According to a study conducted by WalletHub, Montana, the Treasure State, is also the guns state: 65% of its households have at least one gun. At the other end of the ranking we would have New Jersey, with only 15%.
Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, even believes that the percentage is much higher, up to 90-95%. "There are people who live in Montana just to hunt," he explains, and highlights the extraordinary hunting richness of the territory: "Deers and elks are hunted in the fall. At other times of the year they hunt bears and cougars, sheep, goats, ducks and partridges. And when it's not the season for any of that, you can always hunt gophers and prairie dogs, coyotes and other unregulated species."
In addition, his fellow countrymen also hold self-defense in high regard: "They simply want to decide if it is their turn to be victims".
"If you put all this together," he concludes, "there are a lot of reasons why people have guns in Montana."
Jill Gonzalez, from WalletHub, has noted that the balmy Rocky Mountain state (whose coat of arms shows a Spanish legend: "Oro y plata"), with just one million residents, has very low levels of shootings and gun violence.
As recalled by Dac Collins in Outdoor Life, USA is the country with most armed citizens in proportional terms. In fact, it is estimated that there are more guns than people in the U.S. (about 400 million vs. 331 million).
