Since 1976, gun ownership among Democrats has steadily declined while the gap between partisan voting habits of gun owners vs. non-owners has profoundly increased, according to analysis done by The Washington Post.
Over the past 40 years, Democrats owning guns have decreased from 44 percent to 23 percent while Republican gun owners has remained relatively steady — 54 percent in 1976 vs. 49 percent in 2016, according to the Post.
With that has come a widening gap in how gun owners vs. non-owners vote; what was an 11-point difference in 1972 turned into a 62 percent to 38 percent split in 2012 — gun owners vote Republican; non-gun owners vote Democrat, the Post found.
The gun gap apexed in 2012 with a split of 30 points in non-owners who voted for then President Barack Obama. In 2016, Trump's gap of gun owners vs. non was 24 points, according to the Post.
Why?
"We posit that gun ownership represents a cluster of values, such as strong individualism, distrust in government, and personal freedoms that are important to many people," the Post wrote. "The values intersect with conservative ideology and, increasingly, the Republican Party, but are more deeply held and practiced by gun owners."