What Americans Think About Gun Control: Evidence from the General Social Survey, 1972–2016

Miller, Steven V.

doi:10.1111/ssqu.12555

Cited by 35 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…7 One major exception to this anti-government sentiment is conservative support for morals legislation restricting abortion, contraception, gay rights, and other practices offensive to ultra-traditionalist values (Jouet, 2017). 8 "Right now, gun policy gridlock says more about partisan polarization at the elite level than at the mass level, but the trends in the data suggest partisans at the mass level will become a bigger part of the gun control policy gridlock in the near future" (Miller, 2019). 9 To Bourdieu, a narrow focus on calculated behavior would "neglect the fact that, by virtue of the habitus, individuals are already predisposed to act in certain ways, avoid certain tastes, and so on" (Thompson, 1992).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At first glance, a majority of both Democrats and Republicans consistently supported this policy from 1972 to 2016. However, only 50.5 percent of "strong Republicans" supported this elementary form of control in 2016, a sharp decrease from approximately 70 percent in 1972 (Miller, 2019). Additional data show that, in 2018, 76 percent of Republicans thought that protecting gun rights was more important than gun control, a surge from 38 percent in 2000.…”

Section: Guns and American Exceptionalism: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Guns, identity, and nationhood

Jouet

2019

Palgrave Commun

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The article provides a theoretical perspective on the symbolic meaning of the right to bear arms in modern America, especially among its conservative movement. Neglecting this issue, scholarship on gun symbolism has commonly focused on guns possessed by offenders in inner-cities, such as juveniles or gang members. Offering a multidisciplinary and comparative outlook, the article explains how guns have become symbols of a worldview under which armed patriots must stand ready to defend America from "tyranny," "big government," "socialism," and other existential threats. In particular, the U.S. conservative movement does not merely perceive the right to bear arms as a means of selfdefense against criminals, but as a safeguard against an oppressive government that "patriots" may have to overthrow by force. The article examines the hypothesis that guns foster a sense of belonging in this conception of nationhood. This worldview is not solely limited to politicians, elites, or activists, as it can encompass rank-and-file conservatives. Group identification can rest on sharing radical beliefs that enhance cohesion, including rallying against perceived threats. This mindset helps explain resistance to elementary reforms to regulate firearms. If one believes that an unbridled right to bear arms is not only key to protecting the United States, but also key to what it means to be an American, concessions on gun control become difficult to envision. While conservatives in other Western democracies tend to support significant gun control, a key dimension of American exceptionalism is the relative normalization of a conservative identity in which firearms have acquired a peculiar symbolic value.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Guns and American Exceptionalism: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 97%

Guns, identity, and nationhood

Jouet

2019

Palgrave Commun

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“…Third, the ban did not target some military assault-like weapons [54,64]. Finally, a major loophole found in gun control legislation is that buyers can bypass background checks by purchasing their weapons and ammunition from gun shows, through illegal purchasing, or legally purchasing their guns and ammunition from another gun owner [57,63,[79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87]. Even with these loopholes and issues, there was still a significant reduction in public mass shootings during the FAWB.…”

Section: Principal Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Firearm Surveillance on Gun Control Policy: Regression Discontinuity Analysis

Post¹,

Mason²,

Singh³

et al. 2021

JMIR Public Health Surveill

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Background Public mass shootings are a significant public health problem that require ongoing systematic surveillance to test and inform policies that combat gun injuries. Although there is widespread agreement that something needs to be done to stop public mass shootings, opinions on exactly which policies that entails vary, such as the prohibition of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. Objective The aim of this study was to determine if the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (FAWB) (1994-2004) reduced the number of public mass shootings while it was in place. Methods We extracted public mass shooting surveillance data from the Violence Project that matched our inclusion criteria of 4 or more fatalities in a public space during a single event. We performed regression discontinuity analysis, taking advantage of the imposition of the FAWB, which included a prohibition on large-capacity magazines in addition to assault weapons. We estimated a regression model of the 5-year moving average number of public mass shootings per year for the period of 1966 to 2019 controlling for population growth and homicides in general, introduced regression discontinuities in the intercept and a time trend for years coincident with the federal legislation (ie, 1994-2004), and also allowed for a differential effect of the homicide rate during this period. We introduced a second set of trend and intercept discontinuities for post-FAWB years to capture the effects of termination of the policy. We used the regression results to predict what would have happened from 1995 to 2019 had there been no FAWB and also to project what would have happened from 2005 onward had it remained in place. Results The FAWB resulted in a significant decrease in public mass shootings, number of gun deaths, and number of gun injuries. We estimate that the FAWB prevented 11 public mass shootings during the decade the ban was in place. A continuation of the FAWB would have prevented 30 public mass shootings that killed 339 people and injured an additional 1139 people. Conclusions This study demonstrates the utility of public health surveillance on gun violence. Surveillance informs policy on whether a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines reduces public mass shootings. As society searches for effective policies to prevent the next mass shooting, we must consider the overwhelming evidence that bans on assault weapons and/or large-capacity magazines work.

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“…Furthermore, research on Americans’ attitudes regarding gun rights shows that partisan polarization of these attitudes is only beginning (Miller 2019). Rather, factors such as Christian nationalism and American sacralization of gun rights—across partisan affiliation—tend to be better predictors of attitudes about gun rights (Whitehead et al, 2018).…”

Section: Theory and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Popular Basis of the State’s Monopoly on Legitimate Violence: How American Voters Use Political Values to (De)Legitimate Gun Rights

Vila‐Henninger

2020

Sociological Inquiry

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Stemming from Max Weber (1946 [1919]), many sociologists understand legitimate violence as monopolized by the state. The literature has established that for the state to maintain legitimacy it must either demonstrate sustained efficacy or have its legitimacy based on the values of its citizens (Lipset 1963a). The statistics on gun control in the United States (Giffords Law Center 2020) and sociological literature (e.g., Hill et al. 2020a, 2020b) demonstrate the sustained inefficacies of gun rights. Thus, this article investigates the legitimacy of these rights in terms of voters’ political values. I use a case set (Small 2009) of 120 voters interviewed in Arizona from 2013 to 2015. My analysis is an example of qualitative secondary analysis (Duchesne 2017; Belot and Van Ingelgom 2017; Davidson et al. 2019). My findings confirm and extend the literature on the bases of legitimate violence in the United States (e.g., Shapira and Simon 2018; Carlson 2019). Furthermore, my findings provide evidence of voter socialization into a political culture that uses public, declarative, and non‐declarative forms of culture in conjunction (e.g., Lizardo 2017). These findings also bridge the sociological literature on values (Wuthnow 2008), political sociology (Lipset 1963a), the sociology of culture (Miles 2015), and moral psychology (Haidt 2012).

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What Americans Think About Gun Control: Evidence from the General Social Survey, 1972–2016

Cited by 35 publications

References 24 publications

Guns, identity, and nationhood

Guns, identity, and nationhood

Impact of Firearm Surveillance on Gun Control Policy: Regression Discontinuity Analysis

The Popular Basis of the State’s Monopoly on Legitimate Violence: How American Voters Use Political Values to (De)Legitimate Gun Rights

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