• Joseph Wertz, Deborah Azrael, David Hemenway, Susan Sorenson, and Matthew Miller.
• Joseph Wertz, Deborah Azrael, David Hemenway, and Matthew Miller are with Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA. Joseph Wertz is also with Harvard College, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Matthew Miller is also with Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston. Susan Sorenson is with The Evelyn Jacobs Ortner Center on Family Violence, School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
• Am J Public Health. 2018 Jul 1; 108 (7): 871-877.

ObjectivesTo quantify the proportion of current US gun owners who are new to owning firearms and compare new versus long-standing gun owners with respect to their firearms and firearm-related behaviors.MethodsWe performed a cross-sectional analysis of a nationally representative probability-based online survey conducted in 2015 in the United States. We defined new gun owners as current firearm owners who acquired all of their firearms within the past 5 years, but who lived in a home without a gun at some time over the past 5 years. We defined long-standing firearm owners as all other current gun owners.ResultsNew gun owners represented 10% of all current US adult gun owners. In addition to being younger than long-standing gun owners, new gun owners were more likely to be liberal, own fewer guns, own handguns, own guns only for protection, and store guns in a safe manner.ConclusionsGun ownership is dynamic, with approximately 1 million Americans becoming new gun owners each year. Public Health Implications. Clinical guidelines should be updated to explicitly endorse re-evaluating household firearm status at regular intervals.

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