We recently reported on 2022’s top 10 handguns among women who responded to The Well Armed Woman’s annual survey of gun owners. In addition to revealing much about women’s preferences in their gun choices, it also yielded considerable information on the demographics of the survey respondents.
So who is the new woman gun owner?
As we continually reiterate on this site, women are not monolithic, thus neither were their responses in the TWAW survey. For example, the survey results revealed a shift in the average age of women gun owners—falling for the first time in three years. How old is she?
There is no arguing that there has been an exponential increase in the sales and marketing efforts of guns to women in the past decade, but the survey reveals that modern women have been gun owners for much longer—about twice as long on average—which begs the “chicken or egg” question. This doesn’t surprise us at NRA Women, as we have been in the driver’s seat for many years in getting women to take responsibility for their personal safety, as well encouraging them to become involved in recreational and competitive shooting as a hobby.
The survey reports on other ancillary data such as ethnicity and political preferences, income and marital status, but one statistic that stands out is the region of the United States where the women who responded to the survey live, which is illustrated by one of many colorful graphics provided throughout the results page. Are you in any of these "gun dense" regions?
Do the survey results reflect every single woman gun owner in the United States? Of course not. But they do provide a representative sampling of who the new American woman gun owner is—or into whom she has evolved.
Check out the complete results to see how your compare—and to be included in 2023 survey results, be sure to answer the call for respondents later this year!