"1% gun ownership during American Revolution?" Topic

One of my professors made this statement today in class while discussing something else. I asked him about it after class because it seemed incorrect to me. The research I've seen says 14%-50%+, plus militia members in some states were apparently armed by the State. The Rev War isn't really my period so I wanted to check in here.

According to my professor a study done in 1803 showed that only 3% of Americans owned firearms. Once again this seems low.

So, what was the rate of firearm ownership at the time of the American Revolution?

Considering how many colonist lived in rural areas, where game would provide a substantial boost to one's diet, it's really hard to imagine that it could be that low.

Interesting. It flies in the face of everything I have read, but if it is true would be interesting and challenge what I think. Of course I have focused on the war in the South, where the demographics were different from Boston or Philadelphia.

I look forward to seeing if anyone here can reference primary sources.

I suspect a bit of anti gun bias on the part of your professor, but let's pass on that.
I admit I don't know the answer, and also suspect that if I Googled it, I could find whatever proportion I wanted.
First, let's leave out the massive slave population. 30-40%?

In New England the head of the household was automatically enrolled in the militia. Some, the fittest and youngest, as Minutemen.
A lot showed up at Lexington and Concord.
Even more showed up to besiege the British in Boston.

Pennsylvania is an odd duck. The Quaker controlled legislature wanted nothing to do with a militia. See Franklin's Associators.

In the Southern colonies, there were militia laws, excluding slaves.
There were also Loyalist militias and formations.

I think, considering all these things, that 14% is kind of close +/- whatever.

In a firearm ownership per individual I wouldn't be surprised to see an ownership rate in single digits.

Even at one firearm per frontier households keep in mind that means per what often would be eight to twelve individuals, then there are slaves, indentured servants, urban individuals, sailors, folks too poor for their own gun, etc.

As per guns per able bodied men fit and eligible for militia duty, that could be much higher without interfering with a 1% per capita ownership.

The slave population is a big factor lowering it, definitely. I could imagine 14% myself being somewhat reasonable. Googling it I found an interested Williams and Mary study:

link

…that holds it was much higher, especially in the South.

The book/research which led to the 14% number is reviewed here:

link

***
Urban ownership is another issue, true. Not much use for a musket in Manhattan.

I didn't know that the Gallup polls were around in 1803 to make that study. Can we have a citation for that study?

I can see a 1% rate in major cities, perhaps, but certainly not in most small towns and rural America.

I'm willing to bet the stats are cooked to sell a false narrative.

Many if not most households in rural areas would probably possess firearms, just as they do today.

When defined as "white males over the age of 16 living in an area of a low population density" your percentage would be quite high but I would bet still less than 50%. Muskets were not cheap nor easy to come by.

If your "per capita" actually included non-whites, women, and anyone under 16, then I would think a low, single-digit percentage would be highly likely.

Know what the professor thinks for the test, but otherwise posts here seem to make be realistically derived estimates.

In the Southern colonies, there were militia laws, excluding slaves.

There were militia laws because of the slaves. The army took care of Indians, but Slave revolts were a reality and the whites were armed to keep them down. The news from places like Brazil and Haiti must have terrified white southerners. They had guns because they were afraid of their slaves.

In approximately 2001 an author names Michael Bellesiles wrote a book claiming gun ownership was low in colonial times. It was a bestseller. It was also mostly made up. It is still sited by many despite its scholarly faults. I'm sure your teacher was influenced by it. It fits some political stances…but not historical fact. It is referred to in the William and Mary article posted by forwardmarchstudios. That link will get you closer to the truth…probably over 60% of male head of household owned a working gun.

Besides the William and Mary study, see here:

PDF link

As noted by an above poster, guns were counted on a per household basis, which would include every man, woman, and child in the house. I believe around 50% of households had guns back then, compared to roughly 1/3 of today's households. So, as you can see, you can manipulate statistics if you don't specify if you are just counting able bodied males, everyone minus slaves, every one to include slaves, etc.

Some related reading:

link

link

link

The comment I got from a historian working colonial estates was that "firearms were more common than chairs."
But if you think of full mobilization as 10% of population and knock off a fifth as slaves, 8% long arms ownership provides a rifle or musket for every free white male fit to be drafted--say a quarter-million men. (So nearly as I can determine, the Continental Army peaked at about 30,000.)

But yes, I suspect your professor was quoting Bellesiles, who is fraudulent. When he could be shown to be quoting records which didn't exist, He just shoved in different appendices and reprinted the book without altering the text. Certain professors love that book.

Ah. Cities. Please keep in mind that Philadelphia was the biggest city in British North America--and it had a population of 25,000. You could walk across Boston or New York the long way before lunch. Urban populations as we understand them didn't exist in Washington's America.

Michael Bellesiles' book, "Arming America," linked to twice above, had as its thesis that early America was a relatively unarmed society. The book was a 90-day wonder and won the Bancroft Prize, but the whole thing went pear-shaped rather quickly.

Bellesiles initially refused to let critics see his research, and when the criticism grew more serious he claimed it all had been destroyed in a flood. Columbia University rescinded the Bancroft Prize and after an investigation by Emory University Bellesiles resigned his professorship there.

Clayton Cramer and James Lindgren, also linked above, were two of Bellesiles' critics. A reasonably accurate summary of the whole kerfuffle can be found at wikipedia: link

As Robert mentions immediately above, some of Bellesiles' claimed sources were found to be nonexistant. In other cases, sign-in sheets at libraries and government record repositories showed he had never consulted records he cited in his book.

Despite the complete debunking of his thesis and "scholarship," for some years afterward Bellesiles would appear at seminars with like-minded "scholars" where they would continue to claim that America was relatively unarmed until the early to mid 19th century.

A good article on the subject from the Journal of the American Revolution.
link

Seems that the pro gun lobby want to continue the idea that high levels of gun ownership has always been there, and the anti gun lobby want to disprove that idea. Neither it seems has anything concrete to back up their arguments.

Actually, as well, a lot of "civilians" were on the front lines, and had to fight and/or protect themselves from the Indians.

Around the time of the AWI, there were 2.5 million whites living in the American Colonies, and about 500,000 slaves.

In calculating quotas for the Continental Army, a figure of 10% of the population was deemed to be men of military age.

Large reserves of muskets were held in magazines to arm those men who had no weapon of their own.

In some Colonies, slaves were not only armed (mainly to protect crops from birds and other predators), but also were required to serve in the militia.

[Anyone else think that the Editor-in-Chief should cross-post this to the AWI boards?]

What numbers ARE supported by evidence?

When you consider all the people unlikely to own one (children, women, elderly, some city dwellers, the destitute, slaves, possibly indentured servants), single digit percentage doesn't seem like it's unrealistic.

3-4% of the entire population is still a lot of weapons.

There's a reason arms from the Spanish and French were so welcomed.

The militia being armed by the state numbers depend on why they were armed by the state. If it was so they were armed with appropriate weapons then it makes a lot of sense – hunting rifles make for poor military weaponry.

As others have said, a 3 or 4% gun ownership rate is actually pretty high. Hunting rifles would be expensive and no more than one would be needed for a household and would be pretty much a non-issue for a city inhabitant.

The myth comes from a study of colonial America by historian Michael A. Bellesiles. He faked the data to reach the conclusion that individual American's did not commonly own guns when the Constitution was written. He was trying to argue that the 2nd Amendment was not saying people have the right to bear arms when it said people have the right to bear arms.

He was given great accolades and prizes for writing a book that said what people wanted to hear. Then lost his prizes, his job, and more (but I guess kept the money from the book sales).
link

Worth noting that Spanish and French arms were welcomed for other reasons than an absence of longarms. Household firearms were of every caliber imaginable, frequently rifled and lacked bayonet lugs. They were NOT what you'd arm a battalion of Continentals with. Also campaigns are rough on equipment.

And keep in mind that people drafted for 90 days of militia service--or packed off to the Continentals--were generally poorer and otherwise more expendable than the population at large. Less likely to own a weapon as a result. (I suspect, though I cannot prove, that sometimes weapons were left at home anyway: the now weaponless man would then be issued one which might just accidentally go home with him. Washington does complain about the trouble getting weapons back from the militia when he armed them.)

Sandinista, I think "neither side has facts" considerably overstates the anti gun lobby position. The "pro gun" people did not add fraudulent statistics from non-existent sources to the debate. And British officers were quite emphatic about the high percentage of gun owners in 1775.

So what IS the true number then?
Numbers of 50% would mean that pretty much every man was armed (and as many men could not be armed, that would mean several owned multiple weapons, likely on the frontier, unlikely in Boston).

Robert – Well, sure if the army is going to give me a gun, I'm not going to waste my own, especially if there's a chance I can hang on to a Spanish musket after I head home for the farm :-)

50% gun ownership, stated in an unqualified manner, would mean in essence that every single male--white or black, regardless of age from 1 to 99--had a gun. That is patently not accurate.

I have seen documents from the mid 1800's for my county in Tennessee where an official had a list of households in his district and which ones had a gun and if they had more than one. This was important for calling up the militia since you would only want people that had a firearm or could provide one or more if needed. Not all households had a firearm and some had more than one. Averaged out it came to over 50%. For colonial times, the closer you got to the Indian Nations and the frontier, the more likely you would find a firearm in the home.

Interesting that but the more important PC question is how many households had bowling balls?

Congratulate everyone on a coherent and useful discussion on a historical topic that often raises peoples temperature, as it were. You are all a credit to the hobby.

Zargon,

Interestingly I have 2 guns and 2 bowling balls. Although the guns see much more use.

I second Rich Bliss. Thank you!

King – 1 in 10 of the entire population does sound like it makes a lot of sense, now that it's reasoned out like that.

I do not believe that any reliable statistics exist for percentage of gun ownership in the thirteen colonies. As some have noted, it would certainly vary quite a bit depending on the area in which people lived. On or near the frontier, there must have been some sort of firearm in just about every household, often more than one. Let's not forget that the "frontier" was still in western New York and Pennsylvania during the Revolution, and Indian raids could penetrate far into settled areas (the Wyoming massacre took place in N.E. Pennsylvania).

The rate would have been lower in long-settled areas, especially the larger towns and cities, and especially among the poor. A big factor was the high cost of guns back then, remembering that mass production did not yet exist; every part of a gun had to be made by hand by a highly skilled artisan. On the other hand, the need for weapons in urban areas can easily be underestimated. There have always been criminals, but police forces did not yet exist. Also, there were slaves in cities too (including many Northern ones during the colonial era). Outside towns, farmers needed guns to protect crops and domestic stock from wild animals, not just for recreational hunting.

My conclusion is that gun ownership fell somewhere in the middle of the possible range. On account of the high cost, much lower than at present, but much higher, due to real need, than modern anti-gun zealots would like to have us believe.

Just finished reading a book about blacks serving in the AWI (sorry, blanking on the title. Author was a former military man, blanking on the name, too). To completely rule out armed black men, or even armed slaves or indentured servants, is also inaccurate. In regions near American Indian tribal regions, even slaves might be armed, if at least temporarily, in the event of raids or other conflicts. During the war itself, both slave and free blacks served in surprisingly significant numbers. British soldiers reported that American forces often included black soldiers (and the Redcoats engaged in racial derision of the same). Rhode Island fielded a fully black regiment at one point, and there were other both segregated and integrated units active during the war. Of course, certainly in the southern colonies (most notably the Carolinas and Georgia) there was great fear and opposition among the white slaveowners towards arming slaves, or even allowing slaves to serve in any capacity, and indeed the losses of Charleston and Savannah in some part arose from this refusal, as General Lincoln repeatedly requested to be able to recruit slaves and black soldiers, knowing he could then easily out man the British. His requests were consistently denied by the local legislative bodies, even as the British forces mounted up victories.

The above is not to say that either free blacks or black slaves were ever fully armed, or that such arms as they had would constitute anything above at most a very few percentage points of the armed population (or even a single point among the population as a whole), nevertheless, they were not wholly without arms across the breadth of the colonies. So just something else to consider when speculating on the distribution of arms in colonial America.

There were about 1,600,000 people in the colonies in the decade before the war. 20% of them were slaves. 50% were women.

The US Population website estimates 2.5 million; of these, I believe about 0.5 million were slaves.

link

Your estimate of 50% being women also needs to be treated with care; the vast majority of white women emigrated with a man (either as a sexual partner, child or other family member, or servant), whereas single, unaccompanied men had several routes by which to arrive (including white enslavement and indentured servitude – about 1 in 4 of all white males entering between 1700 and 1775). The natural order of things is that female births outstrip male births by up to 5% anyway, whilst infant mortality was also higher among boys than girls in this era, so it would take time for numbers to reach parity given the great pro-male imbalance among adult immigrants.

There was an article, some years ago, in the "Brigade Dispatch" (journal of the Brigade of the American Revolution) which discussed the cost, both absolute and relative, of purchasing a "stand of arms". If I can find it, I shall post some numbers.

Rhode Island fielded a fully black regiment at one point…

Er, no sorry, this is a myth; see "They fought bravely but were unfortunate" by Daniel Popek. It appears that less than half the men were black and were kept largely in their own companies.

The problem you run into today is that many commentators let their current gun biases influence how they view gun ownership in the America of the AWI. This frequently turns on trying to make determinations based on subjective interpretations of very inadequate information. If instead we look at it from the Colonial American perspective, things seem different.

To start slaves don't count in determining gun ownership. The same is true of women and young male children. What primarily matters is white males of combat age. During the AWI known Tories in areas dominated by the rebels fall into that same catagory. Thus the denominator is going to be much smaller from the colonial perspective than the 21st century perspective.

The next issue is that legal ownership of firearms isn't as important as access to firearms. In a household there might be several white males of combat age, and there might be more than one firearm. However all firearms might be legally the property of just one member of the household. If you have a total of three muskets, rifles and/or fowling pieces then up to three white adult males in that household should be counted as having access to firearms. If you use access to firearms rather than just ownership of them, the numerator is higher.

If you look at the number of individuals being the legal owners of firearms as a percentage of the total population during the AWI, the percentage is going to be low. If you look at it from the colonial perspective as the number of white adult males having access to firearms as a percentage of the total white adult male population, it is going to be very high.

Seems to me, as a fairly ignorant observer, that the criterion of 'gun ownership' doesn't apply to some of the calculations. For better or worse, isn't 'owning a gun, or guns' different from 'individual with access to a musket or hunting weapon'?

On the flipside "Owning a gun" is not at all equivalent to "Owning a weapon suitable for military service" though the distinction was less meaningful in those days.

For that matter, it also doesn't mean "has sufficient available ammunition for a 3 hour battle with the red coats".
Chewing on musket balls to make them fit because your musket is the wrong caliber from what the army can supply isn't a great way to spend the day.

(And heck, it doesn't even mean "is fighting the red coats" as tends to be implied, plenty of colonials fought for the crown)

As a few have pointed out, a number in itself does become somewhat meaningless unless we know exactly what we're trying to count.

Maybe a better question is: Do we know what percentage of the American and British armies were militia (as opposed to regulars equipped and clothed by the governments) and what percentage of those militia were armed themselves?

I suspect those numbers will be a lot more relevant to a war gamer (and let us ignore the tedious gun religion debates)

The myth comes from a study of colonial America by historian Michael A. Bellesiles.

Interesting how posters who have not read the entire thread are posting a response almost identical to one another.

The Founders could scarcely have predicted how relatively quickly the American frontier would be settled. That the population would shift to urban centers and the considerable improvement in firearm technology.

Trying to use gun ownership in the late 18th cent. to justify a political agenda of any kind today is problematic. You need to look for the modern equivalency.

The storing of firearms for a well regulated militia makes sense in the 18th and 19th centuries this would include an armory to house small arms.

This would, as mentioned earlier, make it easier to supply ammunition and accoutrements. Parade ground maneuvers would be easier to execute. We still do this today in the modern form of the National Guard.

I too tended to believe individual ownership was high in that time period. But I see I need to re-think this. Then again I know people who believe the Revolution was won by the militia alone. Interesting discussion.

Still don't understand the fascination on this subject, is it a thing about the anti lobby saying people were more peaceable way back when than now in the colonies. Doubt it, just less availability of firearms.

Is there really an Oz?

The funny thing is that this potentially political discussion is much less angry than when I asked if people would be interested in a smart-phone aided miniatures game… :)

(the answer was NO…)

@Zargon
It's an issue because of the wording of the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The touchy phrase here is "A well regulated Militia".
Scholars have debated that for a while. Does it mean that anyone owning a firearm must be enrolled in the National Guard?
I have seen some quotes from Colonial legislation calling the whole of the free male citizenry the militia. And "well regulated" only meant that they should be trained in proper use.

Bellesiles was accused of deliberately falsifying downwards so as to belittle the influence of the militia.
Then the arguments get weird.

Can't imagine in rural areas, and that was most of the country wouldn't have had firearms as I would think most were used in hunting or defense.So not buying this professor's argument.

For those constitutional scholars out there, this is what we were specifically discussing when this came up:

link

An interesting take is made by Judge Posner, in that this decision, like Roe v. Wade, essentially created a legal right (irrelevant of whether or not they are natural or human rights) that people didn't previously have.

Winston Smith wrote "@Zargon
It's an issue because of the wording of the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The touchy phrase here is "A well regulated Militia"."

Well that is because those unfamiliar with the militia system at the time don't understand what is required to have an effective militia that could protect the country.

First you must have an armed populace, then you must be allowed to organize them and train them. The Second Amendment was written that way to protect both needs. First the People would have their right to keep and bear arms protected. Then the authority of the individual state's to organize the militia was also protected.

Prior to the ratification, the primary rationale used under English Common Law for disbanding the militia and disarming the populace was that a standing army had been created to provide security.
In one little sentence the founders managed to declare a doctrine that for the US to remain a free nation it would rely upon a militia for security, that the militia required an armed populace so that it could exist, and that an armed populace must be trained and organized to ensure the militia would be able to provide security. It is one of the most complete and encompassing sentences ever written.

Also, I see ALL women as being totally discounted as owning/possessing firearms in many posts above, when that clearly is not the case.

I suspect many women did have access to firearms, especially if their men went off to war, and they knew how to shoot them.

No doubt also, many possessed more than one firearm in their households as well.

So is that really a description of "households with arms" and how does that differ from owning or possessing arms? How does that differ from possessing/owning weapons effective in contributing military defence, or resistance- before one allows for political sympathies.

Is this about arming an effective militia or gun crime in the 13 Colonies? Anybody mention pistols? What about axe and cutlass crime?

Where do fowling pieces fit in to the picture?

This is a bit "off topic," but some posts demonstrate a lack of understanding of the status and relevance of the militia. The Bill of Rights was all about concerns that a centralized national government might create a new tyranny over the people. Then (and now) the militia was controlled by the states (and before that, by the individual colonies), not by the Federal Government or British Crown. So, the Second Amendment was really about ensuring that the states would retain a capacity to mount resistance against an out-of-control national government.

What will probably greatly surprise most readers is that militia laws are still on the books of some (perhaps most) states. The National Guard is basically the first-line militia, serving voluntarily and receiving Federal support in return for maintaining specified standards and training. However, the militia as a whole still basically comprises the entire able-bodied male populace, and can be called into service in whole or in part by the state governor whenever required as defined by state statutes. Today, this would basically only apply during a time of extreme emergency when the National Guard has been called into Federal service and is not available for local use. In fact, some use was made of the militia laws during World War II when there were (unrealistic) concerns about a possible Japanese invasion of the U.S. West Coast. Some militia units, without uniforms and armed with their own weapons, were used to patrol rugged and thinly populated areas. So, the militia role now would be that of a last-ditch home guard.

I suspect some of you will not believe what I am saying here, but I have researched the question for my own state, which definitely does still have militia laws on the books.
So, I challenge you to look up the relevant laws for your own state. Oh yes, don't forget to polish up your trusty pike or fowling piece. You never know when you may receive a greeting from the office of your beloved governor!

Anybody mention pistols?

Pistols were apparently quite rare in the pre-AWI Colonies, mainly because their only value was as either duelling weapons or as armament for coach drivers/highway(wo)men (so very much a class thing, in either case). Militarily, they were only issued to the rank-and-file of cavalry and highland regiments, whereas mounted infantry officers would purchase their own; so those (mainly plastic) infantry figures from this period which are waving them around are fairly inaccurate..