There’s a good reason to ask whether or not it’s a gun in their pocket.
The long-held myth that men who own guns are … err, overcompensating for something … has been debunked by scientists in a new study published in the American Journal of Men’s Health.
Rather, researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio found that men quite satisfied with certain physical assets are most likely to have guns.
The correlation between the male sexual psyche and behaviors like buying big houses, driving loud cars and dating young women is a common comedic trope in popular culture as well a topic of legitimate sociological speculation, including the suggestion that men who are preoccupied with guns are also insecure about their small penis.
“Contrary to popular beliefs, our current study shows that men who are more satisfied with the size of their penises are more likely to personally own guns,” said study author Terrence D. Hill, a professor at UTSA.
In a previous study, UTSA researchers found no relationship between gun ownership and sexual dysfunction. Still, Hill’s team aimed to identify a direct link between penis size and guns for the latest findings.
Data from more than 2,000 US men aged 18 and up was included in the new research, asking them to rate their penis size satisfaction when fully erect, as well as whether they’d ever considered any penis enlargement procedures in the past.
In terms of gun use, participants were asked what kind of weapons they owned, if any — particularly military-style rifles — and how many.
Results showed that 43% of men reported owning a gun, including 11% with military-style rifles. Meanwhile, only 7% had attempted some form of penis augmentation.
In contrast to popular belief, researchers found that the more dissatisfied men were with their penises, the less likely they were to own a gun — subtracting 11% probability of gun-toting with each step down in penis size satisfaction.
The chances of owning a military-style rifle were even lower — 20% — with each increased unit of penis size dissatisfaction.
“As a social scientist, my primary interest is to understand the role of guns in society. This includes the social causes and social consequences of gun ownership,” Hill said. “There is a lot of speculation in society that men who have trouble with their penises (e.g., erection issues or smaller than desired penises) are more likely to own guns. This raises questions about the causes of gun ownership or which groups in society are more or less likely to own guns.”
However, the findings fall short of asserting that only well-endowed fellas seek out firearms.
“Because there is no theory for why men with bigger penises would be more likely to own guns, we do not believe that this association is real. In other words, we believe that this association is likely spurious or due to factors that we failed to account for in our study,” Hill told PsyPost.
Meanwhile, UTSA sociologists noted several demographic and social factors that play into gun ownership: Straight men, obese men and older men of means own guns at higher rates. Men in rural residences also tended to own more guns, but not necessarily the military-grade kind. And men who identify with strong masculine traits were the most likely to carry guns.
Researchers could not determine whether penis size or lack thereof causes interest in guns as their study investigated only a correlation between the traits. The study also relied on self-reported answers regarding satisfaction and penis size; in the future, direct measurement may yield even more honest results.
“The reported association between penis size and gun ownership is likely due to factors that we are unaware of or failed to measure in our study,” Hill explained to PsyPost. “For example, the association between penis size and gun ownership could be due to the fact that men with higher levels of testosterone tend to have bigger penises and are more likely to engage in risk-taking behavior.”
Hill said he hopes to “formally assess” the testosterone hypothesis soon.
“We also have other projects in mind that test other taken-for-granted assumptions about guns,” he said.
