Counting Guns in Early America James Lindgren and Justin Lee Heather Northwestern University Probate inventories, though perhaps the best prevailing source for determining ownership patterns in early America, are incomplete and fallible. In this article, the authors suggest that inferences about who owned guns can be improved by using multivariate techniques and control variables of other common objects. To determine gun ownership from probate inventories, the authors examine three databases in detail—Alice Hanson Jones’ national sample of 919 inventories (1774), 149 inventories from Providence, RI (1679-1726), and Gunston Hall Plantation’s sample of 325 inventories from Maryland and Virginia (1740-1810). Also discussed are a sample of 59 probate inventories from Essex County, MA (1636-1650), Gloria L. Main’s study of 604 Maryland estates (1657-1719), Anna Hawley’s study of 221 Surry County, VA estates (1690-1715), and Judith A. McGaw’s study of 250 estates in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (1714-1789). Guns are found in about 50-73% of the male estates in each of the seven databases and in 6-38% of the female estates in each of the first four databases. Gun ownership is particularly high compared to other common items. For example, in 813 itemized male inventories from the 1774 Jones national database, guns are listed in 54% of estates, compared to only 30% of estates listing any cash, 14% listing swords or edge weapons, 25% listing Bibles, 62% listing any book, and 79% listing any clothes. Using hierarchical loglinear modeling, the authors show that guns are more common in early American inventories where the decedent was male, Southern, rural, slave- owning, or above the lowest social class—or where the inventories were more detailed. Our results are consistent with all other published studies except one: Michael Bellesiles’ Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture (2000). Contrary to Arming America’s claims about probate inventories in 17 th and 18 th century America, there were high numbers of guns, guns were much more common than swords or other edge weapons, women in 1774 owned guns at rates (18%) higher than Bellesiles claimed men did in 1765-

CE Cramer

Papers

Armed America: Firearms Ownership and Hunting in America