1 It's been a pretty clear sign that a significant portion of the country figured out he couldn't be trusted about half way through 2009.  Though the ammo shortage has more to do with overtures that the Democrat-controlled Congress made, which started a rolling over-buying, which lead to still running shortages.
(Granted, the Obama Administration also botched up a lot of the core components of several important cancer medications and nearly lead to a critical shortage there, as well.  But the media couldn't bring themselves to ever write those stories honestly.)

2 Unfortunately, most guns are concentrated in the hands of small number of gun collectors. So, we still have a pitifully small ratio of gun owners for the population.

3 Even Gallup polls still claim 41% of US households have at least one gun, and it seems reasonable to assume quite a few are refusing to answer. And there's still plenty of data supporting an increase in first-time buyers, especially women.

-j

4

The graphic I linked to says,

More than 20% of firearm owners have purchased their first firearm within the last five years.

There are certainly a lot of people yet who don't own guns, but the image of the lone crazy who owns an entire arsenal is left-wing propaganda. (Yeah, there are a few such people but they don't own the lion's share of firearms in private hands.)

Gun ownership is mainstream and always has been.These sales figures are real, and politicians know about them. It's people voting with their wallets, to the tune of several hundred dollars each, and that's a pretty heart-felt vote. And the longer it goes on, the louder it speaks. Tens of millions of people are making very clear they don't want to lose their Second Amendment rights, not by demonstrating in the streets, but by quietly visiting gun stores and spending money there.

5 I remember about 15 years ago, a relative of mine had expressed doubt about the percentage of households with at least one gun. She'd grown up in a house with guns, but hadn't had one around since then. Her husband coughed quietly, and then told her about his bolt-action .22 (securely stored where no curious grandchildren could get to it). They'd been through two or three moves without her ever noticing it.

...and now she's encouraging him to pick up something a bit more appropriate for protection.

-j

6 Well, that's comforting. I wish to see a gistogram, but that is not possible to know without a massive registration effort. Although... It should be knowable in strict registration states like Maryland, minus gangbangers.

7 This graphic says there are 136 million gun owners.

8 The numbers in that graphic are not useful. They just took 42 percent of the total US population, ignoring the 74 million children (and the 5.8 million felons...). Gallup polling claims 46% of adult men and 23% of adult women own guns, which would give ~87 million. I'd treat that as a lower bound, given the politics, but 136 million looks way too high.

...unless the Democrats win this year...

-j

9 I think nobody knows for sure. And I suspect that's a good thing.

10 Meanwhile, it appears that more than a half of gun owners are idiots who answer questions about their guns posed by random people calling them on the phone.

11 James, now a happy resident of Texas (but he hasn't been through a summer there yet), just bought a new carry gun.

12 I've got little reason to lie about it; The government knows of at least *some* of my guns, and as I'm living in South Carolina now, I'd be more of an outlier if I didn't own any.
The polling figures for gun ownership are undoubtedly on the low side, and I'm pretty sure the figures for how many guns are owned on average are substantially low, too.