Unpacking Heat: Dueling Identities and Complex Views on Gun Control among Rural Police

Abstract

AbstractUsing 20 semistructured interviews with police officers from a rural sheriff's department, we present what we believe is the first in‐depth examination of U.S. rural officers’ views on gun control. We find that officers possess complex views about gun control, reflecting their multiple identities as both gun‐oriented rural citizens and police who seek to control the situations they encounter at work. Specifically, we observed that rural police officers: (1) embrace a rural identity that implies support of gun rights over gun control; (2) report that police work experiences have caused them to embrace their police identity and to distance themselves from some gun‐related aspects of rural identity (e.g., they have lost interest in guns over time and have increasingly dissociated from gun‐enthusiast peers); and (3) have learned to incorporate aspects of both identities into their views on gun control, universally advocating for some gun control measures in the name of community safety, but rejecting others as part of rural ideological views about personal freedom. We discuss research and policy implications and suggest that policymakers must better appreciate the nuances and culture of rural places in order to gain rural citizens’ and rural police officers’ support for gun control legislation.