Vote4America, which is working to register people to vote in time for the November presidential election, reported that more than 10 million hunters and gun owners are not registered. If even a small fraction of them were to register and vote for Trump in November, it would swamp whoever the Democrats nominated to challenge him in August.
22 million new gun owners
The calculation starts with the number of people who have purchased firearms since Biden took over the Oval Office in January 2020. That number is roughly equal to the population of the state of Florida.
The National Firearms Industry Trade Society (NSSF, formerly the National Shooting Sports Foundation) reported that more than 22 million people have purchased firearms since that date for the first time. On April 1 of this year, Florida's population reached 23 million for the first time.
“These are gun owners who have not considered what this right means for their lives and their personal freedoms before purchasing a gun, and that will be taken into consideration in this election,” said Mark Oliva, communications director for the NSSF.
He added:
This could become a factor in the upcoming election as people consider whether their government is willing to infringe on their constitutional rights.
Unregistered Gun Owners
According to Vote4America, the number of unregistered gun owners in battleground states is more than enough to swamp the Democratic candidates. In Pennsylvania, for example, more than 515,000 gun owners are not registered to vote. In Michigan and North Carolina, there are 370,000 unregistered gun owners in each state.
How important is this report from Vote4America? There are currently more than 800,000 gun owners in Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona who are not registered to vote. Trump lost these three states by just 44,000 votes in the contested 2020 presidential election.
There's even more good news for Trump: Thanks to a surge in new gun buyers under Biden, it's estimated that more than 82 million Americans now own at least one gun.
Over the past few years, we have seen a significant increase in Americans choosing to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
There are a number of reasons for this, including concerns about personal safety, rising crime, the refusal of some prosecutors to lock up criminals, and the Biden administration's efforts to restrict rights through heavy-handed regulation.
As many new firearm owners learn in firearms training classes, the freedom to purchase, keep, carry and use a firearm is preserved because self-defense is a God-given right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. For many, this is a revelation. It is also an incentive for the federal government to not confiscate newly acquired firearms.
Gun owners are more likely to vote
Gun owners already outvote non-gun owners by double digits. Not only do gun owners outvote non-gun owners, but the gap is widening, according to Mark Joslin, a political science professor at the University of Kansas and author of “The Gun Gap: How Gun Ownership Affects Political Behavior and Attitudes.” What's more, the more guns people own, the more likely they are to vote.
Jocelyn writes:
The empirical evidence provides a strong case that gun owners are an important political group in American politics: they represent a large group, they exhibit distinctive voting choices, and they reliably show up to the polls on Election Day.
As a group, they are also active in negotiations with gun control groups and politicians. … The stronger a member's attachment to guns, the more likely they are to vote, and the more likely they are to vote Republican.
In his 2020 book, he wrote that 80% of gun owners self-reported voting in the November election, and that of an estimated 82 million gun owners in the U.S., 65 million of them should vote in 2024.
Gun license holders could influence the outcome of the election
“If we could get 2 percent of licensed hunters to vote, Republicans would win in a landslide victory,” said Baker Leavitt, general counsel for Vote4America.
However, the New York Post warns:
If Republicans don't address the political apathy of gun supporters in key battleground states, they will have significantly less votes to win in November.
Whoever the Democratic nominee is, a clear gun control platform would certainly boost voter enthusiasm, and current nominee Kamala Harris has demonstrated that the Second Amendment does not prevent Americans from disarming.
If four in five of the 22 million new firearm owners, along with others who have long exercised their firearm rights, show up to vote on November 5th, any Democrats will be wiped out.
Related article:
On gun control, Harris is more to the left than Biden.
