Feelings toward gun owners

Chapter 5 examines the portrayal of gun owners and considers how this may impact people feelings toward them. Prior studies show that people consult their feelings when estimating risk—labeled the affect heuristic. Statistical analyses demonstrate that people’s feelings (favorable or unfavorable) toward gun owners powerfully determine their assessments of personal and public safety. If people favor gun owners, they believe concealed carry laws improve public safety and guns are not threats to personal security. If people dislike gun owners, they feel threatened by guns and disapprove of concealed carry policies. An interpretation of this finding suggests that people are not necessarily threatened by guns but rather by people who own guns.

A gun gap in voter choice

Chapter 2 presents a framework to examine the vote choices of gun owners. Using data from the General Social Survey and American National Election Studies, two important empirical regularities emerge. First, compared to those who do not own a guns, people who do own guns reliably vote Republican. In addition, the divide between the vote choices of gun owners and nonowners is growing. Since 2004, the “gun gap” has nearly doubled. Second, the more guns an individual owns, the more likely he or she is to vote Republican. In this respect, purchasing a gun or guns is an act of some political consequence.

Safer with a gun

Chapter 4 examines people’s feelings about gun safety and the connection to gun policy preferences. Those who feel safe around guns are strong supporters of gun rights legislation. Those who feel threatened and not safe around guns prefer strict gun regulations. Personal experiences with guns and the prevalence of guns in people’s social lives are key factors that influence whether people perceive guns as dangerous and a threat to their well-being or safe and a means of protection. Feelings about personal safety or threat are palpable and animate the gun debate in American politics. Given the strong ties between such feelings and gun policy preferences, it is not surprising gun politics are often heated and end in stalemate.

Understanding gun culture

Chapter 1 introduces a fairly large and diverse literature on gun culture. Gun culture focuses attention on the distinctive meanings that people attach to guns. For some, guns symbolize power and violence, while for others guns signify protection and freedom. These contrasting meanings are central to understanding the deep political divisions about guns that exist in the United States. This chapter covers three different research approaches to gun culture: ethnographic, historical, and quantitative. After a comprehensive presentation of gun culture and the institutional forces that shape it, the author anticipates a substantial gap between gun owners’ and nonowners’ political choices and attitudes.

A gun gap in death penalty support

Chapter 7 examines gun owners’ support for capital punishment. Typically gun ownership is not included in the conventional list of predictors of death penalty preferences. Yet a large gun gap exists in public support for capital punishment. Gun owners, compared to nonowners, are more likely to support the death penalty. This division is now larger than the divide between men’s and women’s support of capital punishment and matches the gap between Whites and Blacks. In general, the capital punishment gun gap reflects gun owners’ broader preferences for punitive measures. In fact, people that own more guns favor capital punishment more so than those who own fewer guns. While in recent years overall support of death penalty has dropped, that decline would undoubtedly be much larger if gun owners were not as strongly committed to capital punishment.

Conclusion

The concluding chapter summarizes two central contributions of the book. First, gun owners merit greater research attention by those who study political behavior and attitudes. The evidence marshaled in the previous chapters strongly support this conclusion. Second, considerable variation within the population of gun owners exists. Once a gun gap is established, there are secondary divisions captured by the number of guns owned that reveal the power of gun culture and gun owner identity. If owning one gun increases the probability of a given political behavior, owning four or more guns will sharply increase those probabilities. Implications of these findings are discussed and future research considered.

How many gun owners?

Chapter 6 examines survey respondents’ estimations of the actual number of people who own guns in the United States. Evidence from the surveys shows that most people overestimate the gun owner population and believe that the number of owners will increase even further in the next decade. Most, in fact, predict that within the next ten years gun owners will represent a majority of Americans. While most estimates may be inaccurate, they are important because they have consequences for the respondents’ gun policy preferences. Data show that those who overestimate the percentage of gun owners in the United States are notably supportive of gun rights policies.

A gun gap in voter turnout

In Chapter 3, a cost–benefit political participation framework is used to demonstrate that gun owners, compared to nonowners, are more likely to vote and more likely to engage in political activity related to gun policy. The voter turnout advantage for gun owners is notable, has increased over the years, and continued during the 2016 presidential election. Data for reported votes and validated votes at presidential and congressional levels constitute the empirical analyses. In addition, gun owners who owned several guns showed the highest rates of electoral participation and gun policy activism. The implications of these findings for electoral politics are discussed.

Introduction

The introduction to this book defines the gun gap, which refers to differences in political behavior and attitudes between gun owners and nonowners. In addition, the introduction establishes why the gun gap is important for understanding modern mass politics. Election analysts and scholars typically overlook the gun gap, but it is an essential explanation for an impressive range of political behaviors and attitudes, including voter choice and turnout, perceptions of personal and public safety, preferences for gun control policies, and support for the death penalty and other punitive measures. Finally, the introduction outlines the book chapters, discussing key theories and findings.