gun owners are happier?
from the wsj
An interesting article following up the recent kerfuffle over the Obama quote about bitter people and their frustration outlets. I agree that there are people who put up walls with issues like gun control or immigration to avoid the difficult discussions and inherent hypocricy of those hard line stances (ie.; we’re almost all immigrants here in the US, right?). I don’t agree that simply being a gun owner makes you a bitter person, and this article goes even farther to state that bitter people don’t generally buy guns. Those who do own guns (34% of y’all’s households) are happier than the general population, are wealthier, and tend to donate proportionally more money than non-owners. They even tend to give more blood than the rest of us. This isn’t a cause and affect thing though, unless you happen to use your gun to demand a 32% raise.
The people i know who own guns tend to match these tendencies; not necessarily in material ways, but in personality and outlook. They tend to be more self-sufficient and self-reliant, more of the “bootstrap yourself” can-do attitude. For them, owning a gun is like owning your own hammer, just another tool of being an independent person.
I can appreciate this idea, as i’m one of the stubborn independent types too, in many ways. I also own several hammers of various types, and i’m a relatively happy person, though haven’t yet felt the need for a gun.
2 Responses to “gun owners are happier?”
The outdoors angle is key, excellent point. I don’t hunt, but i do spend more time outdoors than most people simply from cycling, let alone the camping and aimless wandering time in the woods. There is a lot of tranquility, even in a simple backyard garden, watching the birds and beetles and squirrels.
That is an interesting relationship. But I think there might be a third variable at work. I recently read an article that reported on an survey that revealed people who hike, canoe, camp, spend time in nature and interacting with nature are happier than people who do not.
This article also pointed out that hippy types who simply hiked, canoed, and camped were as happy as those who fished and hunted. Yet both spent time in the outdoors but took a different approach to the outdoors.
Now, what do people who own guns do that other people do not? They hunt. So I think the gun ownership is actually, for the most part, a spurious variable or correlation. Although, I must admit there probably is a certain peace of mind that comes with gun ownership.
Cheers,
MS