Nearly 30 million Americans obtained firearms from 2021 through 2024, Harvard-linked researchers reported March 17 in Annals of Internal Medicine. A December 2024 national survey of more than 4,000 owners, with Deborah Azrael as senior author, put acquisitions at about 29.8 million people, including 11.2 million first-time buyers, and found women were roughly 46 percent of newcomers, a share a September 2026 RAND analysis also reached.

Hispanic adults and people of color together were about 46 percent of new owners. General Social Survey data show adult women’s personal ownership rising from 10 percent in 2018 to 16 percent in 2024, with women growing from 22 percent to 32 percent of all U.S. gun owners. RAND found that since 2018 women in nearly every race, age, marital, education, and income group increased ownership, often faster than men, while NSSF first-time buyer work and the Harvard survey both identified personal protection as the leading reason.