{"id":2586,"date":"2010-03-31T14:54:03","date_gmt":"2010-03-31T19:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/?p=2586"},"modified":"2010-03-31T14:54:03","modified_gmt":"2010-03-31T19:54:03","slug":"nssfharris-poll-target-shooting-home-defense-top-ranked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/nssfharris-poll-target-shooting-home-defense-top-ranked\/2586\/","title":{"rendered":"NSSF\/Harris Poll: Target Shooting, Home Defense Top-ranked"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>NEWTOWN, Conn.\u2014 A new National Shooting Sports Foundation poll conducted by Harris Interactive found that more Americans are target shooting now than six months ago, and that \u201chome and personal defense\u201d were the main reasons Americans recently purchased firearms.<\/p>\n

The poll also showed that 43 percent of respondents, which equates to nearly 98 million people, expressed some level of interest in participating in the shooting sports or hunting.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year was a banner year for lawful firearm sales, and the results of this poll suggest the desires for personal security and recreation were drivers of most of those purchases,\u201d said Steve Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, trade association for the firearms industry. \u201cThe poll also reaffirms something we\u2019ve known for a long time\u2014that many millions of Americans want to try target shooting or hunting and are just waiting for an invitation from an experienced shooter to go to the range or afield. So, firearms owners, what are you waiting for? Make that invitation and share the enjoyment of recreational shooting or hunting with someone eager to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The online survey was conducted March 16-18 by Harris Interactive, which performs periodic surveys for NSSF on shooting and hunting participation. The questions were asked of general population adults 18 and over.<\/p>\n

Findings from the NSSF\/Harris poll include:<\/p>\n

Some 18.4 million Americans \u201ccurrently participate\u201d in handgun target shooting and 14.8 million in rifle target shooting, an increase from the 16.8 million and 13.9 million, respectively, from an NSSF poll conducted by Harris Interactive last September.<\/p>\n

Participation in the shotgun sports of \u201cskeet\/trap\u201d and \u201csporting clays\u201d was 4.2 million in each of those categories.<\/p>\n

In response to a question about why Americans made their most recent firearm purchase, 40 percent of respondents said \u201chome protection\u201d followed by 36 percent citing \u201cpersonal protection.\u201d Target shooting (30 percent) and hunting (28 percent) came next.<\/p>\n

The main barrier to people going target shooting more often? \u201cCost of ammunition\u201d was cited by 50 percent of the respondents, followed by \u201cnot enough free time\u201d (43 percent).<\/p>\n

The survey highlighted the power of a personal invitation to motivate an individual to go target shooting or hunting. Some 45 percent of respondents said an \u201cinvitation from friend or family\u201d would most encourage them to participate, ranking this personal interaction far ahead of all forms of advertising.<\/p>\n

Once invited by a friend or family member, respondents said they would want to . . .
\n– Shoot a handgun at the range (77 percent)
\n– Shoot a rifle at the range (69 percent)
\n– Go plinking (55 percent)
\n– Fire shotguns at clay targets (54 percent)
\n– Take a self-protection class (54 percent)
\n– Go hunting for various game species, which was cited by an average of 25 percent of respondents.<\/p>\n

To learn more about the shooting sports and firearm safety, visit nssf.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEWTOWN, Conn.\u2014 A new National Shooting Sports Foundation poll conducted by Harris Interactive found that more Americans are target shooting now than six months ago, and that \u201chome and personal defense\u201d were the main reasons Americans recently purchased firearms. The poll also showed that 43 percent of respondents, which equates to nearly 98 million people, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[40,459],"class_list":["post-2586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-from-the-industry","tag-home-defense","tag-target-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}