Gun Control Research Articles

Child access prevention laws and juvenile firearm-related homicides

Debate over safe-storage gun regulations has captured public attention in the aftermath of several high-profile shootings committed by minors. To date, the existing literature provides no evidence that these laws are effective at deterring gun crime, a conclusion that has prompted the National Rifle Association to assert that such regulations are “unnecessary” and “ineffective.” Using data from the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports for the period 1985–2013, we find that child access prevention (CAP) laws are associated with a 17 percent reduction in firearm-related homicides committed by juveniles. The estimated effect is stronger among whites than nonwhites and is driven by states enforcing the strictest safe-storage standard. We find no evidence that CAP laws are associated with firearm-related homicides committed by adults or with non-firearm-related homicides committed by juveniles, suggesting that the observed relationship between CAP laws and juvenile firearm-related homicides is causal.

Are gun ownership rates and regulations associated with firearm incidents in American schools? A forty-year analysis (1980–2019)

PurposeThis study examines the relationship between state gun ownership rates and school firearm incidents (n = 1275) and injured/killed victims (n = 2026) of these incidents over a forty-year period (1980–2019). It also investigates whether child access prevention, minimum age requirements for gun purchases, and mandatory gun safety training laws are associated with fewer school firearm incidents and injured/killed victims. MethodsData were linked together from the School Shootings Database, State Firearm Law Database, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the US Census Bureau. State fixed effects and interrupted time series analyses were performed. ResultsState gun ownership rates declined between 1980 and 2019 while school firearm incidents generally ranged between 20 and 40 incidents before skyrocketing to 102 incidents in 2018 and 110 incidents in 2019. Findings were mixed on the relationship between state gun ownership rates and school firearm incidents and injured/killed victims. Additionally, child access prevention, minimum age requirements for gun purchases, and mandatory gun safety training laws exhibited weak and inconsistent relationships with school firearm incidents. DiscussionAlthough access to firearms plays an undeniable role in school shootings, it remains unclear what policies are needed to reduce these incidents. Future research may be needed to explore holistic approaches to addressing this problem.

Gun Control and Gun Rights: A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Public Policy Issues in Technical and Professional Communication

ABSTRACT The author proposes Policy, Roles, Sites (PRS), a conceptual model to help technical communicators analyze high-stakes, long-debated public policy issues and reveal ways that technical and professional communication informs public policy development and implementation. The author demonstrates how the PRS model can be used to examine complex public policy issues from race and policing to gun rights and gun control, as well as policy issues that intersect these seemingly disparate issues.

Identity and the racialized politics of violence in gun regulation policy preferences

AbstractObjectiveIn this study, we examine how attitudes about race, as well as ethno‐racial identities, influence support for various gun regulation policies. Drawing on the Racial Resentment and identity politics literature, we argue that attitudes about gun control are not simply driven by ideological, partisan, or demographic factors, but are often influenced by attitudes about race and identity, and region.MethodsUsing data from a 2016 national survey of White, African American, and Hispanic/Latinx respondents, along with a comparable southern sample, we test for the effects of ethno‐racial identity, Racial Resentment, evaluations of the Black Lives Matter movement, and feelings about African Americans on individuals’ attitudes about background checks and banning assault weapons. Using the 2016 American National Election Study, we test the generalizability of these findings in the presence of additional controls.ResultsOverall, we find that attitudes about race, ethno‐racial identities, and in some cases regional variations, help explain support for gun regulation policies.

A Measure of Polarization on Social Media Networks Based on Community Boundaries

Polarization in social media networks is a fact in several scenarios such as political debates and other contexts such as same-sex marriage, abortion and gun control. Understanding and quantifying polarization is a long-term challenge to researchers from several areas, also being a key information for tasks such as opinion analysis. In this paper, we perform a systematic comparison between social networks that arise from both polarized and non-polarized contexts. This comparison shows that the traditional polarization metric -modularity - is not a direct measure of antagonism between groups, since non-polarized networks may be also divided into fairly modular communities. To bridge this conceptual gap, we propose a novel polarization metric based on the analysis of the boundary of a pair of (potentially polarized) communities, which better captures the notions of antagonism and polarization. We then characterize polarized and non-polarized social networks according to the concentration of high-degree nodes in the boundary of communities, and found that polarized networks tend to exhibit low concentration of popular nodes along the boundary. To demonstrate the usefulness of our polarization measures, we analyze opinions expressed on Twitter on the gun control issue in the United States, and conclude that our novel metrics help making sense of opinions expressed on online media.

Preventing Adolescent and Young Adult Suicide: Do States With Greater Mental Health Treatment Capacity Have Lower Suicide Rates?

PurposeYouth suicide is increasing at a significant rate and is the second leading cause of death for adolescents. There is an urgent public health need to address the youth suicide. The objective of this study is to determine whether adolescents and young adults residing in states with greater mental health treatment capacity exhibited lower suicide rates than states with less treatment capacity. MethodsWe conducted a state-level analysis of mental health treatment capacity and suicide outcomes for adolescents and young adults aged 10–24 spanning 2002–2017 using data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other sources. Multivariable linear fixed-effects regression models tested the relationships among mental health treatment capacity and the total suicide, firearm suicide, and nonfirearm suicide rates per 100,000 persons aged 10–24. ResultsWe found a statistically significant inverse relationship between nonfirearm suicide and mental health treatment capacity (p = .015). On average, a 10% increase in a state’s mental health workforce capacity was associated with a 1.35% relative reduction in the nonfirearm suicide rate for persons aged 10–24. There was no significant relationship between mental health treatment capacity and firearm suicide. ConclusionsGreater mental health treatment appears to have a protective effect of modest magnitude against nonfirearm suicide among adolescents and young adults. Our findings underscore the importance of state-level efforts to improve mental health interventions and promote mental health awareness. However, firearm regulations may provide greater protective effects against this most lethal method of firearm suicide.

Corporate Social and Political Activism

Firms and their executives are increasingly taking a stand on socio-politically salient yet contentious issues such as racial equality, global warming, gun control, immigration, and LGBTQ rights. Yet, our scholarly understanding on the antecedents and consequences of this growing phenomenon of corporate activism remains relatively limited. The goal of this panel is to explore key research questions to be answered and future directions and opportunities for research on corporate activism. The panel includes scholars who are actively researching this topic and have made important contributions to our understanding of corporate activism. Panelists will share insights and engage with the audience on both the promise and potential pitfalls of studying this topic, as well as how a study of corporate activism can build not only from the nonmarket literatures on social movements, stakeholder theory, corporate social responsibility, but also from related strategy literatures, such as resource-based theory.

Firearms storage safety discussions in VA primary care: Staff perspectives

ObjectiveTo describe VHA primary care clinician and staff perspectives on conducting firearms storage safety (FSS) discussions in primary care, and to identify key approaches for primary care teams to facilitate FSS conversations. MethodQualitative analysis of transcripts and notes from focus groups with VA primary care staff and individual semi-structured interviews with primary care clinicians. One hundred-seven VHA primary care team members participated in one of four focus groups or individual semi-structured interviews (n = 5). ResultsFSS discussions are perceived as within the purview of primary care. Primary care staff also outlined five tools and processes needed to meaningfully implement FSS discussions in primary care: training on firearms and firearms culture; examining personal attitudes toward firearms; developing supplemental materials to normalize and support FSS discussions; increasing knowledge of firearms laws and regulations; and providing scripts to facilitate conversations. ConclusionsConducting FSS discussions in primary care settings is perceived as an acceptable practice, yet care teams identified barriers and suggestions for overcoming implementation challenges.

In Search of the Smoking Gun: Consensus and Division in the Gun Control Debate

Incidents of gun violence and mass shootings continue to shock the U.S. citizenry. Each time there is a call for change, but then little happens. In this article we explore the history of gun control in America, how the issue became polarized, and search for sources of consensus or divide. Situated in Pennsylvania, we utilize a state-wide survey and regional focus groups to explore why individuals support or oppose gun control. Similar to prior research, we find the topic becomes polarized when reduced to a discussion for or against the second amendment. However, in the focus groups, we find much consensus on specific proposed policies, particularly those designed to protect children. Overall, our findings reveal that citizens remain open to gun control when the debate is directed at specific policies, rather than rhetoric. Our findings are important for future research on gun control as well as to policy-makers.

Guns and the Limits of Numeracy: Review of <em>How America Got Its Guns: A History of the Gun Violence Crisis</em>, by William Briggs.

William Briggs. 2017. How America Got Its Guns: A History of the Gun Violence Crisis; (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press). Paperback: ISBN 978-0-8263-5813-4. E-book ISBN 978-0-8263-5814-1. Mathematician William Briggs (co-author of the well-regarded Understanding and Using Mathematics) has written a remarkably thorough and evenhanded analysis of gun policy in the United States that draws upon the work of historians, legal scholars, social scientists, and advocates. He gives respectful hearings to claims about the importance of both gun rights and gun control. The breadth of his coverage makes it almost certain that any reader will discover new angles for thinking about gun issues.

Concealed Carrying on Campus in the Post–Virginia Tech Era: Dimensions of State Regulation and Differences in Contexts of Influence Within Them

Debates over concealed carrying of guns on campus (CCOC) usually classify states as either “allowing” or “prohibiting” CCOC, thus ignoring research revealing state firearm regulatory frameworks are more nuanced. This study examined whether such subtleties existed in state CCOC regulatory frameworks by analyzing states’ 2018 CCOC regulatory provisions. Results showed that states used a multi-categorical restrictiveness-by-institutional discretion framework to regulate CCOC. In addition, indicators of intrastate contexts of influence (firearms, political, and religious) on regulatory policy differed across categories of restrictiveness and institutional discretion. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed significant differences in indicators of states’ political contexts, and post hoc comparisons of paired marginal means revealed significant differences in political indicators between states prohibiting CCOC and those allowing or those with mixed restrictiveness, and between states according schools full discretion and those according schools no discretion. Implications of the results are discussed for state-level research on firearms regulation and the ongoing CCOC debate.

Politics and Politeness: Analysis of Incivility on Twitter During the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

In the past decade, social networking sites have become central forums for public discourse and political engagement. Of particular interest is the role that Twitter plays in the facilitation of political discourse. To this end, the existing literature argues that a healthy political discussion space is key to maintaining a trusting and robust democratic society. Using Suler’s online disinhibition effect as a theoretical orientation, this study seeks to address the extent of incivility on Twitter in discourse regarding the top three 2020 Democratic primary candidates. A total corpus of 18,237,296 tweets was analyzed in an effort to assess the extent to which incivility dominated Twitter discourse surrounding these candidates. Our results reveal that tweets that mention Senator Elizabeth Warren were associated with higher levels of uncivil discourse than tweets that mentioned Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden. Interestingly, there does not appear to be a relationship with anonymity and incivility, as uncivil tweets were just as likely to originate from tweets that identified users’ names as they were to originate from anonymous or pseudonymous accounts. Finally, our findings provide evidence that certain policy issues are more closely related to uncivil discourse than others. Through the use of k-means clustering, our findings illustrate that the issue of gun control and immigration is closely related with mentions of Warren and fiscal policy with Sanders; however, we did not find any policy keywords linked to Biden.

The Harms of Structural Whiteness on Weapon Carrying, Policing, and Child Health.

The Harms of Structural Whiteness on Weapon Carrying, Policing, and Child Health.

The Biggest Legal Obstacle to Gun Regulation: State Preemption Laws, Not the Second Amendment

The Biggest Legal Obstacle to Gun Regulation: State Preemption Laws, Not the Second Amendment

Race, Ramos, and the Second Amendment Standard of Review

Gun control in the United States has a racist history. Nevertheless, federal courts and academics have invoked Southern gun restrictions enacted after the Civil War to suggest that history supports stringent regulation of the right to bear arms. We argue that courts’ reliance on these restrictions is illegitimate. Drawing on original research, we reveal how the post-war South restricted gun-ownership for racist reasons, deployed its new laws to disarm free blacks, yet allowed whites to bear arms with near impunity. We then show how modern reliance on these laws contravenes the Supreme Court’s decision in Ramos v. Louisiana, which deemed similarly tainted statutes unconstitutional. Since the Court will soon consider the validity of modern limits on concealed carry, placing Southern gun restrictions in their proper historical context matters today more than ever. While Southern gun control after the Civil War might tell us something about how the South sought to preserve white supremacy, it tells us almost nothing about the proper scope of the Second Amendment.

Peace through superior firepower: Belief in supernatural evil and attitudes toward gun policy in the United States

Although debates over guns and gun control have roiled the contemporary political scene, the role of religion has received only limited attention from scholars. We contribute to this literature by developing a series of theoretical arguments linking one specific facet of religion –belief in supernatural evil (i.e., the Devil/Satan, Hell, and demons)—and a range of gun policy attitudes. Relevant hypotheses are then tested using data from the 2014 Baylor Religion Survey (n = 1572). Results show that belief in supernatural evil is a robust predictor of support for policies that expand gun rights. Overall, the estimated net effects of belief in supernatural evil withstand statistical controls for a host of sociodemographic covariates, and, importantly, political ideology. Very few other aspects of religion are associated with any of these gun policy attitudes. Implications and study limitations are discussed, and promising directions for future research on religion and guns are identified.

Gun Dealer Motivations for Complying with the Law: Lessons from the Australian Experience of Gun Control

Gun reform after a major mass shooting in Australia has largely been heralded as a success. However, understanding how compliance is encouraged among the gun owning community with a history of opposing regulation is currently limited in systematic sociological research. Gun dealers in particular appear to be important for understanding levels of compliance and possibilities for promoting compliance, as they are simultaneously involved in the compliance process and subject to its enforcement as members of the gun owning community. This paper positions gun dealers as street-level bureaucrats responsible for implementing gun regulations and uses a Compliance Motivation framework to explore the possible motivations for compliance and their role in promoting compliance within the gun owning community. Findings are based on 28 in-depth interviews with gun dealers across Australia and demonstrate the challenging but important role that gun dealer’s play in enacting gun control policy.

THE CULTURAL ECOLOGY OF GUN VIOLENCE

AbstractGun violence and related risk factors differ for African American and European Americans. However, there may be overlap in the psychosocial and contextual factors with respect to cultural processes related to gun violence in Black and White communities. The purpose of this article is to compare the culture of honor perspective associated with rural and suburban gun violence of European American males in the southern region to the code of the street value system ascribed to the gun violence of African American males in northern urban cities. The cultural values underlying gun violence will be reviewed in terms of cultural origins, family and community support, and ecological evidence. The central question is whether there are sufficient commonalities between the cultural ecology of the two value systems such that one has practice and policy implications for the other. The current analysis of culture-of-honor and code-of-the-street value systems vis-à-vis gun violence reveals several points of overlap in philosophy and function. Implications for policies and practices to prevent gun violence stemming from culture-of-honor and code-of-the-street value systems include (1) psychological interventions to address the perceived threats to the self; (2) neighborhood interventions to promote a sense of collective efficacy among residents; (3) addressing racial and economic inequality; (4) better gun control laws; and (5) media campaigns and interventions designed to change social and cultural norms for violence. It is important to note the pervasiveness of these value systems may vary by ethnicity and race which must be taken into consideration in violence prevention efforts.

The effect of mass shootings on daily emotions is limited by time, geographic proximity, and political affiliation

Media coverage in the aftermath of mass shootings frequently documents expressions of sadness and outrage shared by millions of Americans. This type of collective emotion can be a powerful force in establishing shared objectives and motivating political actions. Yet, the rise in mass shootings has not translated into widespread legislative progress toward gun control across the nation. This study is designed to shed light on this puzzle by generating causal evidence on the temporal and geographic scale of collective emotional responses to mass shootings. Using a unique continuous survey on Americans' daily emotions without reference to specific events, our empirical strategy compares the daily emotions of residents interviewed after to those interviewed before 31 mass shootings within the same city or state where the event occurred. We found that the emotional impact of mass shootings is substantial, but it is local, short-lived, and politicized. These results suggest that if policy reform efforts are to draw on collective emotional responses to these events, they will likely have to start at the local level in the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting.

Is there a relationship between fear of crime and attitudes toward gun control?

Much of the research on fear of crime uses fear as a dependent variable (what causes someone to be afraid of crime). This study uses fear of crime as an independent variable to examine its relationship with attitudes regarding gun control policy. Using a national sampling frame of over 3000 responses (n = 3265), this study explored whether fear of being a victim of crime has a relationship with one’s attitude toward gun control. Fear of crime correlated with attitude toward gun control, but when fear of crime and six other variables were examined together, the relationship between fear of crime and attitude toward gun control disappeared. Several variables such as age, sex, owning a firearm, and political ideology did have an effect on attitude toward gun control.