Hunting Culture in Gun Culture 2.

0:

Where Are the

Trucks and Bucks?
Natalie Wilson
“ While today’s Gun Culture 2.0 is built
around handguns and a narrative of
self-defense as the primary motivation for
gun ownership, hunters are hardly a
marginal population, and hunting practices
still represent a key part of how guns
actually function in today’s society.
 weapons of war

The Advocate

“a federal ban on military-style assault weapons” would be the most effective

action to “decrease the frequency and deadliness of mass shootings”

The AR-15
Dangerous assault weapon or tool for hunting?
40%
of gunowners named hunting as one reason
they own a gun on the 2015 National
Firearms Survey

32%
of gunowners cited this as their primary
reason for owning a gun in a 2013 Pew
Research Center survey

21 states have passed constitutional provisions

since 1996 guaranteeing the right to hunt
(Azrael, Hepburn, Hemenway, & Miller, 2017; Dimock, Doherty, & Christian, n.d.; Pew Research Center, 2013; “State
Constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish,” n.d.).
They’re popular
(“Modern Sporting Rifle - AR-15 platform-based rifles,” 2017)
AR-15 manufacturer Colt marketed
the rifle for hunting in 1963 after it
was first invented (Will Drabold, 2016)

Let’s start with the first set of

slides
 In 2016, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said that if you used a semi-automatic
rifle like the AR-15 to go hunting “you should stick to fishing”
● National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) 2010 survey found 60% of
respondents who owned an MSR owned this gun for hunting
● Some hunters believe high-powered rifle is most ethical choice of tool, more
likely to kill an animal “quickly and humanely” (Neilson, 2006)

Hunting with an AR-15

“These are very useful tools for hunting.”
● 78% of American adults approved of hunting in 2006 (up from 75% in 2003 and 73% in 1995)
(Responsive Management, 2015).
● 87% of respondents approve of hunting for food but not for trophy hunting.
● 95% of hunters say they eat what they kill.
● Age positively correlates with approval of hunting, while higher levels of education negatively
correlates with approval of hunting (Street, 2013).

According to a 2003 Gallup report 76% of Americans oppose banning all types of hunting.
(David W. Moore, 2003)
Does rural
upbringing
matter? having a father who hunts correlates
strongly with hunting participation.
 1985-1990 2006-2011
Women 10-20x less
Women doubled Women ⬆
likely to hunt
Men ⬇ 16% 25%
 43% → 22%
Percentages of hunters hunting primarily to obtain meat, 1980 → 2006
(Kellert, 1985; Street, 2013)

9% → 27%
Percentages of hunters hunting to be with friends and family, 1980 → 2006
(Kellert, 1985; Street, 2013)
Hunter
retention

46% of former Less than 11% of The total

hunters quit hunters number of days
for family or reported that hunted, average
work. other competing hunting days
44% quit due leisure activities per hunter, and
stopped them total spending
to overall lack
from hunting. on hunting have
of time.
all increased.
What’s missing?
The difficulties one Centering white, In-depth accounts of
faces when choosing a middle-aged men who the social and cultural
method of counting the hunt in research has meaning of hunting to
nation’s hunters parallel come at the expense of those who actually hunt
the challenge of those who come from must be collected using
counting gun marginalized ethnographic
owners overall. populations. methods.
 Questions?

?
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 References
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