Objectives

This study examined errors in estimating household gun ownership that result from interviewing only 1 adult per household.

Methods

Data from 2 recent telephone surveys and a series of in-person surveys were used to compare reports of household gun ownership by husbands and wives.

Results

In the telephone surveys, the rate of household gun ownership reported by husbands exceeded wives’ reports by an average of 12 percentage points; husbands’ reports also implied 43.3 million more guns. The median “gender gap” in recent in-person surveys is 7 percentage points.

Conclusions

Future research should focus on respondents’ reports about personally owned guns.