Study Shows Americans Support Sport Shooting, But The Motive Matters

You’ve probably never heard of the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports (CAHSS), but they’re out there doing the hard work of making sure Americans can keep on enjoying their rights to defend themselves and feed their families—and according to a recent study, the vast majority of the country still agrees with those values.

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Shooting for the right reasons

For their study, the CAHSS interviewed 2,212 Americans to find their true opinions on hunting and shooting. They found Americans mostly supported shooting and hunting; based off their research, 73 percent of their interviewees were in favor of legal regulated hunting, and 74 percent approved of sport shooting for recreational purposes.

“The results confirm that Americans largely understand the value of ethical hunting and shooting sports,” said Steven Leath, PhD, the CAHSS’s Executive Director. “But they also remind us that intention matters and maintaining public trust requires continuous outreach and education. We can’t take support for granted.”

Most importantly, the research showed that the approval rates for hunting and sport shooting depended greatly on the reasons behind the activity. Hunting for food had a high approval rating; trophy hunting and high-fence/captive animal hunting did not. The people behind the CAHSS study say this will help policymakers, conservation leaders, and educators decide on their course of action going forward, with a better understanding of the public’s opinion. 

The same goes for sport shooting; the study showed that approval was high for shooting activities that the survey respondents saw as practical. As per their report on the research:

“...the survey looked at approval of recreational shooting according to reasons for shooting. In general, reasons that are perceived as more utilitarian are at the top,while less utilitarian reasons are at the bottom of the graph showing approval of various motivations for sport shooting. Self-defense, for competition, and practicing for hunting are the top three.”