Rationale: Gun sales spike after mass shooting incidents. As firearm presence is associated with numerous health and safety risks, it is imperative to understand what catalyzes gun ownership. Despite evidence that Americans' fear of mass shootings is increasing at a pace that exceeds their likelihood of victimization, the relationship between fear of mass shootings and gun ownership has received minimal attention.
Objective: The current study examines group differences in fear of mass shootings and openness to gun ownership. Specifically, it is hypothesized that (1) fear of mass shootings will increase openness to future firearm ownership among non-owners, (2) gun owners will be more afraid of mass shootings than non-owners, and (3) protective owners will be more afraid than non-protective owners.
Methods: This paper uses Wave 26 of Pew Research Center's nationally representative American Trends Panel (n = 1968).
Results: Binary logistic regression analyses indicate that among non-gun-owners, fear of mass shootings decreases openness to ownership. Ordinal logistic regression analyses indicate that while fear of mass shootings does not differ between gun owners and non-owners, protective gun owners are more afraid than non-protective owners.
Conclusions: Combined with prior research, these findings suggest that protective gun owners, non-protective gun owners, and non-owners have distinct views of the relationship between guns and mass shootings and are motivated to acquire firearms by different processes. Additional longitudinal work is needed to confirm these findings and clarify the role of causal attributions.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116288 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Neurodivergence and Threat: A Case Study on the Risk of Violent Fixations in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Cureus
December 2024
Child and Adolescent Inpatient Unit, Tower Behavioral Health, Reading, USA.
Mass shootings have increasingly captured public attention in recent decades, prompting closer examination of the mental health of those responsible. This scrutiny often focuses on individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While epidemiological evidence is mixed on whether these individuals are more likely to commit acts of violence than the general public, certain behavioral characteristics may make them more vulnerable to extremist ideations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMass shootings durably increase the sale of alcohol in American communities.
PNAS Nexus
January 2025
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1202 W Johnson St, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Mass shootings are devastating events. Communities can cope with the ensuing trauma in a number of ways, including changing their behavioral patterns. Using point-of-sale data from 35,000 individual retailers, including more than half of all American grocery and drugstore purchases, and all American mass shootings from 2006 to 2019, we find, in a set of two-way fixed-effects counterfactual analyses, that a mass shooting in a given community (the area covered by the ZIP-3 code) predicts a significant increase in the sales of alcohol that lasts at least 2 years past the shooting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStanding Together: An Investigation of the Social Support Deterioration Deterrence Model 1 Year After the Club Q Shooting.
J Interpers Violence
January 2025
Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA.
Both mass shootings and acts of bias-motivated violence have significant psychological consequences, as survivors commonly experience psychological distress in the form of depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) following the event. Moreover, increases in psychological distress are common near the year mark of a traumatic event. However, little is currently known about how communities affected by the intersection of bias-motivated violence and mass shootings are affected by these events in the longer term.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDefining harmful news reporting on community firearm violence: A modified Delphi consensus study.
PLoS One
December 2024
Department of Journalism and Communication, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, United States of America.
Community firearm violence (CFV), including fatal and non-fatal shootings that result from interpersonal violence, disproportionately harms people from marginalized racial groups. News reporting on CFV can further exacerbate these harms. However, examining the effects of harmful news reporting on CFV on individuals, communities, and society is hindered by the lack of a consensus definition of harmful reporting on CFV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA Moving Target: Firearm Deaths, Mental Health, and the Role of Physicians.
Curr Psychiatry Rep
December 2024
Atrium Health/Wake Forest School of Medicine, Wake Forest University-Charlotte Region, Charlotte, NC, USA.
Purpose Of Review: This review aims to provide an updated overview of trends in firearm- related deaths, the mental health impact on communities, and clinical and legislative interventions. We examine existing interventions and highlight lesser-known yet impactful strategies, such as incorporating appropriate training in medical education on firearm safety. Additionally, we explore the broader impacts of firearm violence on community mental health and address the disputed topic of whether mental illness is a driving factor behind mass shootings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!