The Changing Ideological Politics of U.S. State Firearms Regulation

McLean, Dylan S.; Sorens, Jason

doi:10.1111/polp.12321

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…A gap has seemingly emerged between red and blue states in firearms policies. McLean and Sorens (2019) find that states have become more polarized on firearms policy, and more internally consistent. At the same time, urbanization is a larger factor in explaining variance in gun policies.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking stock: The contribution of policy studies to our understanding of gun policy

Schwartz

2023

Politics & Policy

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In the summer of 2022, the tragic mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas once again thrust firearms policy onto the public agenda and opened an agenda window for bipartisan gun reforms in the Senate. Almost simultaneously, the Supreme Court struck down restrictions on concealed carry in New York state in the first major ruling on Second Amendment Rights since MacDonald v. Chicago. Given the salience of firearms policy to contemporary policy debates, it is important to take stock of how the discipline of policy studies has contributed to our understanding of this pressing area of policy. As we see, scholars of policy studies have largely left discussions of firearms policy to disciplines like criminology, sociology, economics, and public health. Despite this, a small group of scholars has used the theoretical toolkit of our discipline to better understand this issue. This short review article will present the contribution of policy studies to our understanding of firearms policy from Sandy Hook to Uvalde and provide suggestions for areas where the discipline can contribute to our understanding of this vitally important regulatory issue. Most importantly, more work is needed to develop robust and multidimensional evaluations of firearms policies. Related Articles Cook, Philip J., and Jens Ludwig. 2019. “Understanding Gun Violence: Public Health vs. Public Policy.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 38(3): 788–95. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22141. Haider‐Markel, Donald P., and Mark R. Joselyn. 2017. “Special Issue Editors' Introduction: Gun Politics.” Social Science Quarterly 98(2): 377–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12415.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking stock: The contribution of policy studies to our understanding of gun policy

Schwartz

2023

Politics & Policy

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“…The study highlights the role of mass shootings, bipartisanship, and interest group support in the enactment of such laws. The role of ideology is on display in McLean and Sorens (2019) study of state firearms laws. The authors discover “while state policy liberalism has long correlated positively with restrictive gun regulation, this relationship strengthened over the 1986–2016 period” (McLean and Sorens, 2019:638).…”

Section: Gun Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The role of ideology is on display in McLean and Sorens (2019) study of state firearms laws. The authors discover “while state policy liberalism has long correlated positively with restrictive gun regulation, this relationship strengthened over the 1986–2016 period” (McLean and Sorens, 2019:638). Furthermore, with the growing polarization of the American states on gun control, state policy regimes have become more internally consistent (McLean and Sorens, 2019:649).…”

Section: Gun Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to the symposium: A reexamination of southern distinctiveness through the lens of firearm policy

LaPlant

Morris

Shields

2021

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective: This article reviews the extant literature on southern politics and gun/firearm ownership in the South as a precursor to three symposium papers. Methods: We employ standard literature review techniques to synthesize two significant bodies of literature. The latter part of the article introduces the three papers in the symposium. Results: We find that the papers in this symposium share two common themes: continued southern distinctiveness, and the importance of the role of race in southern politics and policymaking. Conclusion:We find support for a hypothesis that the South remains distinctive as a region in the policy arena of gun ownership/firearm policy.The political, social, cultural, and economic role of firearms in American society has been a flash point for decades, and recently has become a significant point of contention. Arguments tend to coalesce around differing definitions and interpretations of the Second Amendment, personal freedom, community safety, personal security, and a host of other values. As Stone (1997) so aptly illustrates, differences in value definition may be found at the root of nearly all policy disagreements. As hyperpartisanship has combined with an increase in mass shootings, economic uncertainty, racial tensions, and a number of high-profile incidents involving gun violence, the issue of firearm policy has been thrust firmly into the public spotlight.Like many policy arenas, the nature of the policy problem is not felt equally across the nation, nor are the policy choices to address those problems the same across states. State political culture, history, political control, and a range of other factors have led to a broad patchwork of state policies regarding firearms, all against a backdrop of limited federal law on the topic. States have thus taken very different positions on firearm ownership and the means through which firearms are regulated (or not regulated) within the states. In this sense, states are truly "policy laboratories" (Dror, 1968). While state variation is clearly evident, a less-examined question concerns the degree to which regional policy differences can be detected.While regional studies have largely faded from scholarly agendas, a clear exception is the region of the American South. While studies of most regions in the nation have fallen into disfavor, regional studies of the South have seen something of a resurgence in the past two decades. A field of study led by V.O. Key's seminal Southern Politics in State and Nation (1949), students, and scholars of southern politics has grappled

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“…For example, at the individual level, prior research finds support for gun regulations varies significantly based on gun ownership levels in a state-higher ownership levels lead to less support for gun regulations (Barry et al, 2018). At the state level, Mclean and Sorens (2019) found firearm regulatory regimes were aligned with underlying propensities for regulatory policy more broadly and sorted themselves along politico-ideological lines. In general, states evidencing more conservative political ideology tended to favor much narrower levels of regulation regardless of the context (e.g., economic, transportation, and education) than did states evidencing more liberal political ideology.…”

Section: Firearms Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Sloan

Fisher

2021

Criminal Justice Policy Review

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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.

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The Changing Ideological Politics of U.S. State Firearms Regulation

Cited by 13 publications

References 19 publications

Taking stock: The contribution of policy studies to our understanding of gun policy

Taking stock: The contribution of policy studies to our understanding of gun policy

Introduction to the symposium: A reexamination of southern distinctiveness through the lens of firearm policy

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

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