Here's one more such paradox: Obama has done literally nothing to restrict the (large and growing) rights of gun owners. President Bill Clinton signed two important pieces of gun control legislation and issued many restrictive executive orders; Obama has not so much as introduced even one.Yet the election of Obama has triggered an angry reaction among gun owners fiercer than anything seen under Clinton. Between 1960 and the late 1990s, there occurred a
gradual decline in the percentage of American homes that contain a gun, from about one-half to about one-third.
(This trend is at least partly explained by the decline of hunting as a sport. In 2011, about 6% of Americans aged 16 or over
went hunting even once in the year. )
In 2009, however, that trend away from guns abruptly went into reverse. Gun buying spiked in the Obama administration, pushing the share of households with a gun
all the way back up to 47%, near the 1960 peak,
even as crime rates tumbled to the lowest levels ever recorded, making guns less necessary than ever to self-defense. Black Friday 2012 set a one-day record for gun sales.