NFS was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the New Venture Fund.

Authors

• Mary Lee, University of California, Irvine

• Deborah Azrael, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Injury Control Research Center

• Matthew Miller, Northeastern University / Harvard Injury Control Research Center