Let's just stick with them.
I've found a secondary source for a figure of 5% -- nobody will like the secondary source, but it cites a verifiable primary source that I may be able to cite as I google around (I asked for
"united states" "population hunts" hunting):
http://www.peta.org/mc/facts/fswild1.htmlAlthough less than 5 percent of the U.S. population hunts,<4> ...
<4> United States Fish and Wildlife Service, “National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife—Associated Recreation,” Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2001: 5.
(Who knows, maybe PETA has misrepresented what the survey said ... - ah, well, maybe not misrepresented, but was less than straightforward about -- see ** below)
Another less than stellar source, that doesn't cite its own source for the 6% statistic:
http://www.animal-law.org/commentaries/oct24.htmA publication of the Marketing Office of the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism:
http://www.discoversouthcarolina.com/documents/Sport_Hunting.htmHunting is big business in the United States. According to the <U.S. Fish and Wildlife> Service’s 1996 survey, there were nearly 14 million hunters in America, 16 years of age and older, ...
- population about 250,000,000, somewhat conservatively, in 1996? That's 5.6%. (see ** below)
According to the 1999 South Carolina Recreation Participation and Preference Study, 14.4 percent of South Carolina’s residents age 12 and older participated in some form of hunting in 1999.
... Hunting by South Carolinians decreases in popularity with age, from 26.8% participation in the 12-17 age group, to 10.8% in the 46-64 age group. In South Carolina, 27% of males hunt, while only 3% of females do. Participation increases slightly with family income--nearly 19% of the families reporting $75,000+ income like to hunt.
(Emphasis in the original)
I might guess that South Carolina is more rural than other states, where smaller percentages of the population hunt. Interesting, that bit about hunting activities increasing with income, hm?
Over one-third of the nation's hunters live in the South, along with disproportionate numbers of African-American, Hispanic and female hunters. The US Fish and Wildlife Service reports that approximately 35% of the nation’s hunters live in the South, as do 73% of the African-American hunters, 39% of the Hispanic hunters and 29% of the female hunters.
Yup, distribution of hunters is indeed (and predictably) not even. More than 6% in the south ... a whole lot less than 6% in some other states, obviously, if the 6% average is accurate. Possibly some other states that the Democrats have a hope of getting elected in, in any event?
A source cited:
1996 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation South Carolina, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, April 1998, 60 pp (approx. with appendices), available on the Internet http://www.fws.gov
A Montana site says that 1/4 of the population hunts:
http://www.worldclassoutdoors.com/montana_hunting.htmI won't disbelieve it just because it's operated by hunting outfitters, I guess ...
The 5.5% - 6% figure seems to have some strong basis, to me. The search engine at
http://hunting.fws.gov didn't work, so I couldn't find the surveys in question. Aha, tried the links link, and here we are:
http://fa.r9.fws.gov/surveys/surveys.htmlThe U.S. Census Bureau collected information for the Survey in two phases. The first phase was the screen which began in April 2001. During the screening phase, the Census Bureau interviewed a sample of 77,000 households nationwide to determine who in the household had fished, hunted, or wildlife watched in 2000, and who had engaged or planned to engage in those activities in 2001. In most cases, one adult household member provided information for all household members. The screen primarily covered 2000 activities while the next, more in-depth phase covered 2001 activities.
The second phase of data collection consisted of three detailed interview waves. The first wave began in April 2001, the second in September 2001, and the last in January 2002. Interviews were conducted with samples of likely anglers, hunters, and wildlife watchers who were identified in the initial screening phase. The Census Bureau conducted these interviews primarily by telephone, with in-person interviews in the first and third interview waves for those respondents who could not be reached by telephone
Respondents in the second Survey phase were limited to persons at least 16 years old. Each respondent provided information pertaining only to his or her activities and expenditures. Sample sizes were designed to provide statistically reliable results at the State level. Altogether, interviews were completed for 25,070 respondents from the sportspersons sample and 15,303 from the wildlife watchers sample. The response rate for the screen phase was 75%. For the sportspersons sample it was 88% and for the wildlife-watching sample, 90%.
Over 82 million U.S. residents 16 years old and older fished, hunted, or wildlife watched in 2001. During that year, 34.1 million people fished, 13.0 million hunted, and 66.1 million participated in at least one type of wildlife-watching activity including observing, feeding, or photographing wildlife.
(Emphasis added)
That would be 13 million out of 285 million ... or 4.56%.
Now, granted,
those are not voters. That is number of people aged 16 and over expressed as a percentage of the entire population, and that's *not* good statistics. (This is the ** I referred to above.)
But the report provides its own figure -- exactly the one initially cited; I calculate from the percentage it gives that the population of people aged over 16 would be 216 million (13 million divided by .06), and that seems reasonable.
Hunting — Six percent of the U.S. population 16 years old and older, over 13 million people, hunted in 2001.
The entire report is at:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/FHW01.pdf So all in all, I would feel pretty safe asserting that 6% of the US population over 16 years of age hunts -- using the credible source that Benchley's source had cited in the first place. And, of course, that a considerably higher proportion of some state populations, and a considerably lower proportion of some other state populations, hunt.
Now, then there are the quibbles raised about hunters' families, friends and suppliers.
Yup, hunters are overwhelmingly male. So any wives and mothers and daughters and sisters they have are mostly not counted in that figure. Since not all hunters are married (and their mothers and daughters and sisters might be married to hunters and we wouldn't want to double-count them -- or might be married to non-hunters ...), we couldn't double the figure, but we could certainly add to it -- although we really wouldn't want to assume that all wives of hunters opposed firearms control measures, any more than we'd want to assume that all hunters do.
Hunters' friends? Well, in locales where largish proportions of the population hunt (say, rural South Carolina or Montana), I think we'd already be counting quite a few of them -- because they'd be hunters too. And if they aren't, well, I wouldn't want to assume that they vote on the basis of their hunter friends' supposed interests.
And I'd say ditto for the people who sell the hunters their guns 'n ammo. Probably a pretty high rate of hunters among them? Also among the other suppliers of goods and services they patronize when they hunt, which would presumably be in locales where relatively high proportions of the population hunt?
So hell, even if we did double the hunter figure, to account for wives and for non-hunters who benefit from hunting, we'd still only have 12% of the population over 16 -- more in some places, fewer in other places.
Just some fun with numbers, which I'm far too easily entertained by finding and playing with.
But can anybody name any other recreational activity (it seems to be at least a largish part of the time recreational) participated in by 10% or so of the electorate, directly or indirectly, that anybody would think dictates how that bunch of people votes? or that anybody would think it reasonable for a bunch of people to vote on the basis of? ... or that anybody would believe that a bunch of people really do vote on the basis of?
.