We asked Wisconsin gun owners about storage, training and mental health. Here's what they said.

Gun owners in Wisconsin are a diverse lot.

Some own guns to hunt deer during the state's fabled annual deer hunt. Others have firearms for protection or use them for sport shooting, like target practice. Still others collect antique or unusual guns.

To learn more about gun owner's practices and opinions, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinelthrough Marquette University’s O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism and in collaboration with the Marquette Law School conducted the most extensive, in-depth survey of Wisconsin gun owners to date.

The poll was done in May 2023. Here are some of the findings:

• A majority of the 354 gun owners polled told us they keep guns secured in some kind of safe or locking device. Women are more likely to lock up their guns than men.
• The most commonly owned firearm is a handgun. The least common is an AR-15 rifle.
• Gun owners living in urban areas are more likely than those in the suburbs and rural areas to keep their guns loaded.
• Some 46 of 354 gun owners polled reported they had used a firearm defensively. Seven people reported they fired a gun defensively. 
• Some 114 people said they bought guns during the pandemic; 31 of those were buying their first gun. Self-protection was the most common reason given for buying a gun during the pandemic and racial unrest.
• About one in five gun owners surveyed said they knew a gun owner who had had suicidal thoughts.

Read more about the findings from the poll here. To read the rest of the Journal Sentinel's Behind The Gun series, visit www.jsonline.com/behindthegun or click below.