One fifth of target shooters started within last five years

Gun control advocates point to Tom Smith's General Social Survey to claim that gun ownership is declining.  While that survey is pretty much all by itself and Smith long ago indicated to me that he strongly favors gun control, the GSS survey still gets a lot of attention.  There is lots of other evidence that indicates that there are problems with the survey.

1)  Concealed handgun permits have doubled since 2007.
2) "New target shooters--those who have taken up the sport in the last five years--are younger, female and urban when compared to established target shooters, or those participating for more than five years, according to a survey commissioned by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. . . . Younger: 66 percent of new shooters fall into the 18-to-34-year-old category compared to 31 percent in the same age category for established shooters. . . . The report shows that one-fifth of target shooters in America first started participating in the shooting sports between 2008 and 2012."