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100 Critical Questions for Gun Violence Research

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The Joyce Foundation released a new report in January 2021 on the next generation of gun violence prevention research, identifying new paths of inquiry into reducing gun deaths and injuries in America.

The report, " The Next 100 Questions: A Research Agenda for Ending Gun Violence ," outlines key areas of focus for public and private sector efforts to build the science of gun violence prevention with actionable findings for policy makers and practitioners over the next five years. The report was written in collaboration with an advisory panel of scientific experts and includes input from dozens of researchers in the field.

Against the backdrop of a national surge of gun violence and gun purchasing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the report arrives at a moment of optimism for gun violence research efforts. Congress recently renewed $25 million in funding for those efforts, and the incoming federal administration has committed to comprehensively addressing gun violence as a public health epidemic.

The renewed federal funding into gun violence research is a good start, but there is much more to learn about reducing gun deaths and injuries in the U.S. The report identifies key questions in 10 dimensions of gun violence:

1) Firearm suicide 2) Community-based gun violence 3) Intimate partner violence 4) Shootings by law enforcement 5) Mass shootings 6) Unintentional shootings 7) Impacts of lawful gun ownership 8) Gun access during high-risk periods 9) Racial disparities and the criminal justice system 10) Firearm-related technology. The Joyce Foundation is a nonpartisan private foundation that invests in public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region. Through our Gun Violence Prevention & Justice Reform program, the Foundation has supported research and policy change to reduce gun violence for more than 25 years .

Questions about this report can be addressed to [email protected] .

About The Joyce Foundation

Joyce is a nonpartisan, private foundation that invests in evidence-informed public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region.

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May 26, 2022

The Science Is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives

By enacting simple laws that make guns safer and harder to get, we can prevent killings like the ones in Uvalde and Buffalo

By The Editors

Adam Gault/Getty Images

Editor’s Note (5/24/23): One year ago, on May 24, 2022, 19 students and two teachers were fatally shot at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex . This piece by Scientific American's editors presents the case that simple gun laws can prevent future tragedies.

Some editorials simply hurt to write. This is one.

At least 19 elementary school children and two teachers are dead, many more are injured, and a grandmother is fighting for her life in Uvalde, Tex., all because a young man, armed with an AR-15-style rifle, decided to fire in a school.

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By now, you know these facts: This killing spree was the largest school shooting since Sandy Hook. Law enforcement couldn’t immediately subdue the killer. In Texas, it’s alarmingly easy to buy and openly carry a gun . In the immediate hours after the shooting, President Biden demanded reform , again. Legislators demanded reform , again. And progun politicians turned to weathered talking points: arm teachers and build safer schools.

But rather than arm our teachers (who have enough to do without keeping that gun away from students and having to train like law enforcement to confront an armed attacker), rather than spend much-needed school dollars on more metal detectors instead of education, we need to make it harder to buy a gun. Especially the kind of weapons used by this killer and the white supremacist who killed 10 people grocery shopping in Buffalo . And we need to put a lasting stop to the political obstruction of taxpayer-funded research into gun-related injuries and deaths.

The science is abundantly clear: More guns do not stop crime . Guns kill more children each year than auto accidents. More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members. Guns are a public health crisis , just like COVID, and in this, we are failing our children, over and over again.

In the U.S., we have existing infrastructure that we could easily emulate to make gun use safer: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration . Created by Congress in 1970, this federal agency is tasked, among other things, with helping us drive a car safely. It gathers data on automobile deaths. It’s the agency that monitors and studies seat belt usage . While we track firearm-related deaths, no such safety-driven agency exists for gun use.

During the early 1990s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began to explore gun violence as a public health issue. After studies tied having a firearm to increased homicide risk , the National Rifle Association took action , spearheading the infamous Dickey Amendment, diverting gun research dollars and preventing federal funding from being used to promote gun control. For more than 20 years, research on gun violence in this country has been hard to do.

What research we have is clear and grim. For example, in 2017, guns overtook 60 years of cars as the biggest injury-based killer of children and young adults (ages one to 24) in the U.S. By 2020, about eight in every 100,000 people died of car crashes. About 10 in every 100,000 people died of gun injuries.

While cars have become increasingly safer (it’s one of the auto industry’s main talking points in marketing these days), the gun lobby has thwarted nearly all attempts to make it harder to fire a weapon. With federal protection against some lawsuits , the financial incentive of a giant tort payout to make guns safer is virtually nonexistent.

After the Uvalde killings, the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton , said he’d “rather have law-abiding citizens armed and trained so that they can respond when something like this happens.” Sen. Ted Cruz emphasized “armed law enforcement on the campus.” They are two of many conservatives who see more guns as the key to fighting gun crime. They are wrong.

A study comparing gun deaths the U.S. to other high-income countries in Europe and Asia tells us that our homicide rate in teens and young adults is 49 times higher. Our firearm suicide rate is eight times higher. The U.S. has more guns than any of the countries in the comparison.

As we previously reported , in 2015, assaults with a firearm were 6.8 times more common in states that had the most guns, compared to the least. More than a dozen studies have revealed that if you had a gun at home, you were twice as likely to be killed as someone who didn’t. Research from the Harvard School of Public Health tells us that states with higher gun ownership levels have higher rates of homicide . Data even tells us that where gun shops or gun dealers open for business, killings go up . These are but a few of the studies that show the exact opposite of what progun politicians are saying. The science must not be ignored.

Science points to laws that would work to reduce shootings, to lower death. Among the simplest would be better permitting laws with fewer loopholes. When Missouri repealed its permit law, gun-related killings increased by 25 percent . Another would be to ban people who are convicted of violent crime from buying a gun. In California, before the state passed such a law, people convicted of crimes were almost 30 percent more likely to be arrested again for a gun or violent crime than those who, after the law, couldn’t buy a gun.

Such laws, plus red flag laws and those taking guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and people who abuse alcohol, would lower our gun violence rate as a nation. But it would require elected officials to detach themselves from the gun lobby. There are so many issues to consider when voting, but in this midterm election year, we believe that protection from gun violence is one that voters could really advance. Surveys routinely show that gun control measures are extremely popular with the U.S. population.

In the meantime, there is some hope. Congress restored funding for gun-related research in 2019, and there are researchers now looking at ways to reduce gun deaths. But it’s unclear if this change in funding is permanent. And what we’ve lost is 20 years of data on gun injuries, death, safety measures and a score of other things that could make gun ownership in this country safer.

Against all this are families whose lives will never be the same because of gun violence. Who must mourn children and adults lost in domestic violence, accidental killings and mass shootings that are so common, we are still grieving one when the next one occurs.

We need to become the kind of country that looks at guns for what they are: weapons that kill. And treat them with the kind of respect that insists they be harder to get and safer to use.

And then we need to become the kind of country that says the lives of children are more valuable than the right to weapons that have killed them, time and again. Since Columbine. Since Sandy Hook. Since always.

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Gun Policy in America

A RAND Research Initiative

Facts to support fair and effective gun policies.

The strongest evidence today shows that:

• Child-access prevention laws may decrease injuries and deaths among youths
• Permissive concealed-carry laws may increase homicides and violent crime
• Stand-your-ground laws may increase homicides

Latest update

New Evidence for the Effects of Gun Policies

A new edition of The Science of Gun Policy report updates our research review of scientific evidence for the effects of gun policies to include research published through February 2023. This fourth edition updates our findings and conclusions on the effects of 18 classes of gun policies on eight outcomes .

The major changes in our findings are described the the summary of additions and updates .

Establishing a Shared Set of Facts for America

RAND's Gun Policy in America initiative aims to establish a shared set of facts about the effects of gun laws to improve public discussions and support the development of fair and effective gun policies.

We have created dozens of resources to help build a foundation of shared facts about gun laws in the United States. Get started with a few highlights:

• Explore our review of gun policy research
• View our database of historic state gun laws
• See our database on firearm injury hospitalizations
• Find estimates of how many Americans own guns

How Gun Policies Affect Outcomes: What the Evidence Shows

We reviewed thousands of studies to find all available evidence for how 18 different gun policies affect outcomes such as violent crime and mass shootings . Below we show which policies may make a difference, according to methodologically robust research. For example, evidence shows that waiting periods may decrease (blue lines) suicide rates and that concealed-carry laws may increase (orange lines) violent crime. The thicker the line, the stronger the evidence.

Click on a policy, outcome, or connecting line to learn more.

Gun Policies That May Increase Outcomes

Concealed-carry laws :.

• supportive evidence Violent crime
• limited evidence Police shootings

Stand-your-ground-laws :

Bans on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines :.

• limited evidence The price of banned firearms

Gun Policies That May Decrease Outcomes

Child-access prevention laws :.

• supportive evidence Suicide
• supportive evidence Unintentional injuries and deaths

Waiting periods :

• moderate evidence Violent crime
• moderate evidence Suicide

Background checks :

Minimum age requirements :, prohibitions associated with domestic violence :, surrender of firearms by prohibited possessors :, extreme-risk protection orders :.

• limited evidence Suicide
• limited evidence Mass shootings

Licensing and permitting requirements :

Prohibitions associated with mental illness :.

• limited evidence Violent crime

Do State Firearm Laws Affect Racial and Ethnic Groups Differently?

How do state laws affect firearm deaths, how do firearm death rates differ across states and population groups, gun ownership in america.

Information about how many Americans own guns, and how this varies over time and across the United States, is important for understanding the effects of gun laws on firearm ownership and other outcomes. Use this tool to explore the estimated household gun ownership rate by state from 1980 to 2016.

Gun Policy in America: An Overview

Americans are often divided on how to improve gun policies. Our research suggests that, among gun policy experts, these divisions are not primarily due to disagreements about what policies should achieve. Instead, the experts disagree on what the real effects of gun policies will be. This essay summarizes what is known and where new information could help build consensus about how to improve U.S. gun policies.

U.S. Gun Policy in a Global Context

Some of the most compelling evidence for a causal connection between gun prevalence and suicide or homicide rates comes from the experiences of three countries—Australia, Switzerland, and Israel—where changes in law or policy may have led to marked shifts in gun ownership rates. This essay summarizes the evidence from these countries.

What Science Tells Us About the Effects of Gun Policies

There are significant gaps in the available research on the effects of gun policies. However, the strongest evidence suggests laws aimed at preventing children from accessing guns would reduce firearm self-harm, and unintentional injuries and deaths among children.

Geographic Disparities in Rising Rates of Firearm-Related Homicide

The rate of homicides in the United States began increasing in 2014, driven largely by a rise in firearm-related homicides. This study evaluated the extent to which this increase is concentrated among geographic areas or demographic groups.

Methodological Challenges for Research on Racial Bias in Police Shootings

Ambiguities of bruen decision will affect state gun regulation, contemporary issues in gun policy, personal firearm storage in the united states, gun buyback programs in the united states.

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After 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered by a gunman at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, many Americans are asking, yet again, how to prevent future acts of senseless violence from occurring. What gun laws need to be changed? Why is it so difficult to pass regulations? How can Second Amendment rights be balanced with firearm safety? 

Stanford scholars have been studying these issues from a range of perspectives, including law, politics, economics, and medicine. Here are some of their findings.

Update: May 25, 2022: This story was originally published on Feb. 26, 2018, and has been updated to include new content.

Causes, impacts of gun violence

Uncovering the causes of gun violence has been a challenge, in part because research is limited by federal legislation that constrains research funding on the issue. Scholar Nigam Shah at the Stanford School of Medicine has written about how this has affected empirical study. But that has not deterred scholars from examining its impacts. David Studdert, also at the School of Medicine, has studied the devastating consequences of gun violence, particularly the risks it poses to public health.  

Maya Rossin-Slater, an associate professor of medicine and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), has also looked at the long-term impact of gun violence, specifically among American children who experienced a shooting at their school. Rossin-Slater found that they have higher rates of absenteeism, lower high school and college graduation rates, and by their mid-twenties, earn lower incomes.

Below is some of that research. 

Californians living with handgun owners more than twice as likely to die by homicide, study finds

Residents who don’t own a handgun but live with someone who does are significantly more likely to die by homicide compared with those in gun-free homes, research shows.

New study of gun violence in schools identifies long-term harms

Research from SIEPR’s Maya Rossin-Slater finds that students exposed to school shootings face “lasting, persistent” adversity in their educational and long-term economic outcomes.

Shirin Sinnar on the Buffalo shooting, hate crimes, and domestic terrorism

In the wake of the Buffalo shooting, Stanford Law School’s Shirin Sinnar discusses the scale of white supremacist violence in the U.S. and the rise of hate crimes.

Disconnect: The gap between gun violence and research in numbers

Gun violence is much discussed but little studied, largely due to federal decisions governing research funding. A new analysis highlights just how big the gap between the violence and our knowledge of it is. The answer? It’s huge.

Supporting students exposed to school shootings

Maya Rossin-Slater talks about her research into the mental health impact of severe school violence.

Panel discusses how shootings affect those unscathed by bullets

A panel of faculty members at the School of Medicine said shootings can affect the mental health of people close to the violence.

California handgun sales spiked after two mass shootings

In the six weeks after the Newtown and San Bernardino mass shootings, handguns sales jumped in California, yet there is little research on why – or on the implications for public health, according to a Stanford researcher.

Mass shootings: Public face of a much larger epidemic

While mass shootings have become the public face of gun violence, they account for less than 1% of the 40,000 firearm deaths each year.  

Short-term hospital readmissions for gun injuries cost $86 million a year

A study from Stanford researchers has found that readmissions account for 9.5% of the $911 million spent annually on gun-injury hospitalizations.

Supporting children through loss

Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann talks about how to help young people experiencing grief.

Firearm injuries in children, teens costly for U.S. health care system, Stanford study finds

The average cost of initial hospitalization to treat pediatric gun injuries is about $13,000 per patient and has risen in recent decades, a Stanford Medicine study found.

Investigating psychiatric illnesses of mass shooters

Ira Glick and his collaborators studied the psychiatric state of 35 mass shooters in the United States who survived the incidents, which took place between 1982 and 2019.

The silent cost of school shootings

SIEPR’s Maya Rossin-Slater finds the average rate of antidepressant use among youths under age 20 rose by 21 percent in the local communities where fatal school shootings occurred.

New study analyzes recent gun violence research

Consensus is growing in recent research evaluating the impact of right-to-carry concealed handgun laws, showing that they increase violent crime, despite what older research says.

Handgun ownership associated with much higher suicide risk

Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die of gun suicides than men who don’t own handguns, and women who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who don’t.

Advice on how to cope with the threat of school shootings

Victor Carrion offers advice on how families can cope with the stress of school safety.

Reducing gun violence

Many Americans are demanding practical steps to reduce gun crime. One way is to have more stringent gun safety policies, such as legislation requiring guns to be stored safely, more stringent background checks, or as President Biden announced Tuesday, a federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. 

Research has shown that states with tighter policies save lives: One study by Stephanie Chao found that states with stricter gun laws have lower rates of gun deaths among children and teenagers, and states with child prevention access laws are linked with fewer gun suicides in this age group.

“If you put more regulations on firearms, it does make a difference,” said Chao, assistant professor of surgery and senior author of the study. “It does end up saving children’s lives.” Her analysis found that states with the strictest laws had a mortality rate of 2.6 per 100,000 and for states with the least strict laws, mortality rate was almost double at 5.0 per 100,000.  

John Donohue: One tragic week with two mass shootings and the uniquely American gun problem

In a Q&A, Stanford Law School gun law expert John J. Donohue III discusses mass shootings in the U.S., the challenges facing police when confronting powerful automatic weapons and the prospect of gun safety laws.

Lax state gun laws linked to more child gun deaths

States with strict gun laws have lower rates of gun deaths among children and teenagers, and laws to keep guns away from minors are linked with fewer gun suicides in this age group, a Stanford study found.

Improved gun buyer background checks would impede some mass shootings, Stanford expert says

Stanford Law Professor John Donohue says a background check system that was universal and effectively operated could impede gun acquisition by people who commit mass shootings.

How to solve more gun crimes without spending more money

Simple tweaks to how police process bullet casings could dramatically improve their forensic data.

Reducing civilian firepower would boost police and community safety, Stanford expert says

In addition to restricting the firepower a person can amass, Stanford law Professor John J. Donohue advocates efforts to build trust between communities and law enforcement agencies as a way to enhance both police and citizen safety.

Stricter gun laws reduce child and adolescent gun deaths, Stanford study finds

Laws that keep guns away from young people are especially strongly linked to lower rates of gun suicides in youth.

Gun legislation and policy

For nearly three decades, law Professor John Donohue III has studied what can be done to prevent gun violence in the United States. A lawyer and economist, Donohue explores how law and public policy are connected to gun violence, including how gun laws in the U.S. compare to other countries, as well as how legislation varies across the states, to better understand the effect that has on rates of violence. 

“The U.S. is by far the world leader in the number of guns in civilian hands,” Donohue explained . “The stricter gun laws of other ‘advanced countries’ have restrained homicidal violence, suicides and gun accidents – even when, in some cases, laws were introduced over massive protests from their armed citizens.” 

Here are some of his findings, and other research related to legislating gun safety in the U.S.

Stanford’s John Donohue on guns, mass shootings and the law in the U.S.

On Nov. 30, American students were once again the victims of a school shooting. Stanford law Professor John Donohue discusses the case and gun violence in the U.S.

How U.S. gun control compares to the rest of the world

While deaths from mass shootings are a relatively small part of the overall homicidal violence in America, they are particularly wrenching. The problem is worse in the U.S. than in most other industrialized nations. And it’s getting worse.

4 gun control steps U.S. needs now

John Donohue pens an opinion piece for CNN laying out four steps the United States should take to strengthen gun legislation.

Violent crime increases in right-to-carry states

Stanford Law School Professor John Donohue found that states that adopted right-to-carry concealed handgun laws have experienced a 13 to 15 percent increase in violent crime in the 10 years after enacting those laws.

Another mass shooting: An update on U.S. gun laws

In a Q&A, John Donohue discusses gun safety law and legislative developments.

Stanford GSE holds teach-in on research into gun violence in schools

Education scholars look at the evidence behind policy ideas to address school shootings.

Will Americans ever think differently about guns?

Stanford medicine and law professor David Studdert thinks more public health evidence is needed before cultural attitudes around gun safety and violence will change.

Gun Control

Gun control is one of the most divisive issues in the United States and the disparities across the legal and illegal uses of firearms add complexity to this topic. Read the overview below to gain a balanced understanding of the issue and explore the previews of opinion articles that highlight many perspectives on gun regulation.

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Gun control topic overview.

"Gun Control." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection , Gale, 2024.

Gun control  refers to legislation and regulations that limit the ownership of firearms, restrict certain types of firearms, or determine where they may be carried. In the United States, gun control is a highly controversial topic that engenders debate surrounding public safety, state and federal government oversight, and individual rights. Supporters of gun control seek tighter restrictions on the sale and circulation of firearms to decrease the high incidence of gun-related violence and deaths in the United States. Opponents argue Americans have a constitutional right to own and bear firearms.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, an independent research group providing near-real-time data on gun violence, there were more than thirty-nine thousand firearm-related deaths in the United States from January to November 2023. Among these, 56 percent were suicides, and 44 percent were homicides. More firearm-related violence incidents in 2023 were unintentional (1,388) and defensive (1,045) than aggressive (583).

Many Americans support the right to bear arms but also believe the government has the right to regulate firearms in the interest of public safety. Though there are differences along party lines, a 2023 Gallup poll found that 56 percent of Americans believe gun control laws should be stricter, and 12 percent believe they should be less strict. Gun rights groups, such as the National Rifle Association (NRA), aim to prevent new gun control legislation and, if possible, roll back existing regulations. Since the late twentieth century, the NRA has wielded significant political influence at the national and state levels, especially among conservative politicians. In response, gun control organizations such as Brady, Giffords, and Everytown for Gun Safety have lobbied for legislation that better regulates gun ownership, such as requiring waiting periods, background checks, gun permits, gun safety training, and restrictions on the possession of assault weapons.

PROS AND CONS OF BANNING ASSAULT WEAPONS

• Self-defense and hunting needs do not require the efficiency and firepower of automatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. Assault weapons are known to be capable of injuring and killing large groups of people in mass shootings.
• Most Americans support a federal ban on military-style assault weapons. For politicians in many jurisdictions, supporting such legislation would reflect the will of the people.
• While the accidental discharge of a firearm always carries the risk of injury, the accidental discharge of an automatic weapon can result in much greater damage.
• Banning any type of firearm can be interpreted as a violation of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.
• All assault weapons sold legally in the United States are manufactured domestically, helping local economies and encouraging innovation.
• A federal assault weapons ban would have minimal impact on gun deaths, as the majority of gun deaths are self-inflicted and do not involve automatic weapons.

THE SECOND AMENDMENT

The right to keep and bear arms is included as the Second Amendment to the US Constitution as part of the Bill of Rights ratified on December 15, 1791. It states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The precise meaning and purpose of the Second Amendment have been subjects of frequent debate in the early twenty-first century. At the time it was enacted, each state maintained a militia composed of ordinary citizens who served as part-time soldiers to protect settlers on land contested by Native Americans and defend against any attacks by foreign entities, some of which still held territories later claimed by the United States. In addition, some of the authors of the Second Amendment feared the federal government would use its standing army to force its will on the states and intended to protect the state militias' right to take up arms against the federal government.

Opponents of gun control interpret the Second Amendment as guaranteeing individual citizens a right to keep and bear arms, often with little or no limitations. They assert the amendment protects the rights of the general population because colonial law required every household to possess arms and every white male of military age to be ready for self-defense and military emergencies. Therefore, by guaranteeing arms for the militia, the amendment simultaneously guaranteed arms for every citizen. Opponents of gun control further maintain the term "right of the people" in the Second Amendment holds the same meaning as it does in the First Amendment, which guarantees such individual liberties as the freedom of religion and freedom of assembly.

Proponents of gun control debate some of these interpretations and argue that much has changed since the amendment was written. Some gun control supporters argue the amendment was meant to protect only a state's right to arm citizens for the common defense, not private citizens' rights to possess and carry any firearm in any space. They also argue that, according to the amendment, such militias were "well regulated," meaning they were subject to state requirements concerning training, firearms, and periodic military exercises.

MAJOR LEGISLATION AND COURT CASES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The US Congress has created laws regarding gun regulations and the Supreme Court has ruled on several cases. The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 was the country's first major federal gun control legislation. The law required the registration of certain firearms, imposed taxes on the sale and manufacture of firearms, and restricted the sale and ownership of high-risk weapons such as machine guns. The Federal Firearms Act (FFA) of 1938 provided additional regulations, requiring federal licenses for firearm manufacturers and dealers, and prohibiting certain people from buying firearms. The Supreme Court's ruling in  United States v. Miller  (1939) upheld the NFA and set a precedent that the right to bear arms applied to citizens in active, controlled state guard or militia units.

The next major piece of federal firearms legislation was the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968, passed in the wake of the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The GCA expanded both the NFA and the FFA. The law ended mail-order sales of all firearms and ammunition and banned the sale of guns to minors, felons, fugitives from justice, people who use illegal drugs, persons with mental illness, and those dishonorably discharged from the armed forces. The Supreme Court bolstered controls when it upheld New Jersey's strict gun control law in  Burton v. Sills  (1969) and the federal ban on possession of firearms by felons in  Lewis v. United States  (1980).

The Firearms Owners' Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA), however, eased many GCA restrictions. Opponents of gun control lauded FOPA for expanding where firearms could be sold and who could sell them but continued to object to prohibitions on the manufacture and possession of machine guns for civilian use. In 1989 the administration of President George H. W. Bush announced a permanent ban on importing assault rifles. With passage of the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994 (also called the Federal Assault Weapons Ban), Congress banned the manufacture and sale of specific assault weapons. The ban expired in 2004.

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 passed as an amendment to the GCA. The Brady Act addressed several key concerns of gun control proponents by requiring a five-day waiting period for all handgun sales, during which a background check would be run on all prospective purchasers. This provision expired in 1998 and was replaced by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), a database used to verify the eligibility of a buyer to possess a firearm.

LEGISLATION AND COURT CASES IN THE EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

After several victims and families of victims of gun violence and others sued gun manufacturers and dealers whose weapons were used to commit a crime, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) and the Child Safety Lock Act of 2005. The first act limited the liability of gun manufacturers and dealers when their firearms were used in crimes. The second act required anyone licensed to transfer or sell firearms to provide gun storage or safety devices. During his 2020 presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Joe Biden supported repeal of the PLCAA. Congress enacted the NICS Improvement Amendments Act in 2007. It was meant to improve failures in the NICS system which had allowed a shooter to acquire a gun despite a disqualifying mental health status that had not been submitted to NICS by the state of Virginia. The shooter killed thirty-two people and himself on a Virginia college campus.

Gun rights proponents have used legislation and the federal courts to challenge gun restrictions. The US Supreme Court ruled in  District of Columbia v. Heller  (2008) that the Second Amendment prohibits the federal government from making it illegal for private individuals to keep loaded handguns in their homes. It was the first Supreme Court decision to explicitly rule that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. The decision in  McDonald v. Chicago  (2009) clarified that state and local authorities cannot prohibit private individuals from keeping loaded handguns in their homes. However, both decisions affirmed that the Second Amendment allows for limits on the types of arms that can be kept and how they are used. Together, the  Heller  and  McDonald  decisions have been used as the basis for several city, county, and state bans on assault weapons and specific arms such as the AR-15 rifle.

Following a 2022 mass shooting during a Fourth of July parade in Chicago that killed six and injured dozens of people, Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker signed into law the Protect Illinois Communities Act in January 2023. The law prohibits anyone from selling or distributing assault weapons throughout the state. The law immediately faced legal challenges from gun advocates, but it was upheld twice by the Illinois Supreme Court in August 2023 and by a federal appeals court in November 2023. Ten other states, including California, New Jersey, New York, and Washington have a similar active ban as of late 2023.

State and local laws regarding licensing, registration, and possession of firearms vary widely. For instance, in some states, a permit to carry a concealed weapon in public is only issued if the applicant demonstrates a need or meets safety and training requirements. In other states, a concealed carry permit is guaranteed to any citizen legally allowed to own a weapon. Several courts have used the  Heller  and  McDonald  decisions as a basis to allow concealed carry of firearms. As of September 2023, twenty-eight states allowed concealed carry without a permit.

The Supreme Court's rulings in  Heller  and  McDonald  also provided precedents for its ruling in  New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. (NYSRPA) v. Bruen  (2022). In its decision, the court deemed a 1911 New York state law that required applicants for concealed handgun permits to show "proper cause," or a special need for self-defense rather than a general desire to protect oneself, unconstitutional. The ruling was handed down in June 2022, less than two months after ten people were killed in a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, drawing harsh criticism from the state's governor and Immediate action by its legislature. In July 2022 Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Concealed Carry Improvement Act into law. Drafted in response to the court's decision, the new law retained certain requirements for concealed carry permit holders, strengthened background checks, and increased safety and training requirements. The law also identified several "sensitive locations" as gun-free zones, including schools, polling places, theaters, places of worship, government buildings, and medical and health care facilities.

LOOPHOLES IN LEGISLATION

Gaps in legislation can enable people to obtain guns who may not otherwise meet the legal requirements for purchase. The background check requirement, for example, can be avoided by purchasing firearms from an unlicensed seller who does not perform these checks. While referred to as the "gun show loophole," such sales can take place elsewhere, including online. Temporary loans of firearms are typically allowed, as are transfers of weapons that are inherited or given as gifts. While unlicensed gun transfers are acceptable within one's own state, interstate sales are prohibited.

Federal law and some states allow juveniles to purchase long guns, such as rifles and shotguns, from an unlicensed firearms dealer. Child safety advocates have long campaigned for federal legislation that would raise the minimum age to own any type of firearm and have also called for regulations aimed at preventing children from accessing guns in the home. In October 2023, a study published in the journal  Pediatrics  named firearm-related injuries as the leading cause of death among US children.

An amendment passed in 1996 known as the Lautenberg Amendment prevents people who have been convicted of domestic abuse or are the subject of a protective order prohibiting contact from owning guns. However, abusers who are not a parent, guardian, or legal spouse to their victims face no such restrictions. A provision intended to narrow this gap, known as the "boyfriend loophole," was included in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, signed into law by President Biden in June 2022.

Underreporting and underfunding of NICS have contributed to lapses in data that resulted in multiple instances of weapons sales to unauthorized persons who then used the weapons to commit crimes. For example, following an incident in which a former member of the US Air Force killed twenty-six people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, the Air Force acknowledged they had failed to report the shooter's military court-martial conviction for domestic violence to civilian authorities. In response, Congress passed the Fix NICS Act of 2017 to penalize federal agencies that do not meet NICS reporting requirements.

In 2015, a gunman shot and killed nine Black worshippers at a Charleston, South Carolina, church. Authorities later discovered the perpetrator had purchased the murder weapon while his background check was still pending because firearms sales are allowed to proceed by default if the check takes more than three days. The House of Representatives passed a bill in 2021 to extend background checks from three days to ten days, allowing more time for a full check to be completed. Known as the "Charleston loophole" bill, as of November 2023, the Senate had not voted on the legislation.

CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS

• Do you interpret the Second Amendment as recognizing an individual or a collective right to own weapons? Explain your reasoning.
• Under what circumstances, if any, do you think gun control measures could be implemented without violating the Second Amendment? Why or why not?
• In your opinion, are existing gun control regulations sufficient to ensure public safety? What other types of measures, if any, do you think are needed? Explain your answer.

TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY APPROACHES TO GUN CONTROL

Several mass shootings occurred during the presidency of Barack Obama, including the murders of twenty-seven children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 and forty-nine people at a Florida nightclub in 2016. Congressional inaction led Obama to issue executive orders that expanded background checks to cover firearms sold at gun shows and online, sought more federal agents to process background checks, advocated greater use of smart-gun technology, and required states to provide more information on people disqualified from purchasing guns. The subsequent Donald Trump administration rescinded the last order.

The largest mass shooting in US history, in which sixty people were killed in Las Vegas in 2017, and the February 2018 shooting of fourteen students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, renewed debate over access to assault weapons. Student survivors of the massacre joined other gun control advocates in calling for reform. In March 2018 the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act was signed into law in Florida. The law placed some limits on gun sales while expanding resources for law enforcement and safety personnel. Later the same month, a group of survivors and student activists organized a nationwide school walkout alongside the March for Our Lives to voice their demands for gun control legislative reform. An estimated one to two million people participated.

Leading up to the 2020 elections, lobbying organizations and political groups again invested substantial amounts of money in political campaigns to elect candidates favorable to their stance on gun control. For example, the NRA gun rights lobbying group alone spent approximately $28.5 million to back the political campaigns of Republican candidates during the 2020 election cycle. Gun control groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords collectively spent about $21.6 million in support of Democratic candidates in 2020.

In 2021 and 2022, with congressional action on gun control unlikely, President Joe Biden also issued a series of executive orders. Biden's orders focused on regulating specific types of firearms and gun modifications, funding research on firearms trafficking in the United States, and encouraging states to pass "red flag" laws. Red flag laws allow for the temporary removal of firearms from a person identified as a potential danger by law enforcement or family members, who can petition for a court order. Biden's executive orders also affirmed the federal government's jurisdiction in regulating the sale of firearm-building kits bought through private sellers online and assembled at home. Referred to as "ghost guns," these firearms do not have serial numbers and are untraceable. The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) issued revised rules clarifying that ghost guns must comply with all federal laws related to firearm sales. In October 2023, the Supreme Court blocked a lower court ruling that would have prevented ATF from enforcing the new rules.

Following back-to-back mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022 that killed a total of thirty-one people, citizens' criticism of federal inaction on gun control once again intensified, leading to the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022. President Biden signed the bill—the first major gun control legislation in nearly thirty years—into law two days after the Supreme Court's decision in  NYSRPA v. Bruen  was released.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act does not go as far as instituting universal background checks or banning assault weapons, but it contains multiple provisions intended to strengthen the background check system. For instance, the law takes steps to close the boyfriend loophole and institutes a more thorough background check process for buyers under age twenty-one. In addition, the new law requires all people who earn a profit from selling guns to register as licensed dealers, while previous regulations required licensing only for people who sold guns as their principal means of income. Bringing internet and gun show sellers under federal licensure will require they run background checks through NICS and may be a significant step toward closing the gun show loophole.

In September 2023, President Biden announced the creation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which aims to execute and build upon important legislation and government initiatives aimed at reducing gun violence in the United States. In October, however, the United States experienced the thirty-sixth and worst mass shooting of the year, when a gunman killed at least eighteen people and injured at least thirteen in two towns in Maine.

More Articles

Why the left opposes arming teachers.

“The left almost always opposes fighting evil and almost always works to disarm the good who want to fight.”

Dennis Prager is a syndicated conservative radio host and a columnist for the Daily Signal . He is the author of several books, including Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph .

In the following viewpoint, Prager argues that the government should provide public school teachers with firearms and training to reduce the number of casualties in a mass shooting. The author collectively identifies people who oppose this idea as “the left” and depicts them as enablers of violence. Citing examples over the past century, the author contends that people who advocate for gun control and promote nonviolence have allowed terrorism and human rights abuses to flourish. Prager criticizes gun control advocates and their associates for squandering their energies on issues less important to society than national security.

Why Security Measures Won’t Stop School Shootings

“[The] more teachers think of students as threats to be assessed, the less educators will think of students as individuals to nourish and cultivate.”

Bryan Warnick is a professor and associate dean in the College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State University; Benjamin A. Johnson is an assistant professor at Utah Valley University; and Sam Rocha is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia.

In the following viewpoint, the authors argue that schools risk alienating students by implementing excessive security measures. By installing invasive technologies and instituting strict policies, the authors contend, school officials encourage a perception of the school as a dangerous place that does not facilitate learning. Additionally, the authors express concern that the fortification of schools encourages teachers and students to be suspicious, rather than supportive, of each other. The authors encourage a reevaluation of school culture. Further, they contend, schools need to create opportunities for students to be able to express themselves and assert their social status in productive, nonviolent ways.

Young people Can’t Change US Gun Law Alone—But They Could Tip the Balance

“The political courage and leadership of the young people in Florida who took on the gun lobby this week stands in the storied, inspiring tradition of youth activism in America and beyond.”

Gary Younge is the editor-at-large for the Guardian and columnist for the Nation . He is the author of several books, including Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States .

In the following viewpoint, Younge commends the ability of young people to advocate for social change but warns that social movements will not be successful if they are entirely dependent on youths. Younge applies his argument to the student survivors of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who have called on lawmakers to pass gun control legislation to prevent mass shootings. Comparing the youth gun control advocates to adults calling for similar reforms, Younge contends that the student activists have been able to draw attention to lawmakers’ inaction surrounding gun violence in a way that adults have repeatedly failed. However, Younge maintains, the likelihood of meaningful change depends on adults building upon the momentum created by the student activists.

Don’t Mistake Victims of Gun Violence for Experts on Gun Control

“The adults understand, even if the children do not, that the larger goal is the disarmament of free people whose insistence upon individual liberty has no place in the new progressive political order.”

Jeffrey T. Brown is an insurance and personal injury attorney in Bowie, Maryland, and a contributor to the American Thinker .

In the following viewpoint, Brown argues that lawmakers should avoid being swayed by victims of gun violence and resist passing gun legislation in the immediate wake of a national tragedy, such as the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The author contends that gun control advocates frequently use mass shootings as opportunities to push their political agenda. Further, he asserts, gun control groups exploit the victims of gun violence and use them to evoke an emotional response from the public. Dismissing the calls for gun control raised by the student survivors of the 2018 shooting, Brown argues that the students’ personal experiences with gun violence do not qualify them to make decisions regarding gun rights.

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Gun Violence: Prediction, Prevention, and Policy

• Gun Violence and Crime
• Physical Abuse and Violence

Gun violence is an urgent, complex, and multifaceted problem. It requires evidence-based, multifaceted solutions. Psychology can make important contributions to policies that prevent gun violence. Toward this end, in February 2013 the American Psychological Association commissioned this report by a panel of experts to convey research-based conclusions and recommendations (and to identify gaps in such knowledge) on how to reduce the incidence of gun violence — whether by homicide, suicide, or mass shootings — nationwide.

Following are chapter-by-chapter highlights and short summaries of conclusions and recommendations of the report’s authors. More information and supporting citations can be found within the chapters themselves.

Antecedents to Gun Violence: Developmental Issues

A complex and variable constellation of risk and protective factors makes persons more or less likely to use a firearm against themselves or others. For this reason, there is no single profile that can reliably predict who will use a gun in a violent act. Instead, gun violence is associated with a confluence of individual, family, school, peer, community, and sociocultural risk factors that interact over time during childhood and adolescence. Although many youths desist in aggressive and antisocial behavior during late adolescence, others are disproportionately at risk for becoming involved in or otherwise affected by gun violence. The most consistent and powerful predictor of future violence is a history of violent behavior.  P revention efforts guided by research on developmental risk can reduce the likelihood that firearms will be introduced into community and family conflicts or criminal activity.  Prevention efforts can also reduce the relatively rare occasions when severe mental illness contributes to homicide or the more common circumstances when depression or other mental illness contributes to suicide. Reducing incidents of gun violence arising from criminal misconduct or suicide is an important goal of broader primary and secondary prevention and intervention strategies. Such strategies must also attend to redirecting developmental antecedents and larger sociocultural processes that contribute to gun violence and gun-related deaths.

Antecedents to Gun Violence: Gender and Culture

Any account of gun violence in the United States must be able to explain both why males are perpetrators of the vast majority of gun violence and why the vast majority of males never perpetrate gun violence. Preliminary evidence suggests that changing perceptions among males of social norms about behaviors and characteristics associated with masculinity may reduce the prevalence of intimate partner and sexual violence. Such interventions need to be further tested for their potential to reduce gun violence. The skills and knowledge of psychologists are needed to develop and evaluate programs and settings in schools, workplaces, prisons, neighborhoods, clinics, and other relevant contexts that aim to change gendered expectations for males that emphasize self-sufficiency, toughness, and violence, including gun violence.

What Works: Gun Violence Prediction and Prevention at the Individual Level

Although it is important to recognize that most people suffering from a mental illness are not dangerous, for those persons at risk for violence due to mental illness, suicidal thoughts, or feelings of desperation, mental health treatment can often prevent gun violence. Policies and programs that identify and provide treatment for all persons suffering from a mental illness should be a national priority. Urgent attention must be paid to the current level of access to mental health services in the United States; such access is woefully insufficient. Additionally, it should be noted that behavioral threat assessment is becoming a standard of care for preventing violence in schools, colleges, and the workplace and against government and other public officials. Threat assessment teams gather and analyze information to assess if a person poses a threat of violence or self-harm, and if so, take steps to intervene.

What Works: Gun Violence Prevention at the Community Level

Prevention of violence occurs along a continuum that begins in early childhood with programs to help parents raise emotionally healthy children and ends with efforts to identify and intervene with troubled individuals who are threatening violence. The mental health community must take the lead in advocating for community-based collaborative problem-solving models to address the prevention of gun violence. Such models should blend prevention strategies in an effort to overcome the tendency within many community service systems to operate in silos. There has been some success with community-based programs involving police training in crisis intervention and with community members trained in mental health first aid. These programs need further piloting and study so they can be expanded to additional communities as appropriate. In addition, public health messaging campaigns on safe gun storage are needed. The practice of keeping all firearms appropriately stored and locked must become the only socially acceptable norm.

What Works: Policies to Reduce Gun Violence

The use of a gun greatly increases the odds that violence will lead to a fatality: This problem calls for urgent action. Firearm prohibitions for high-risk groups — domestic violence offenders, persons convicted of violent misdemeanor crimes, and individuals with mental illness who have been adjudicated as being a threat to themselves or to others — have been shown to reduce violence. The licensing of handgun purchasers, background check requirements for all gun sales, and close oversight of retail gun sellers can reduce the diversion of guns to criminals. Reducing the incidence of gun violence will require interventions through multiple systems, including legal, public health, public safety, community, and health. Increasing the availability of data and funding will help inform and evaluate policies designed to reduce gun violence.

Dewey Cornell, PhD, and Nancy G. Guerra, EdD

Gun violence is an important national problem leading to more than 31,000 deaths and 78,000 nonfatal injuries every year. Although the rate of gun homicides in the United States has declined in recent years, U.S. rates remain substantially higher than those of almost every other nation in the world and are at least seven times higher than those of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and many others (see Alpers & Wilson).

Guns are not a necessary or sufficient cause of violence and can be used legally for a variety of sanctioned activities. Still, they are especially lethal weapons that are used in approximately two thirds of the homicides and more than half of all suicides in the United States. Every day in the United States, approximately 30 persons die of homicides and 53 persons die of suicides committed by someone using a gun (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2013a). Guns also provide individuals with the capacity to carry out multiple-fatality shootings that inflict great trauma and grief on our society, and the public rightly insists on action to make our communities safer.

Gun violence demands special attention. At the federal level, President Barack Obama announced a new “Now Is the Time” plan (White House, 2013) to address firearm violence to better protect children and communities and issued 23 related executive orders to federal agencies. The importance of continued research to address firearm violence is reflected in the 2013 report of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NRC) "Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence. "  This report calls for a public health approach that emphasizes the importance of accurate information on the number and distribution of guns in the United States, including risk factors and motivations for acquisition and use, the association between exposure to media violence and any subsequent perpetration of gun violence, and how new technology can facilitate prevention. The report also outlines a research agenda to facilitate programs and policies that can reduce the occurrence and impact of firearm-related violence in the United States.

Psychology can make an important contribution to policies that prevent gun violence. Rather than debate whether “people” kill people or “guns” kill people, a reasonable approach to facilitate prevention is that “people with guns kill people.” The problem is more complex than simple slogans and requires careful study and analysis of the different psychological factors, behavioral pathways, social circumstances, and cultural factors that lead to gun violence. Whether prevention efforts should focus on guns because they are such a powerful tool for violence, on other factors that might have equal or greater impact, or on some combination of factors should be a scientific question settled by evidence.

Toward this end, the American Psychological Association (APA) commissioned this report, with three goals. First, this report is intended to focus on gun violence, recognizing that knowledge about gun violence must be related to a broader understanding of violence. Second, the report reviews what is known from the best current science on antecedents to gun violence and effective prevention strategies at the individual, community, and national levels. Finally, the report identifies policy directions, gaps in the literature, and suggestions for continued research that can help address unresolved questions about effective strategies to reduce gun violence. For over a decade, research on gun violence has been stifled by legal restrictions, political pressure applied to agencies not to fund research on certain gun-related topics, and a lack of funding. The authors of this report believe the cost of gun violence to our society is too great to allow these barriers to remain in place.

The Role of Mental Health and Mental Illness

An important focus of this report is the role that mental health and mental illness play in why individuals commit firearm-related violence and how this can inform preventive efforts. This focus undoubtedly brings to mind shootings such as those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., and Tucson, Ariz. However, it is important to realize that mass fatality incidents of this type, although highly publicized, are extremely rare, accounting for one tenth of 1 percent of all firearm-related homicides in the United States (CDC, 2013a). Moreover, serious mental illness affects a significant percentage of the U.S. population, with prevalence estimates in the general population as high as 5 percent (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2012). This is quite significant, given that the term serious mental illness is typically reserved for the most debilitating kinds of mental disorder, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the most severe forms of depression, but can include other mental disorders that result in acute functional impairment.

Although many highly publicized shootings have involved persons with serious mental illness, it must be recognized that persons with serious mental illness commit only a small proportion of firearm-related homicides; the problem of gun violence cannot be resolved simply through efforts focused on serious mental illness (Webster & Vernick, 2013a). Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of people with serious mental illness do not engage in violence toward others and should not be stereotyped as dangerous (Sirotich, 2008).

It also is important to recognize that for the small proportion of individuals whose serious mental illness does predispose them to violence, there are significant societal barriers to treatment. Psychiatric hospitalization can be helpful, but treatment can be expensive, and there may not be appropriate follow-up services in the community. Civil commitment laws, which serve to protect individuals from being unreasonably detained or forced into treatment against their will, can also prevent professionals from treating someone who does not recognize his or her need for treatment.

Other kinds of mental disorders that do not rise to the level of serious mental illness also are associated with gun violence and criminal behavior generally. For example, conduct disorder and antisocial personality disorder are associated with increased risk for violence. (This link is not surprising because violent behavior is counted as one of the symptoms that helps qualify someone for the diagnosis.) Nevertheless, there are well-established, scientifically validated mental health treatment programs for individuals with these disorders, such as multisystemic therapy, that can reduce violent recidivism (Henggeler, 2011). Substance abuse is another form of mental disorder that is a risk factor for violence in the general population and also increases the risk for violence among persons with serious mental illness (Van Dorn, Volavka, & Johnson, 2012).

These observations reflect the complexity of relationships among serious mental illness, mental disorders, and violence. In contrast to homicide, suicide accounts for approximately 61 percent of all firearm fatalities in the United States (CDC, 2013a), and more than 90 percent of persons who commit suicide have some combination of depression, symptoms of other mental disorders, and/or substance abuse (Moscicki, 2001). This suggests that mental health and mental illness are especially relevant to understanding and preventing suicide, the leading type of firearm-related death.

Prediction and Prevention

The prediction of an individual’s propensity for violence is a complex and challenging task for mental health professionals, who often are called upon by courts, correctional authorities, schools, and others to assess the risk of an individual’s violence. Mental health professionals are expected to take action to protect potential victims when they judge that their patient or client poses a danger to others. However, decades of research have established that there is only a moderate ability to identify individuals likely to commit serious acts of violence. Much depends on the kind of violence and the time frame for prediction. For example, there are specialized instruments for the assessment of violence risk among sex offenders, civilly committed psychiatric patients, and domestic violence offenders. However, the time frame and focus for these predictions often are broadly concerned with long-term predictions that someone will ever be violent with anyone rather than whether a person will commit a particular act of targeted violence.

Research has moved the field beyond the assessment of “dangerousness” as a simple individual characteristic applicable in all cases to recognize that predictive efforts must consider a range of personal, social, and situational factors that can lead to different forms of violent behavior in different circumstances. Moreover, risk assessment has expanded to include concepts of risk management and interventions aimed at reducing risk.

In making predictions about the risk for mass shootings, there is no consistent psychological profile or set of warning signs that can be used reliably to identify such individuals in the general population. A more promising approach is the strategy of behavioral threat assessment , which is concerned with identifying and intervening with individuals who have communicated threats of violence or engaged in behavior that clearly indicates planning or preparation to commit a violent act. A threat assessment approach recognizes that individuals who threaten targeted violence are usually troubled, depressed, and despondent over their circumstances in life. A threat assessment leads to interventions intended to reduce the risk of violence by taking steps to address the problem that underlies the threatening behavior. Such problems can range from workplace conflicts to schoolyard bullying to serious mental illness. One of the most influential threat assessment models was developed by the U.S. Secret Service (Fein et al., 2002; Vossekuil, Fein, Reddy, Borum, & Modzelski, 2002) and has been adapted for use in schools, colleges, business settings, and the U.S. military.

The limited ability to make accurate predictions of violence has led some to question whether prevention is possible. This is a common misconception, because prevention does not require prediction of a specific individual’s behavior . For example, public health campaigns have reduced problems ranging from lung cancer to motor vehicle accidents by identifying risk factors and promoting safer behaviors even though it is not possible to predict whether a specific individual will develop lung cancer or have a motor vehicle accident (Mozaffarian, Hemenway, & Ludwig, 2013). A substantial body of scientific evidence identifies important developmental, familial, and social risk factors for violence. In addition, an array of rigorously tested psychological and educational interventions facilitate healthy social development and reduce aggressive behavior by teaching social skills and problem-solving strategies. It is important that policymakers and stakeholders recognize the value of prevention.

Prevention measures also should be distinguished from security measures and crisis response plans. Prevention must begin long before a gunman comes into a school or shopping center. Prevention efforts are often conceptualized as taking place on primary, secondary, and tertiary levels:

• Primary prevention (also called universal prevention) consists of efforts to promote healthy development in the general population. An example would be a curriculum to teach all children social skills to resist negative peer influences and resolve conflicts peacefully.
• Secondary prevention (also called selective prevention) involves assistance for individuals who are at increased risk for violence. Mentoring programs and conflict-mediation services are examples of such assistance.
• Tertiary prevention (also called indicated prevention) consists of intensive services for individuals who have engaged in some degree of aggressive behavior and could benefit from efforts to prevent a recurrence or escalation of aggression. Programs to rehabilitate juvenile offenders are examples.

Throughout this report, we discuss evidence-based prevention programs relevant to the issue of firearm-related violence.

Research can help us understand and prevent gun violence. The psychological research summarized in this report can inform public policy and prevention efforts designed to promote public safety and reduce violence. Gun violence is not a simple, discrete category of crime; it shares characteristics with other forms of violence, and it can be a product of an array of cultural, social, psychological, and situational factors. Nevertheless, there is valuable psychological knowledge that can be used to make our communities safer.

Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD; Nancy G. Guerra, EdD; and Ariel A. Williamson, MA

Youth gun violence is often sensationalized and misunderstood by the general public, in part because of increasingly public acts of violence and related media coverage (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006; Williams, Tuthill, & Lio, 2008). In truth, only a small number of juvenile offenders commit the majority of violent juvenile crimes in the United States (Williams et al., 2008). Most juvenile offenders commit “nonperson” offenses, usually in terms of property and technical (parole) violations (Sickmund, Sladky, Kang, & Puzzanchera, 2011). For example, in 2010, the majority of juvenile offenses were nonperson offenses such as property offenses (27.2 percent), drug offenses (8.4 percent), public order offenses (10.7 percent), technical violations (14.4 percent), and status offenses (4.6 percent) — that is, crimes defined by minor (under age 18) status, such as alcohol consumption, truancy, and running away from home (Sickmund et al., 2011). Additionally, young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 are the most likely to commit violent crimes like homicide and to do so using a gun, compared with individuals under 18 (Cooper & Smith, 2011).

A subgroup of youth is particularly vulnerable to violence and victimization. Minority males constitute a disproportionate number of youths arrested and adjudicated, with 60 percent of all arrested youths identifying as part of a racial/ethnic minority group (Sickmund et al., 2011). Males also outnumber females in arrest rates for every area except status offenses and technical violations. Urban African American males are at substantially greater risk for involvement in gun-related homicides as perpetrators and as victims (CDC, 2013a; Spano, Pridemore, & Bolland, 2012). However, the majority of the infrequent but highly publicized shootings with multiple fatalities, such as those at Sandy Hook Elementary School or the Aurora, Colo., movie theater, have been committed by young White males.

This presents a picture of a small number of youths and young adults who are at an increased risk for involvement in gun violence. In the United States, these youths are somewhat more likely to be males of color growing up in urban areas. But it also is important to understand that most young males of all races and ethnicities — and most people in general — are not involved in serious violence and do not carry or use guns inappropriately.

How did this small subset of youths and young adults come to be involved in serious gun violence? Is there a “cradle-to-prison” pipeline, particularly for youths of color living in poverty and in disadvantaged urban areas, that triggers a cascade of events that increase the likelihood of gun violence (Children’s Defense Fund, 2009)? A developmental perspective on antecedents to youth gun violence can help us design more effective prevention programs and strategies.

This chapter describes the biological and environmental risk factors that begin early in development and continue into adolescence and young adulthood. Developmental studies that link children’s aggressive behavior to more serious involvement in the criminal justice system suggest the accumulation and interaction of many risks in multiple contexts (Dodge, Greenberg, Malone, & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2008; Dodge & Pettit, 2003). There is no single biological predisposition, individual trait, or life experience that accounts for the development and continuity of violent behavior or the use of guns. Rather, violence is associated with a confluence of individual, family, school, peer, community, and sociocultural risk factors that interact over time during childhood and adolescence (Brennan, Hall, Bor, Najman, & Williams, 2003; Dodge & Pettit, 2003). Risk for gun violence involves similar risk processes, although the complexity and variability of individuals means there is no meaningful profile that allows reliable prediction of who will eventually engage in gun violence. Nevertheless, developmental factors beginning in utero may increase the risk of aggressive behavior and lead to gun violence — especially when guns are readily available and part of an aggressive or delinquent peer culture.

Early-Onset Aggression

Early onset of aggressive behavior significantly increases risk for later antisocial behavior problems. The most consistent and powerful predictor of future violence is a history of violent behavior, and risk increases with earlier and more frequent incidents. Longitudinal work has shown that having a first arrest between 7 and 11 years of age is associated with patterns of long-term adult offending (Loeber, 1982). Children who are highly aggressive throughout childhood and continue to have serious conduct problems during adolescence have been identified as “life-course persistent” (LCP) youths (Moffitt, 1993). Examining longitudinal data from a large birth cohort in New Zealand, Moffitt (1993) created a taxonomy of antisocial behavior that differentiates LCP youths from an “adolescence-limited” subgroup. The latter subgroup characterizes those who engage in antisocial behaviors during adolescence and usually desist by adulthood. By contrast, LCP youths display more severe early aggression in childhood and develop a pattern of chronic violence during adolescence and into adulthood.

Both biological and environmental risks during prenatal development, infancy, and early childhood contribute to the development of early-onset aggression and the LCP developmental trajectory (Brennan et al., 2003; Dodge & Pettit, 2003; Moffitt, 2005). Pre- and postnatal risks associated with early-onset aggression include maternal substance abuse during pregnancy, high levels of prenatal stress, low birth weight, birth complications and injuries (especially those involving anoxia), malnutrition, and exposure to environmental toxins like lead paint (Brennan et al., 2003; Dodge & Pettit, 2003). According to Moffitt (1993), these early developmental risks disrupt neural development and are associated with neuropsychological deficits, particularly in executive functioning and verbal abilities.

Along with neuropsychological deficits, poor behavioral control and a difficult temperament are associated with the development of early-onset aggression (Dodge & Pettit, 2003; Moffitt, 1993). Children with difficult temperaments are typically irritable, difficult to soothe, and highly reactive. These patterns of behavior often trigger negative and ineffective reactions from parents and caregivers that can escalate into early aggressive behavior (Dodge & Pettit, 2003; Wachs, 2006). Family influences, such as familial stress and negative parent–child interactions, can interact with a child’s individual characteristics, leading to increased aggressive behavior during childhood.

Family Influences

Highly aggressive children who engage in serious acts of violence during later childhood and adolescence also are exposed to continued environmental risks throughout development (Dodge et al., 2008). The family context has been found to be quite influential in the development and continuity of antisocial behavior. Particularly for early-onset aggressive youths raised in families that are under a high degree of environmental stress, aggressive child behavior and negative parenting practices interact to amplify early-onset aggression. Examples of family risk factors include low parent–child synchrony and warmth, poor or disrupted attachment, harsh or inconsistent discipline (overly strict or permissive), poor parental monitoring, the modeling of antisocial behavior, pro-violent attitudes and criminal justice involvement, and coercive parent–child interaction patterns (Dodge & Pettit, 2003; Farrington, Jolliffe, Loeber, Stouthamer-Loeber, & Kalb, 2001; Hill, Howel, Hawkins, & Battin-Pearson, 1999; Patterson, Forgatch, & DeGarmo, 2010).

Coercive parent–child interactions have been associated with the emergence of aggressive behavior problems in children (Patterson et al., 2010). In these interactions, children learn to use coercive behaviors such as temper tantrums to escape parental discipline. When parents acquiesce to these negative behaviors, they inadvertently reward children for coercive behaviors, reinforcing the idea that aggression or violence is adaptive and can be used instrumentally to achieve goals. These interaction patterns tend to escalate in their severity (e.g., from whining, to temper tantrums, to hitting, etc.) and frequency, leading to increased aggression and noncompliance (Patterson et al., 2010). Such behaviors also generalize across contexts to children’s interactions with others outside the home, including with teachers, other adults, and peers. Indeed, prevention research has shown that intervening with at-risk families to improve parenting skills can disrupt the pathway from early-onset aggressive behavior to delinquency in adolescence (Patterson et al., 2010).

Other family risk factors for youths with early predispositions to aggression may be especially relevant to increased risk for gun violence. For instance, research has shown that many families with children own firearms and do not keep them safely stored at home (Johnson, Miller, Vriniotis, Azrael, & Hemenway, 2006). Although keeping firearms at home is not a direct cause of youth gun violence, the rates of suicides, homicides, and unintentional firearm fatalities are higher for 5–14-year-olds who live in states or regions in which rates of gun ownership are more prevalent (Miller, Azrael, & Hemenway, 2002). Poor parental monitoring and supervision, which are more general risk factors for involvement in aggression and violent behaviors (Dodge et al., 2008), may be especially salient in risk for gun violence. For example, impulsive or aggressive children who are often unsupervised and live in a home with access to guns may be at risk.

The family also is an important context for socialization and the development of normative beliefs or perceptions about appropriate social behavior that become increasingly stable during early development and are predictive of later behavior over time (Huesmann & Guerra, 1997). These beliefs shape an individual’s social-cognitive understanding about whether and under what circumstances threatened or actual violence is justified. Children who develop beliefs that aggression is a desirable and effective way to interact with others are more likely to use coercion and violence instrumentally to achieve goals or solve problems (Huesmann & Guerra, 1997). Antisocial attitudes and social-cognitive distortions (e.g., problems in generating nonviolent solutions, misperceiving hostile/aggressive intent by others, justifying acts of violence that would be criminal) can also increase risk for violence (Borum & Verhaagen, 2006; Dodge & Pettit, 2003).

Families can play a role in establishing and maintaining normative beliefs about violence and gun usage. For example, pro-violence attitudes and the criminality of parents and siblings during childhood have been found to predict adolescent gang membership and delinquency (Farrington et al., 2001; Hill et al., 1999). Youths from families that encourage the use of guns for solving problems also may be exposed to such attitudes in other contexts (in communities, with peers, and in the media) and may perceive firearms to be an appropriate means to solve problems and protect themselves.

School and Peer Influences

The school setting is another important context for child socialization. Children who enter school with high levels of aggressive behavior, cognitive or neurobiological deficits, and poor emotional regulation may have difficulty adjusting to the school setting and getting along with peers (Dodge et al., 2008; Dodge & Pettit, 2003). Highly aggressive children who have learned to use aggression instrumentally at home will likely use such behavior with teachers, increasing the chances that they will have poor academic experiences and low school engagement (Patterson et al., 2010). Academic failure, low school interest, truancy, and school dropout are all correlated with increased risk for problem behavior and delinquency, including aggression and violence (Dodge & Pettit, 2003). This risk is strongest when poor academic achievement begins in elementary school and contributes to school underachievement and the onset of adolescent problem behaviors, such as substance use and drug trafficking, truancy, unsafe sexual activity, youth violence, and gang involvement (Dodge et al., 2008; Guerra & Bradshaw, 2008).

Involvement in these risk behaviors also is facilitated by affiliation with deviant peers, particularly during adolescence (Dodge et al., 2008). Research has shown that children who are aggressive, victimized, and academically marginalized from the school setting may suffer high levels of peer rejection that amplify preexisting aggressive behaviors (Dodge et al., 2008; Dodge & Pettit, 2003). Longitudinal work indicates that experiences of academic failure, school marginalization, and peer rejection interact to produce affiliations with similarly rejected, deviant, and/or gang-involved peers. Friendships between deviant peers provide youths with “training” in antisocial behaviors that reinforce and exacerbate preexisting aggressive tendencies (Dishion, Véronneau, & Meyers, 2010; Dodge et al., 2008). Peer deviancy training is a primary mechanism in the trajectory from overt, highly aggressive behaviors during childhood to more covert processes during adolescence, such as lying, stealing, substance use, and weapon carrying (Dishion et al., 2010; Patterson et al., 2010).

The larger school context also can interact with youths’ experiences of academic failure, peer rejection, and deviant peer affiliations to influence the continuity of antisocial behavior. Poorly funded schools located in low-income neighborhoods have fewer resources to address the behavioral, academic, mental health, and medical needs of their students. In addition, these schools tend to have stricter policies toward discipline, are less clinically informed about problem behaviors, and have stronger zero tolerance policies that result in more expulsions and suspensions (Edelman, 2007). This contextual factor is important, as youths who are attending and engaged in school are less likely to engage in delinquent or violent behavior, whereas marginalized and rejected youths, particularly in impoverished schools, are at increased risk for aggression and violence at school and in their communities. Schools that provide safe environments that protect students from bullying or criminal victimization support student engagement, reduce incidents of student conflict that could result in volatile or violent behavior, and diminish risks that students will bring weapons to school.

Although few homicides (< 2 percent) and suicides occur at school or during transportation to and from school (Roberts, Zhang, & Truman, 2012) and widely publicized mass school shootings are rare, research indicates that a small number of students do carry guns or other weapons. In 2011, 5.1 percent of high school students in Grades 9–12 reported carrying a gun in the 30 days prior to the survey, and 5.4 percent of students had carried a weapon (gun, knife, or club) on school grounds at least once in the 30 days prior to the survey (Eaton et al., 2012). Studies show that youths who carry guns are more likely to report involvement in multiple problem behaviors, to be affiliated with a gang, to overestimate how many of their peers carry guns, and to have a high need for interpersonal safety. For instance, student reports of involvement in and exposure to risk behaviors at school such as physical fighting, being threatened, using substances, or selling drugs on school grounds have been positively correlated with an increased likelihood of carrying weapons to school (Furlong, Bates, & Smith, 2001).

In another study of high school students, 5.5 percent of urban high school students reported that they carried a gun in the year prior to the study, but students estimated that 32.6 percent of peers in their neighborhoods carried guns, a substantial overestimation of the actual gun-carrying rates. Lawful, supervised gun carrying by juveniles is not the concern of this line of research; however, when unsupervised youths carry guns in high-violence neighborhoods, they may be more likely to use guns to protect themselves and resolve altercations. Gun-carrying youths in this study had higher rates of substance use, violence exposure, gang affiliation, and peer victimization (Hemenway, Vriniotis, Johnson, Miller, & Azrael, 2011). Additionally, many gun-carrying youths had lower levels of perceived interpersonal safety (Hemenway et al., 2011). Research has also revealed that deviant peer group affiliations during specific periods of adolescent development may increase the risk for gun violence. For example, research findings have shown that gang membership in early adolescence is significantly associated with increased gun carrying over time. This changes somewhat in late adolescence and young adulthood, when gun carrying is linked more to involvement in drug dealing and having peers who illegally own guns (Lizotte, Krohn, Howell, Tobin, & Howard, 2000).

Communities Matter

The community context is an additional source of risk for the development and continuity of antisocial behavior. Living in extremely disadvantaged, underresourced communities with high levels of crime and violence creates serious obstacles to healthy development. Recent estimates show that currently in the United States, 16.4 million children live in poverty and 7.4 million of those live in extreme poverty (i.e., an annual income of less than half of the federal poverty level; Children’s Defense Fund, 2012). One in four children under 5 years of age is poor during the formative years of brain development. In addition, 22 percent of children who have lived in poverty do not graduate from high school, compared with 6 percent of children who have never been poor (Children’s Defense Fund, 2012). For families and youths, living in poverty is associated with high levels of familial stress, poor child nutrition, elevated risks of injury, and limited access to adequate health care (Adler & Steward, 2010; Patterson et al., 2010). Ethnic minority youth in the United States are overrepresented in economically struggling communities. These environmental adversities can, in turn, compromise children’s health status and functioning in other environments and increase the risk for involvement in violent behaviors, contributing significantly to ethnic and cultural variations in the rates of violence (Borum & Verhaagen, 2006).

In a community context, the degree to which children have access to adequate positive resources (e.g., in terms of health, finances, nutrition, education, peers, and recreation), have prosocial and connected relationships with others, and feel safe in their environment can significantly affect their risk for involvement in violent behaviors. Aggressive children and adolescents who are living in neighborhoods with high levels of community violence, drug and firearm trafficking, gang presence, and inadequate housing may have increased exposure to violence and opportunities for involvement in deviant behavior. Compared with communities that have better resources, disenfranchised and impoverished communities may also lack social, recreational, and vocational opportunities that contribute to positive youth development. Youths with high levels of preexisting aggressive behavior and emerging involvement with deviant or gang-involved peers may be especially at risk for increased violent behavior and subsequent criminal justice involvement when exposed to impoverished and high-crime communities.

Exposure to violence in one’s community, a low sense of community safety, unsupervised access to guns, and involvement in risky community behaviors such as drug dealing all contribute to youths’ involvement in gun carrying and gun violence. Decreased community perceptions of neighborhood safety and higher levels of social (e.g., loitering, public substance use, street fighting, prostitution, etc.) and physical (e.g., graffiti, gang signs, and discarded needles, cigarettes, and beer bottles) neighborhood disorder have been associated with increased firearm carrying among youths (Molnar, Miller, Azrael, & Buka, 2004). A study of African American youths living in poverty found that those who had been exposed to violence prior to carrying a gun were 2.5 times more likely than nonexposed youths to begin carrying a gun at the next time point, even when controlling for gang involvement (Spano et al., 2012). This study also indicated that after exposure to violence, youths were more likely to start carrying guns in their communities (Spano et al., 2012).

Studies have shown that apart from characteristics like conduct problems and prior delinquency, youths who are involved in gang fighting and selling drugs are also more likely to use a gun to threaten or harm others (e.g., Butters, Sheptycki, Brochu, & Erikson, 2011). Involvement in drug dealing in one’s community appears to be particularly risky for gun carrying during later adolescence and early adulthood, possibly due to an increased need for self-protection (Lizotte et al., 2000). Taken together, these studies show that firearm possession may be due to interactions between the need for self-protection in violent communities and increased involvement in delinquent behaviors.

Sociocultural Context: Exposure to Violent Media

Child and adolescent exposure to violent media, a more distal, sociocultural influence on behavior, is also important when considering developmental risks for gun violence. Decades of experimental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal research have documented that exposure to violent media, in movies and television, is associated with increased aggressive behaviors, aggressive thoughts and feelings, increased physiological arousal, and decreased prosocial behaviors (e.g., Anderson et al., 2003; Anderson & Bushman, 2001; Huesmann, 2010; Huesmann, Moise-Titus, Podolski, & Eron, 2003). In light of ongoing advances in technology, research has been expanded to include violent content in video games, music, social media, and the Internet (Anderson et al., 2010; IOM & NRC, 2013).

Findings on associations between violent media exposure and aggressive behavior outcomes have held across differences in culture, gender, age, socioeconomic status, and intellect (e.g., Anderson et al., 2010; Huesmann et al., 2003). Social-cognitive theory on violent media exposure suggests that these images are part of children’s socialization experiences, similar to violence exposure in interpersonal and community contexts (Huesmann, 2010). The viewing of violent images can serve to desensitize children to violence and normalize violent behavior, particularly when children have previously developed beliefs that aggression and violence are an acceptable means of achieving goals or resolving conflicts.

It is important to note that the link between violent media exposure and subsequent violent behaviors does not demonstrate a direct causal effect but instead shows how some children may be more susceptible to this risk factor than others. For instance, Huesmann et al. (2003) found that identification with aggressive characters on television and the perception that television violence was real were robust predictors of later aggression over time. Additionally, there is no established link between violent media exposure and firearm usage in particular. However, given the substantial proportion of media that includes interactions around firearms (e.g., in video games, movies, and television shows), the IOM and NRC (2013) recently identified a crucial need to examine specific associations between exposure to violent media and use of firearms. Exposure to violent media, especially for youths with preexisting aggressive tendencies and poor parental monitoring, may be an important contextual factor that amplifies risk for violent behavior and gun use.

Summary and Conclusions

The relatively small number of youths most likely to persist in serious acts of aggression (including increased risk of gun violence) have often experienced the following:

• Early childhood onset of persistent rule-breaking and aggression
• Socialization into criminal attitudes and behaviors by parents and caretakers who themselves are involved in criminal activities
• Exposure in childhood to multiple adverse experiences in their families and communities
• Social dislocation and reduced opportunities due to school failure or underachievement
• Persisting affiliation with deviant peers or gangs engaged in delinquent/criminal misconduct and with attitudes and beliefs that support possession and use of guns
• Broad exposure to sociocultural influences such as mass media violence and depictions of gun violence as an effective means of achieving goals or status

Most youths — even those with chronic and violent delinquent misconduct — desist in aggressive and antisocial behavior during late adolescence, and no single risk factor is sufficient to generate persisting violent behavior. Still, many are disproportionately at risk for becoming perpetrators or victims of gun violence. Homicide remains the second leading cause of death for teens and young adults between the ages of 15 and 24. In 2010, there were 2,711 infant, child, and adolescent victims of firearm deaths. In that year, 84 percent of homicide victims between the ages of 10 and 19 were killed with a firearm, and 40 percent of youths who committed suicide between the ages 15 and 19 did so with a gun (CDC, 2013a). 1

There is no one developmental trajectory that specifically leads to gun violence. However, prevention efforts guided by research on developmental risk can reduce the likelihood that firearms will be introduced into community and family conflicts or criminal activity. Prevention efforts can also reduce the relatively rare occasions when severe mental illness contributes to homicide or the more common circumstances when depression or other mental illness contributes to suicide.

Reducing incidents of gun violence arising from criminal misconduct or suicide is an important goal of broader primary and secondary prevention and intervention strategies. Such strategies must also attend to redirecting developmental antecedents and larger sociocultural processes that contribute to gun violence and gun-related deaths.

1 The 2010 data shown here are available online .

Eric Mankowski, PhD

Any account of gun violence in the United States must consider both why males are the perpetrators of the vast majority of gun violence and why the vast majority of males never perpetrate gun violence. An account that explains both phenomena focuses, in part, on how boys and men learn to demonstrate and achieve manhood through violence, as well as the differences in opportunities to demonstrate manhood among diverse groups of males. Although evidence exists for human biological and social-environmental systems interacting and contributing to aggressive and violent behavior, this review focuses on the sociocultural evidence that explains males’ higher rates of gun violence.

Reducing the propensity for some males to engage in violence will involve both social and cultural change. Hence, this section reviews existing research on the relationships between sex, gender (i.e., masculinity), and the perpetration and victimization of gun violence in the United States. The intersection of gender, race/ethnicity, and economic disadvantage is also considered in explaining the rates of gun violence across diverse communities. Finally, the relationships between masculinity, gender socialization, and gun violence are analyzed to identify gender-related risk factors for gun violence that can be targeted for prevention strategies and social policy.

Sex Differences in Gun Violence

Prevalence and Risk Men represent more than 90 percent of the perpetrators of homicide in the United States and are also the victims of the large majority (78 percent) of that violence (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008; Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2007). Homicide by gun is the leading cause of death among Black youth, the second leading cause of death among all male youth, and the second or third leading cause of death among female youth (depending on the specific age group) (e.g., Miniño, 2010; Webster, Whitehill, Vernick, & Curriero, 2012). In addition, roughly four times as many youths visit hospitals for gun-induced wounds as are killed each year (CDC, 2013a).

Even more common than homicide, suicide is another leading cause of death in the United States, and most suicides are completed with a firearm. Males complete the large majority of suicides; depending on the age group, roughly four to six times as many males as females kill themselves with firearms (CDC, 2013a). Among youth, suicide ranks especially high as a cause of death. It is the third leading cause of death of 15–24-year-olds and the sixth leading cause of death for 5–14-year-olds. However, the rate of suicide and firearm suicide gradually increases over the lifespan. In addition to gender and age differences in prevalence, sizable differences also exist among ethnic groups. Firearm suicide generally is at least twice as high among Whites than among Blacks and other racial groups from 1980 to 2010 (CDC, 2013a), and White males over the age of 65 have rates that far exceed all other major groups.

Perpetrator–Victim Relationship and Location The prevalence of gun violence strongly depends not only on the sex of the offender but also on the offender’s relationship to the victim and the location of the violence (Sorenson, 2006). Both men and women are more likely to be killed with firearms by someone they know than by a stranger. Specifically, men are most likely to be killed in a public place by an acquaintance, whereas women are most likely to be killed in the home by a current or former spouse or dating partner (i.e., “intimate partner”). Women compared with men are especially likely to be killed by a firearm used by an intimate partner.

Women are killed by current or former intimate partners four to five times more often than men (Campbell, Glass, Sharps, Laughon, & Bloom, 2007), including by firearm. These sex differences in victimization do not appear to hold in the limited data available on same-sex intimate partner homicide; it is more common for men to kill their male partners than for women to kill their female partners (Campbell et al., 2007). Notably, these sex differences in gun violence, as a function of the type of perpetrator–victim relationships, are also found in nonfatal gun violence when emergency room visits are examined (Wiebe, 2003).

A disproportionate number of gun homicides occur in urban areas. Conversely, a disproportionate number of firearm suicides occur in rural (compared with urban) areas (Branas, Nance, Elliott, Richmond, & Schwab, 2004). Although they are highly publicized, less than 2 percent of the homicides of children occur in schools (Borum, Cornell, Modzeleski, & Jimerson, 2010; CDC, 2008, 2013b). There are even fewer “random” or “mass” school shootings in which multiple victims are killed at the same time.

Gun Access and Possession A person must own or obtain a gun to be able to commit gun violence. Research shows that there are sex differences in access to and carrying a gun. Males are roughly two to four times as likely as females to have access to a gun in the home or to possess a gun (Swahn, Hamming, & Ikeda, 2002; Vaughn et al., 2012). In turn, gun carrying is a key risk factor for gun violence perpetration and victimization. For example, gun carrying is associated with dating violence victimization among adolescents, with boys more likely to be victimized than girls (Yan, Howard, Beck, Shattuck, & Hallmark-Kerr, 2010).

Conclusions based on sex differences in access to guns should be drawn with some caution, given that there also appear to be sex differences in the reporting of guns in the home. Men report more guns in the home than do women from the same household (e.g., Ludwig, Cook, & Smith, 1998; Sorenson & Cook, 2008), a sex difference that appears to stem specifically from the substantially higher level of contact with and experience in handling and using guns among boys than girls in the same household (Cook & Sorenson, 2006). Nonetheless, the presence of guns in the home remains predictive of gun violence.

Gender and Gun Violence

Robust sex and race differences in firearm violence have been established. Examined next is how the socialization of men as well as differences in living conditions and opportunities among diverse groups of boys and men help explain why these differences occur.

Making Gender Visible in the Problem of Gun Violence Gender remains largely invisible in research and media accounts of gun violence. In particular, gender is not used to explain the problem of “school shootings,” despite the fact that almost every shooting is perpetrated by a young male. Newspaper headlines and articles describe “school shooters,” “violent adolescents,” and so forth, but rarely call attention to the fact that nearly all such incidents are perpetrated by boys and young men. Studies of risk factors for school shootings may refer accurately to the perpetrators generally as “boys” but largely fail to analyze gender (e.g., Verlinden, Hersen, & Thomas, 2000).

The large sex differences in gun violence should not be overlooked simply because the vast majority of boys and men do not perpetrate gun violence or excused as “boys will be boys.” The size of sex differences in the prevalence of gun violence differs substantially within regions of the United States (Kaplan & Geling, 1998) and across countries (e.g., Ahn, Park, Ha, Choi, & Hong, 2012), which further suggests that gender differences in sociocultural environments are needed to explain sex differences in gun violence.

Masculinity, Power, and Guns Status as a “man” is achieved by the display of stereotypically masculine characteristics, without which one’s manhood is contested. Although the particular characteristics defining manhood and the markers of them can vary across subcultural contexts (Connell, 1995), masculinity has, historically, generally been defined by aggressive and risk-taking behavior, emotional restrictiveness (particularly the vulnerable emotions of fear and sadness, and excepting anger), heterosexuality, and successful competition (Brannon, 1976; Kimmel, 1994; O’Neil, 1981). Such normative characteristics of traditional masculinity are in turn directly related to numerous factors that are associated with gun violence. For example, risk taking is associated with adolescent males’ possession of and access to guns (Vittes & Sorenson, 2006).

Social expectations and norms, supported by social and organizational systems and practices, privilege boys who reject or avoid in themselves anything stereotypically feminine, act tough and aggressive, suppress emotions (other than anger), distance themselves emotionally and physically from other men, and strive competitively for power. Men of color, poor men, gay men, and men from other marginalized groups differ substantially in their access to opportunities to fulfill these manhood ideals and expectations in socially accepted ways. For example, men with less formal educational and economic opportunity, who in the United States are disproportionately Black and Latino, cannot fulfill expectations to be successful breadwinners in socially acceptable ways (e.g., paid, legal employment) as easily as White men, and gay men have less ability to demonstrate normative heterosexual masculinity where they cannot legally marry or have children.

At the same time, higher levels of some forms of violence victimization and perpetration (including suicide) are found among these disadvantaged groups. For example, gay youth are more likely than heterosexual males to commit suicide, and African American male youth are disproportionately the victims of gun violence. Such structural discrimination can be seen reflected in implicit cognitive biases against these group members. Virtual simulations of high-threat incidents, such as those used to train police officers, reliably demonstrate a “shooter bias” in which actors are more likely to shoot Black male targets than those from other race-gender groups (i.e., Black women, White men, and White women) (Plant, Goplen, & Kunstman, 2011).

Even to the extent that it is achieved, manhood status is theorized as precarious, needing to be protected and defended through aggression and violence, including gun violence, in order to avoid victimization from (mostly) male peers (Connell, 1995). Paradoxically, as in all competition, the more convincingly manhood is achieved, the more vulnerable it becomes to challenges or threats and thus requires further defending, often with increasing levels and displays of toughness and violence. The dynamic of these expectations of manhood and their enforcement is like a tight box (Kivel, 1998). Boys and men are either trapped inside this box or, in violating the expectations by stepping out of the box, risk being targeted by threats, bullying, and other forms of violence.

Adherence to stereotypic masculinity, in turn, is commonly associated with stress and conflict, poor health, poor coping and relationship quality, and violence (Courtenay 2000; Hong, 2000). Men’s gender role stress and conflict are directly associated with various forms of interpersonal aggression and violence, including the perpetration of intimate partner violence and suicide (Feder, Levant, & Dean, 2010; Moore & Stuart, 2005; O’Neil, 2008). Men with more restricted emotionality and more restricted affection with other men are more likely to be aggressive, coercive, or violent (O’Neil, 2008). These dimensions of masculinity also are related to a number of other harmful behaviors that are, in turn, associated directly with gun violence and other forms of aggression (see O’Neil, 2008, for a review). For example, the effect of alcohol consumption on intimate partner violence is greater among men than women (Moore, Elkins, McNulty, Kivisto, & Handsel, 2011), and alcohol consumption may be associated with lethal male-to-male violence at least partly because it is associated with carrying a gun (Phillips, Matusko, & Tomasovic, 2007).

In addition, accumulating research evidence indicates a relationship between gender and many of the factors that are associated with suicide (e.g., substance abuse, unemployment; Payne, Swami, & Stanistreet, 2008). Beliefs in traditional masculinity are related to suicidal thoughts, although differently across age cohorts (Hunt, Sweeting, Keoghan, & Platt, 2006). Men’s historic role as economic providers in heterosexual families typically ends with their retirement from the workforce. Suicide rates, including firearm suicide, increase dramatically at precisely this point in the life course (i.e., age 65 and older), whereas they decrease among women this age. The increase in suicide rates among White men at age 65 and older does not occur among Black men, who as a group have much higher levels of unemployment throughout their lives and consequently may not experience the same sense of loss of meaning or entitlement. Male firearm suicide also increases dramatically in adolescence and early adulthood, precisely the years during which young men’s sense of manhood is developing.

Beliefs about gender and sexual orientation also help explain sex differences in fatal hate crimes involving guns. Key themes in male gender role expectations are anti-femininity (Brannon, 1976) and homophobia (Kimmel, 1994). Boys are expected to rid themselves of stereotypically feminine characteristics (e.g., “you throw like a girl,” “big boys don’t cry”). Gun violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered persons can be understood in this context. One explanation of these hate crimes is that they are perpetrated to demonstrate heterosexual masculinity to male peer group members. These homicides, compared with violent crimes in which the victim is (or is perceived to be) heterosexual, often are especially brutal and are more commonly perpetrated by groups of men rather than individual men or women. However, such homicides appear to be perpetrated less often using firearms, which suggests motives beyond a desire to kill — for example, expressing intense hatred or transferring negative affect directly onto the victim (Gruenwald, 2012).

Male role expectations for achievement of success and power, combined with restricted emotionality, may have dangerous consequences, particularly for boys who suffer major losses and need help. A majority of the males who have completed homicides at schools had trouble coping with a recent major loss. Many had also experienced bullying or other harassment (Vossekuil et al., 2002). Such characteristics cannot and should not be used to develop risk profiles of attackers because school shootings are such rare events, and so many men who share these same characteristics never will perpetrate gun violence. However, when male gender and characteristics associated with male gender are highly common among attackers, it is responsible to ask how male gender contributes to school shootings and other forms of gun violence.

In their case studies of male-perpetrated homicide-suicides at schools, Kalish and Kimmel (2010) speculated that a sense of “aggrieved entitlement” may be common among the shooters. In this view, the young men see suicide and revenge as appropriate, even expected, responses for men to perceived or actual victimization. Related findings emerged from a similar analysis of all “random” school shootings (those with multiple, nontargeted victims) from 1982 to 2001 (Kimmel & Mahler, 2003). With a small number of exceptions, the vast majority were committed by White boys (26 of 28) in suburban or rural (not urban) areas (27 of 28). Many of these boys also had experienced homophobic bullying.

Masculinity and Beliefs About Guns Sex differences in beliefs about guns may begin at an early age as a function of parental socialization and attitudes. Fathers, particularly White fathers, are more permissive than mothers of their children, particularly sons, playing with toy guns (Cheng et al., 2003). Through the socialization of gender, boys and men may come to believe that displaying a gun will enhance their masculine power. Carrying a weapon is, in fact, instrumental in fulfilling male gender role expectations. Estimates of a person’s physical size and muscularity are greater when they display a gun (or large knife) than other similarly sized and shaped objects (e.g., drill, saw), even when the person is only described and not visible. This perception persists despite no apparent correlation between actual gun ownership and size or muscularity (Fessler, Holbrook, & Snyder, 2012). Guns symbolically represent some key elements of hegemonic masculinity — power, hardness, force, aggressiveness, coldness (Connell, 1995; Stroud, 2012).

Implications for Prevention and Policy

Sex Differences in Attitudes Toward Gun Policies Policies and laws addressing the manufacture, purchase, and storage of guns have been advocated in response to the prevalence of gun violence. Perhaps reflecting their differential access to firearms and differential perpetration and victimization rates, men and women hold different attitudes about such gun control policies. Females are generally much more favorable toward gun restriction and control policies (e.g., Vittes, Sorenson, & Gilbert, 2003).

Prevention Programs Addressing Gender The foregoing analysis of the link between gender and gun violence suggests the potential value of addressing gender in efforts to define the problem of gun violence and develop preventive responses. Preliminary evidence suggests that correcting and changing perceptions among men of social norms regarding beliefs about behaviors and characteristics that are associated with stereotypic masculinity may reduce the prevalence of intimate partner and sexual violence (Fabiano, Perkins, Berkowitz, Linkenbach, & Stark, 2003; Neighbors et al., 2010). However, the effect of such interventions in specifically reducing gun violence remains to be tested. The skills and knowledge of psychologists are needed to develop and evaluate programs and settings in schools, workplaces, prisons, neighborhoods, clinics, and other relevant contexts that aim to change gendered expectations for males that emphasize self-sufficiency, toughness, and violence, including gun violence.

Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD; Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD; Marisa R. Randazzo, PhD; and Dewey Cornell, PhD

A natural starting point for the prevention of gun violence is to identify individuals who are at risk for violence and in need of assistance. Efforts focused on at-risk individuals are considered secondary prevention because they are distinguished from primary or universal prevention efforts that address the general population. Secondary prevention strategies for gun violence can include such actions as providing prompt mental health treatment for an acutely depressed and suicidal person or conducting a threat assessment of a person who has threatened gun violence against a spouse or work supervisor.

To be effective, strategies to prevent gun violence should be tailored to different kinds of violence. One example is the distinction between acts of impulsive violence (i.e., violence carried out in the heat of the moment, such as an argument that escalates into an assault) and acts of targeted or predatory violence (i.e., acts of violence that are planned in advance of the attack and directed toward an identified target). The incidents of mass casualty gun violence that have garnered worldwide media attention, such as the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., at a movie theater Aurora, Colo., at the Fort Hood military base, and at a political rally in a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., are all examples of targeted or predatory violence. Distinguishing between impulsive violence, targeted/predatory violence, and other types of violence is important because they are associated with different risk factors and require different prevention strategies.

Predicting and Preventing Impulsive Gun Violence

Research on impulsive violence has enabled scientists to develop moderately accurate predictive models that can identify individuals who are more likely than other persons to engage in this form of violence. These models cannot determine with certainty whether a particular person will engage in violence — just whether a person is at greater likelihood of doing so. This approach is known as a violence risk assessment or clinical assessment of dangerousness . A violence risk assessment is conducted by a licensed mental health professional who has specific training in this area. The process generally involves comparing the person in question with known base rates for those of the same age/gender who have committed impulsive violence and then determining whether the person in question has individual risk factors that would increase that person’s likelihood of engaging in impulsive violence. In addition, the process involves examining individual protective factors that would decrease the person’s overall likelihood of engaging in impulsive violence. Research that has identified risk and protective factors for impulsive violence is limited in that more research has been conducted on men than women and on incarcerated or institutionalized individuals than on those in the general population. Nevertheless, this approach can be effective for determining someone’s relative likelihood of engaging in impulsive violence.

Some risk factors for impulsive violence are static — for example, race and age — and cannot be changed. But those factors that are dynamic — for example, unmet mental health needs for conditions linked with violence to self (such as depression) or others (such as paranoia), lack of mental health care, abuse of alcohol — are more amenable to intervention and treatment that can reduce the risk for gun violence. Secondary prevention strategies to prevent impulsive gun violence can include having a trained psychologist or other mental health professional treat the person’s acute mental health needs or substance abuse needs. There must be a vigorous and coordinated response to persons whose histories include acts of violence, threatened or actual use of weapons, and substance abuse, particularly if they have access to a gun. This response should include a violence risk assessment by well-trained professionals and referral for any indicated mental health treatment, counseling and mediation services, or other forms of intervention that can reduce the risk of violence.

Youths and young adults who are experiencing an emerging psychosis should be referred for prompt assessment by mental health professionals with sufficient clinical expertise with psychotic disorders to craft a clinical intervention plan that includes risk management. In some cases, secondary prevention measures may include a court-ordered emergency psychiatric hospitalization where a person can receive a psychiatric evaluation and begin treatment. Criteria for allowing such involuntary evaluations vary by state but typically can occur only when someone is experiencing symptoms of a serious mental illness and, as a result, potentially poses a significant danger to self or others. There is an urgent need to improve the effectiveness of emergency commitment procedures because of concerns that they do not provide sufficient services and follow-up care.

Predicting and Preventing Targeted or Predatory Gun Violence

Acts of targeted or predatory violence directed at multiple victims, including crimes sometimes referred to as rampage shootings and mass shootings, 2 occur far less often in the United States than do acts of impulsive violence (although targeted violence garners far more media attention). Acts of targeted violence have not been subject to study that has developed statistical models like those used for estimating a person’s likelihood of impulsive violence. Although it seems appealing to develop checklists of warning signs to construct a profile of individuals who commit these kinds of crimes, this effort, sometimes described as psychological profiling, has not been successful. Research has not identified an effective or useful psychological profile of those who would engage in multiple casualty gun violence. Moreover, efforts to use a checklist profile to identify these individuals fail in part because the characteristics used in these profiles are too general to be of practical value; such characteristics are also shared by many nonviolent individuals.

Because of the limitations of a profiling approach, practitioners have developed the behavioral threat assessment model as an alternative means of identifying individuals who are threatening, planning, or preparing to commit targeted violence. Behavioral threat assessment also emphasizes the need for interventions to prevent violence or harm when a threat has been identified, so it represents a more comprehensive approach to violence prevention. The behavioral threat assessment model is an empirically based approach that was developed largely by the U.S. Secret Service to evaluate threats to the president and other public figures and has since been adapted by the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education (Fein et al., 2002; Vossekuil et al., 2002) and others (Cornell, Allen, & Fan, 2012) for use in schools, colleges and universities, workplaces, and the U.S. military. Threat assessment teams are typically multidisciplinary teams that are trained to identify potentially threatening persons and situations. They gather and analyze additional information, make an informed assessment of whether the person is on a pathway to violence — that is, determine whether the person poses a threat of interpersonal violence or self-harm — and if so, take steps to intervene, address any underlying problem or treatment need, and reduce the risk for violence.

Behavioral threat assessment is seen as the emerging standard of care for preventing targeted violence in schools, colleges, and workplaces, as well as against government officials and other public figures. The behavioral threat assessment approach is the model currently used by the U.S. Secret Service to prevent violence to the U.S. president and other public officials, by the U.S. Capitol Police to prevent violence to members of Congress, by the U.S. State Department to prevent violence to dignitaries visiting the United States, and by the U.S. Marshals Service to prevent violence to federal judges (see Fein & Vossekuil, 1998). The behavioral threat assessment model also is recommended in two American national standards: one for higher education institutions (which recommends that all colleges and universities operate behavioral threat assessment teams; see ASME-Innovative Technologies Institute, 2010) and one for workplaces (which recommend s similar teams to prevent workplace violence; see ASIS International and Society for Human Resource Management, 2011). In addition, a comprehensive review conducted by a U.S. Department of Defense (2010) task force following the Fort Hood shooting concluded that threat assessment teams or threat management units (i.e., teams trained in behavioral threat assessment and management procedures) are the most effective tool currently available to prevent workplace violence or insider threats like the attack at Fort Hood.

Empirical research on acts of targeted violence has shown that many of those attacks were carried out by individuals motivated by personal problems who were at a point of desperation. In their troubled state of mind, these individuals saw no viable solution to their problems and could envision no future. The behavioral threat assessment model is used not only to determine whether a person is planning a violent attack but also to identify personal or situational problems that could be addressed to alleviate desperation and restore hope. In many cases, this includes referring the person to mental health services and other sources of support. In some of these cases, psychiatric hospitalization may be needed to address despondence and suicidality. Nonpsychiatric resources also can help alleviate the individual’s problems or concerns. Resources such as conflict resolution, credit counseling, job placement assistance, academic accommodations, veterans’ services, pastoral counseling, and disability services all can help address personal problems and reduce desperation. When the underlying personal problems are alleviated, people who may have posed a threat of violence to others no longer see violence as their best or only option.

Predicting and Preventing Violence by Those With Acute Mental Illness

When treating a person with acute or severe mental illness, mental health professionals may encounter situations in which they need to determine whether their patient (or client) is at risk for violence. Typically, they would conduct a violence risk assessment if the clinician’s concern is about risk for impulsive violence, as discussed previously. Clinicians also can conduct — or work with a team to help conduct — a threat assessment if their concern involves targeted violence. The available research suggests that mental health professionals should be concerned when a person with acute mental illness makes an explicit threat to harm someone or is troubled by delusions or hallucinations that encourage violence, but even in these situations, violence is far from certain. Although neither a violence risk assessment nor a threat assessment can yield a precise prediction of someone’s likelihood of violence, it can identify high-risk situations and guide efforts to reduce risk. It is important to emphasize that prevention does not require prediction; interventions to reduce risk can be beneficial even if it is not possible to determine who would or would not have committed a violent act.

When their patients (or clients) pose a risk of violence to others, mental health professionals have a legal and ethical obligation to take appropriate action to protect potential victims of violence. This obligation is not easily carried out for several reasons. First, mental health professionals have only a modest ability to predict violence, even when assisted by research-validated instruments. Mental health professionals who are concerned that a patient is at high risk for violence may be unable to convince their patient to accept hospitalization or some other change in treatment. They can seek involuntary hospitalization or treatment, but civil commitment laws (that vary from state to state) generally require convincing evidence that a person is imminently dangerous to self or others. There is considerable debate about the need to reform civil commitment laws in a manner that both protects individual liberties and provides necessary protection for society.

There is no guarantee that voluntary or involuntary treatment of a potentially dangerous individual will be effective in reducing violence risk, especially when the risk for violence does not arise from a mental illness but instead from intense desperation resulting from highly emotionally distressing circumstances or from antisocial orientation and proclivities for criminal misconduct. When individuals with prior histories of violence are released from treatment facilities, they typically need continued treatment and monitoring for potential violence until they stabilize in community settings. Jurisdictions vary widely in the resources available to achieve stability in the community and in the legal ability to impose monitoring or clinical care on persons who decline voluntary services.

Furthermore, if unable to obtain civil commitment to a protective setting, mental health professionals must consider other protective actions permitted in their jurisdictions, which may include warning potential victims that they are in danger or alerting local law enforcement, family members, employers, or others. Whether their particular jurisdiction mandates a response to “warn or protect” potential victims or leaves this decision to the discretion of the clinician, mental health professionals are often reluctant to take such actions because they are concerned that doing so might damage the therapeutic relationship with their patient and drive patients from treatment or otherwise render effective treatment impossible.

Another post-hospitalization strategy is to prohibit persons with mental illness from acquiring a firearm. The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibited persons from purchasing a firearm if they had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric inpatient unit. The Brady Handgun Violence Act (1994), known as the Brady Law, began the process of background checks to identify individuals who might attempt to purchase a firearm despite prohibitions. There is some evidence that rates of gun violence are reduced when these procedures are adequately implemented, but research, consistent implementation, and refinement of these procedures are needed (Webster & Vernick, 2013a).

Predicting and Preventing Gun-Based Suicide

Suicide accounts for approximately 61 percent of all firearm fatalities in the United States — 19,393 of the 31,672 firearm deaths reported by the CDC for 2010 (Murphy, Xu, & Kochanek, 2013). When there is concern that a person may be suicidal, mental health professionals can conduct suicide screenings and should rely on structured assessment tools to assess that person’s risk to self. Behavioral threat assessment also may be indicated in such situations if the potentially suicidal individual may also pose a threat to others.

More than half of suicides are accomplished by firearms and most commonly with a firearm from the household (Miller, Azrael, Hepburn, Hemenway, & Lippmann, 2006). More than 90 percent of persons who commit suicide had some combination of symptoms of depression, symptoms of other mental disorders, and/or substance abuse (Moscicki, 2001). Ironically, although depression is the condition most closely associated with attempted or completed suicide, it is also less likely than schizophrenia or other disorders to prompt an involuntary civil commitment or other legal triggers that can prevent some persons with mental illness from possessing firearms. As in behavioral threat assessment, suicide risk may be reduced through identifying and providing support in solving the problems that are driving a person to consider suicide. In many cases the person may need a combination of psychological treatment and psychiatric medication.

Tragic shootings like the ones at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., spark intense debate as to whether specific gun control policies would significantly diminish the number of mass shooting incidents. This debate includes whether or how to restrict access to firearms, especially with regard to persons with some mental illnesses. Another line of debate concerns whether to limit access to certain types of firearms (e.g., reducing access to high-capacity magazines). Empirical evidence documents the efficacy of some firearms restrictions, but because the restrictions often are not well implemented and have serious limitations, it is difficult to conduct the kind of rigorous research needed to fairly evaluate their potential for reducing gun violence.

The often-debated Brady Law (1994) does not consistently prevent persons with mental illness from acquiring a firearm. The prohibition applies only to persons with involuntary commitments and omits both persons with voluntary admissions and those with no history of inpatient hospitalization. The law does not prevent a person with a history of involuntary commitment from obtaining a previously owned firearm or one possessed by a friend or relative. Additional problems with implementing the Brady Law include incomplete records of involuntary commitments, background checks limited to purchases from licensed gun dealers, and exceptions from background checks for firearms purchased during gun shows.

Despite these limitations and gaps, there is some scientific evidence that background checks reduce the rate of violent gun crimes by persons whose mental health records disqualify them from legally obtaining a firearm. A study of one state (Connecticut) found that the risk of violent criminal offending among persons with a history of involuntary psychiatric commitment declined significantly after the state began reporting these individuals to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (Swanson et al., 2013). This study supports the value of additional research to investigate strategies for limiting access to firearms by persons with serious mental illness.

In contrast, access to appropriate mental health treatment can work to reduce violence at the individual level. For example, one major finding of the MacArthur Risk Assessment study (Monahan et al., 2001) was that getting continued mental health treatment in the community after release from a psychiatric hospitalization reduced the number of violent acts by those who had been hospitalized. In other studies, outpatient mental health services, including mandated services, have been effective in preventing or reducing violent and harmful behavior (e.g., New York State Office of Mental Health, 2005; N.Y. Mental Hygiene Law [Kendra’s Law], 1999; O’Keefe, Potenza, & Mueser, 1997; Swanson et al., 2000).

There is abundant scientific research demonstrating the effectiveness of treatment for persons with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, there are social, economic, and legal barriers to treatment. First, there is a persistent social stigma associated with mental illness that deters individuals from seeking treatment for themselves or for family members. Public education to increase understanding of and support for persons with serious mental illness and to encourage access to treatment is needed.

Second, mental health treatment, especially inpatient hospitalization, is expensive, and persons with mental illness often cannot access this level of care or afford it. Commercial insurers often have limitations on hospital care or do not cover intensive services that are alternatives to inpatient admission. Public sector facilities such as community mental health centers and state-operated psychiatric hospitals have experienced many years of shrinking government support; demand for their services exceeds their capacity. Many mental health providers limit their services to the most acute cases and cannot extend services after the immediate crisis has resolved.

Third, there are complex legal barriers to the provision of mental health services when an individual does not desire treatment or does not believe he or she is in need of treatment. A severe mental illness can impair an individual’s understanding of his or her condition and need for treatment, but a person with mental illness may make a rational decision to refuse treatment that he or she understandably regards as ineffective, aversive, or undesirable for some reason (e.g., psychiatric medications can produce unpleasant side effects and hospitalization can be a stressful experience).

When an individual refuses to seek treatment, it may be difficult to determine whether this decision is rational or irrational. To protect individual liberties, laws throughout the United States permit involuntary treatment only under stringent conditions, such as when an individual is determined to be imminently dangerous to self or others due to a mental illness. People who refuse treatment but are not judged to be imminently dangerous (a difficult and ambiguous standard) fall into a “gray zone” (Evans, 2013). Some individuals with serious mental illness pose a danger to self or others that is not imminent, and often it is not possible to monitor them adequately or determine precisely when they become dangerous and should be hospitalized on an involuntary basis. In other situations, the primary risk posed by the individual does not arise from mental illness but from his or her willingness to engage in criminal misconduct for personal gain.

Furthermore, when a person is committed to a psychiatric hospital on an involuntary basis, treatment is limited in scope. Once the person is no longer regarded as imminently dangerous (the criteria differ across states), he or she must be released from treatment even if not fully recovered; that person may be vulnerable to relapse into a dangerous state. In some cases of mass shootings, persons who committed the shooting were known to have a serious mental illness, but authorities could not require treatment when it was needed. In other cases, authorities were not aware of an individual’s mental illness before the attempted or actual mass shooting incident.

A related problem is that the onset or recurrence of serious mental illness can be difficult to detect. Symptoms of mental illness may emerge slowly, often in late adolescence or early adulthood, and may not be readily apparent to family members and friends. A person hearing voices or experiencing paranoid delusions may hide these symptoms and simply seem preoccupied or distressed but not seriously ill. A person who has been treated successfully for a serious mental illness may experience a relapse that is not immediately recognized. There is a great need for public education about the onset of serious mental illness, recognition of the symptoms of mental illness, and increased emphasis on the importance of seeking prompt treatment.

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2 The FBI (n.d.) defines mass murder as incidents that occur in one location (or in closely related locations during a single attack) and that result in four or more casualties. Mass murder shootings are much less common than other types of gun homicides. They are also not a new phenomenon. Historically, most mass murder shootings occurred within families or in criminal activities such as gang activity and robberies. Rampage killings is a term used to describe some mass murders that involve attacks on victims in unprotected settings (such as schools and colleges, workplaces, places of worship) and public places (such as theaters, malls, restaurants, public gatherings). However, these shootings are often planned well in advance and carried out in a methodical manner, so the term rampage is a misnomer.

Ellen Scrivner, PhD, ABPP; W. Douglas Tynan, PhD, ABPP; and Dewey Cornell, PhD

Prevention of violence occurs along a continuum that begins in early childhood with programs to help parents raise healthy children and ends with efforts to identify and intervene with troubled individuals who threaten violence. A comprehensive community approach recognizes that no single program is sufficient and there are many opportunities for effective prevention. Discussion of effective prevention from a community perspective should include identification of the community being examined. Within the larger community, many stakeholders are affected by gun violence that results in a homicide, suicide, or mass shooting.

Such stakeholders include community and public safety officials, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, mental health and public health systems, and faith-based groups. When it comes to perpetrating gun violence, however, a common thread that exists across community groups is the recognition that someone, or possibly several people, may have heard something about an individual’s thoughts and/or plans to use a gun. Where do they go with that information? How do they report it so that innocent people are not targeted or labeled unfairly — and how can their information initiate a comprehensive and effective crisis response that prevents harm to the individual of concern and the community?

To date, there is little research to help frame a comprehensive and effective prevention strategy for gun violence at the community level. One of the most authoritative reviews of the body of gun violence research comes from the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (see Wellford, Pepper, & Petrie, 2004). In reviewing a range of criminal justice initiatives designed to reduce gun violence, such as gun courts, enhanced sentencing, and problem-based policing, Wellford et al. concluded that problem-oriented policing, also known as place-based initiatives or target policing, holds promise, particularly when applied to “hot spots” — areas in the community that have high crime rates. They included studies on programs such as the Boston Gun Project (see Kennedy, Braga, & Piehl, 2001), more commonly known as Operation Ceasefire, in their review and concluded that although many of these programs may have reduced youth homicides, there is only modest evidence to suggest that they effectively lowered rates of crime and violence, given the confounding factors that influence those rates and are difficult to control. In other words, the variability in the roles of police, prosecutors, and the community creates complex interactions that can confound the levels of intervention and affect sustainability.

Wellford et al.’s (2004) conclusions were supported by the findings of the 2011 Firearms and Violence Research Working Group (National Institute of Justice, 2011), which also questioned whether rigorous evaluations are possible given the reliability and validity of the data. Wellford et al. advocated for continued research and development of models that include collaboration between police and community partners and for examination of different evaluation methodologies.

There are varied prevention models that address community issues. When it comes to exploring models that specifically address preventing the recent episodes of gun violence that have captured the nation’s attention, however, the inevitable conclusion is that there is a need to develop a new model that would bring community stakeholders together in a collaborative, problem-solving mode, with a goal of preventing individuals from engaging in gun violence, whether directed at others or self-inflicted. This model would go beyond a single activity and would blend several strategies as building blocks to form a workable systemic approach. It would require that community service systems break their tendencies to operate in silos and take advantage of the different skill sets already available in the community — for example:

• Police are trained in crisis intervention skills with a primary focus on responding to special populations such as those with mental illness.
• Community members are trained in skilled interventions such as Emotional CPR  and Mental Health First Aid — consumer-based initiatives that use neighbor-to-neighbor approaches that direct people in need of care to appropriate mental health treatment.
• School resource officers are trained to show a proactive presence in schools.

Each group may provide a solution to a piece of the problem, but there is nothing connecting the broad range of activities to the type of collaborative system needed to implement a comprehensive, community-based strategy to prevent gun violence. From a policy and practice perspective, no one skill set or one agency can provide the complete answer when it comes to developing a prevention methodology. However, some models developed through the community policing reform movement may be relevant because they are generally acknowledged to have been useful in reducing violence against women and domestic violence and in responding to children exposed to violence. These community policing models involve collaborative problem solving as a way to safeguard the community as opposed to relying only on arrest procedures. Moreover, they engage the community in organized joint efforts to produce public safety (Peak, 2013).

Another initiative, Project Safe Neighborhoods ( PSN ), is also relevant. PSN, a nationwide program that began in 2001 and was designed specifically to reduce gun violence, has some similarity to the community policing model. PSN involved the 94 U.S. attorneys in cities across the country in a prominent leadership role, ensured flexibility across jurisdictions, and required cross-agency buy-in, though there seems to have been less formalized involvement with mental health services. Nevertheless, it used a problem-solving approach that was aimed at getting guns off the streets, and the results of varied outcome assessments demonstrate that it was successful in reducing gun violence, particularly when the initiatives were tailored to the gun violence needs of specific communities (McGarrell et al., 2009).

A common approach used by PSN involved engaging the community to establish appropriate stakeholder partnerships, formulating strategic planning on the basis of identification and measurement of the community problem, training those involved in PSN, providing outreach through nationwide public service announcements, and ensuring accountability through various reporting mechanisms. The PSN problem-solving steps, with some adaptations, could provide a useful strategy for initiating collaborative problem solving with relevant community stakeholders in the interest of reducing gun violence and victimization through prevention.

The models discussed here illustrate how community engagement and collaboration helped break new ground in response to identified criminal justice problems, but they could be strengthened considerably by incorporating the involvement of professional psychology. The need for collaboration was again highlighted at a Critical Issues in Policing meeting (Police Executive Research Forum, 2012) as part of a discussion on connecting agency silos by building bridges across systems. Because police and mental health workers often respond to the same people, there is a need for collaboration on the best way to do this without compromising their roles. This emphasis takes the discussion beyond the student/school focus and expands it to include the use of crisis intervention teams (CIT) and community advocacy groups as additional resources for achieving the goal of preventing violence in the community.

The CIT model was another result of community policing reform that brought police and mental health services together to provide a more effective response to the needs of special populations, particularly mental health-related cases. Developed in Memphis in 1988 but now deployed in many communities across the country, the CIT model trains CIT officers to deescalate situations involving people in crises and to use jail diversion options, if available, rather than arrests. Although research on the effectiveness of CITs is generally limited to outcome studies in select cities, the model continues to gain prominence. In fact, the National Alliance on Mental Illness ( NAMI ) has established a NAMI CIT Center and is promoting the expansion of CIT nationwide. Studies by Borum (2000), Steadman, Deane, Borum, and Morrissey (2000), and Teller, Munetz, Gil, and Ritter (2006) have illustrated that high-risk encounters between individuals with mental illness and police can be substantially improved through CIT training, particularly when there are options such as drop-off centers, use of diversion techniques, and collaborations between law enforcement, mental health, and family members. Each plays a significant role in ensuring that city or county jails do not become de facto institutions for those in mental health crises.

Crisis intervention teams were also a major focus of a 2010 policy summit (International Association of Chiefs of Police [IACP], 2012). The summit, hosted by SAMHSA, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and IACP, produced a 23-item action agenda. Although the summit focused on decriminalizing the response to persons with mental illness and was not directed specifically at dealing with people who perpetrate gun violence, some of their recommendations did apply. The central theme of the agenda encouraged law enforcement and mental health service systems to engage in mutually respectful working relationships, collaborate across partner agencies, and establish local multidisciplinary advisory groups. These partnerships would develop policy, protocols, and guidelines for informing law enforcement encounters with persons with mental illness who are in crisis, including a protocol that would enable agencies to share essential information about those individuals and whether the nature of the crisis could provoke violent behavior. They further recommended that these types of protocols be established and maintained by the multidisciplinary advisory group and that training be provided in the community to sensitize community members to signs of potential danger and how to intervene in a systematic way.

A Police Foundation (2013) roundtable on gun violence and mental health reported that some police departments have reached out to communities and offered safe storage of firearms when community members have concern about a family member’s access to firearms in the home. As a service to the community, the police would offer to keep guns secured in accessible community locations until the threat has subsided and the community member requests the return. The police would also confer with mental health practitioners regarding a designated family or community member on an as-needed basis. This strategy is consistent with a community threat assessment approach in which law enforcement authorities engage proactively with the community to reduce the risk of violence when an individual poses a risk.

Gun Violence in Schools

Gun violence in schools has been a national concern for more than two decades. Although school shootings are highly traumatic events and have brought school safety to the forefront of public attention, schools are very safe environments compared with other community settings (Borum et al., 2010). Less than 2 percent of homicides of school-aged children occur in schools. Over a 20-year period, there have been approximately 16 shooting deaths in U.S. schools each year (Fox & Burstein, 2010), compared with approximately 32,000 shooting deaths annually in the nation as a whole (Hoyert & Xu, 2012).

The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 made federal education funding contingent upon states requiring schools to expel for at least one year any student found with a firearm at school. This mandate strengthened the emerging philosophy of zero tolerance as a school disciplinary policy. According to the APA Zero Tolerance Task Force (2008), this policy was predicated on faulty assumptions that removing disobedient students would motivate them to improve their behavior, deter misbehavior by other students, and generate safer school conditions. The task force found no scientific evidence to support these assumptions and, on the contrary, concluded that the practice of school suspension had negative effects on students and a disproportionately negative impact on students of color and students with disabilities.

After the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, both the FBI (O’Toole, 2000) and the U.S. Secret Service (Vossekuil et al., 2002) conducted studies of school shootings and concluded that schools should not rely on student profiling or checklists of warning signs to identify potentially violent students. They cautioned that school shootings were statistically too rare to predict with accuracy and that the characteristics associated with student shooters lacked specificity, which means that numerous nonviolent students would be misidentified as dangerous. Both law enforcement agencies recommended that schools adopt a behavioral threat assessment approach, which, as noted earlier, involves assessment of students who threaten violence or engage in threatening behavior and then individualized interventions to resolve any problem or conflict that underlies the threat. One of the promising features of threat assessment is that it provides schools with a policy alternative to zero tolerance. Many schools across the nation have adopted threat assessment practices. Controlled studies of the "Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines" have shown that school-based threat assessment teams are able to resolve student threats safely and efficiently and to reduce school suspension rates (Cornell et al., 2012; Cornell, Gregory, & Fan, 2011; Cornell, Sheras, Gregory, & Fan, 2009).

The Role of Health and Mental Health Providers in Gun Violence Prevention

The health care system is an important point of contact for families regarding the issue of gun safety. Physicians’ counseling of individuals and families about firearm safety has in some cases proven to be an effective prevention measure and is consistent with other health counseling about safety. According to the 2012 policy statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP):

The AAP supports the education of physicians and other professionals interested in understanding the effects of firearms and how to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with their use. HHS should establish a program to support gun safety training and counseling programs among physicians and other medical professionals. The program should also provide medical and community resources for families exposed to violence.

The AAP’s Bright Futures practice guide urges pediatricians to counsel parents who possess guns that storing guns safely and preventing access to guns reduce injury by as much as 70 percent and that the presence of a gun in the home increases the risk for suicide among adolescents. A randomized controlled trial indicates that health care provider counseling, when linked with the distribution of cable locks, has been demonstrated to increase safer home storage of firearms (Barkin et al., 2008). The removal of guns or the restriction of access should be reinforced for children and adolescents with mood disorders, substance abuse (including alcohol), or a history of suicide attempts (Grossman et al., 2005). Research is needed to identify the best ways to avoid unintended consequences while achieving intended outcomes.

In recent years, legal and legislative challenges have emerged that test the ability of physicians and other medical professionals to provide guidance on firearms. For example, in 2011 the state of Florida enacted the Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act, which prevented physicians from providing such counsel under threat of financial penalty and potential loss of licensure. The law has been permanently blocked from implementation by a U.S. district court. Similar policies have been introduced in six other states: Alabama, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The fundamental right of all health and mental health care providers to provide counseling to individuals and families must be protected to mitigate risk of injury to people where they live, work, and play.

It is apparent that long before the events at Sandy Hook Elementary School, many public health and public safety practitioners were seeking strategies to improve responses to violence in their communities and have experienced some success through problem-solving projects such as PSN and CIT. Yet there is still a need to rigorously evaluate and improve these efforts. In the meantime, basic safety precautions must be emphasized to parents by professionals in health, education, and mental health.

Public health messaging campaigns around safe storage of firearms are needed. The practice of keeping firearms stored and locked must be encouraged, and the habit of keeping loaded, unlocked weapons available should be recognized as dangerous and rendered socially unacceptable. To keep children and families safe, good safety habits have to become the only socially acceptable norm.

Susan B. Sorenson, PhD, and Daniel W. Webster, ScD, MPH

The use of a gun greatly increases the odds that violence will result in a fatality. In 2010, the most recent year for which data are available, an estimated 17.1 percent of the interpersonal assaults with a gunshot wound resulted in a homicide, and 80.7 percent of the suicide attempts in which a gun was used resulted in death (CDC, 2013a). By contrast, the most common methods of assault (hands, fists, and feet) and suicide attempt (ingesting pills) in 2010 resulted in death in only 0.009 percent and 2.5 percent of the incidents, respectively (CDC, 2013a). 3

As shown in Figure 1, in the past 30 years, the percentage of deaths caused by gunfire has stabilized to about 68 percent for homicides and, as drug overdoses have increased, dropped to 50 percent for suicide. There are more gun suicides than gun homicides in the United States. In 2010, 61.2 percent (19,392) of the 31,672 gun deaths in the United States were suicides (CDC, 2013a).

Figure 1. Deaths Attributed to Firearms, 1981–2010

Note: Data are from the Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS™), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2013. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal.html.

Much of the public concern about guns and gun violence focuses on interpersonal violence, and public policy mirrors this emphasis. Although there is no standard way to enumerate each discrete gun law, most U.S. gun laws focus on the user of the gun. Relatively few focus on the design, manufacture, distribution, advertising, or sale of firearms (Teret & Wintemute, 1993). Fewer yet address ammunition.

The focus herein is on the lifespan of guns — from design and manufacture to use — and the policies that could address the misuse of guns. It is critical to understand how policies create conditions that affect access to and use of guns. Because they constitute the largest portion of guns used in homicides (FBI, 2012a), handguns are the focus of most laws. Despite the substantial human and economic costs of gun violence in the United States and the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of gun regulations, scientifically rigorous evaluations are not available for many of these policies (Wellford et al., 2004). The dearth of such research on gun policies is due, in part, to the lack of government funding on this topic because of the political influences of the gun lobby (e.g., Kellermann & Rivara, 2013).

Design and Manufacture

The type of handguns manufactured in the United States has changed. Pistols overtook revolvers in manufacturing in the mid-1980s. In addition, the most widely sold pistol went from a .22 caliber in 1985 to a 9 mm or larger (e.g., .45 caliber pistols) by 1994 (Wintemute, 1996), with smaller, more concealable pistols favored by permit holders as well as criminals. This shift has been described as increasing the lethality of handguns, although, according to our review, no research has examined whether the change in weapon design has led to an increased risk of death. Such research may not be feasible given that the aforementioned weapons — that is, small, concealable pistols — still likely constitute a small portion of the estimated 283 million guns in civilian hands in the United States (Hepburn, Miller, Azrael, & Hemenway, 2007). The disproportionate appearance of such pistols among guns that were traced by law enforcement following their use in a crime has been attributed to the ease with which smaller guns can be concealed and their low price point (Koper, 2007; Wright, Wintemute, & Webster, 2010).

Ammunition, by contrast, is directly related to lethality. Hollow-point bullets are used by hunters because, in part, they are considered a more humane way to kill. The physics of hollow-point bullets are such that, upon impact, they will tumble inside the animal and take it down. Some bullets have been designed to be frangible, that is, to break apart upon impact and thus cause substantial internal damage. By contrast, the physics of full metal jacket bullets are such that, unless they hit a bone, they are likely to continue on a straight trajectory and pass through the animal, leaving it wounded and wandering. Hollow-point bullets are used by law enforcement to reduce over-penetration (i.e., when a bullet passes through its intended target and, thus, risks striking others).

Some design features would substantially reduce gun violence. One of the most promising ideas is that of “smart guns” that can be fired only by an authorized user. For example, young people, who are prohibited due to their age from legally purchasing a firearm, typically use a gun from their own home to commit suicide (Johnson, Barber, Azrael, Clark, & Hemenway, 2010; Wright, Wintemute, & Claire, 2008) and to carry out a school shooting (CDC, 2003). If personalized to an authorized adult in the home, the gun could not be operated by the adolescent or others in the home, thus rendering it of little use to the potential suicide victim or school shooter. During the Clinton administration, the federal government made a modest investment in the research and development of personalized firearms. There also was considerable private investment in technologies that would prevent unauthorized users from being able to fire weapons. Efforts to create these “smart guns” have resulted in multiple patent applications. Armatix GmbH, a German company, has designed and produced a personalized pistol that is being sold in several Western European nations and has been approved for importation to the United States. Although the cost of this new personalized gun is very high, it is believed that personalized guns can be produced at a cost that would be affordable by many (Teret & Merritt, 2013).

The assault weapons ban (the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act), enacted for a 10-year period beginning in 1994, provided a good opportunity to assess the effectiveness of restricting the manufacturing, sale, and possession of a certain class of weapons. “Assault weapons,” however, are difficult to conceal and are used rarely in most street crime or domestic violence. Assault weapons are commonly used in mass shootings in which ammunition capacity can determine the number of victims killed or wounded. Because multiple bullets are not an issue in suicide, one would not expect changes in such deaths either. Perhaps not surprisingly, an effect of the ban could not be detected on total gun-related homicides (Koper, 2013; Koper & Roth, 2001).

Unfortunately, prior research on the effects of the federal assault weapons ban did not focus on the law’s effects on mass shootings or the number of persons shot in such shootings. Assault weapons or guns with large-capacity ammunition feeding devices account for half of the weapons used in mass shootings such as at Sandy Hook Elementary School (see Follman & Aronson , 2013). Mass shootings with these types of weapons result in about 1.5 times as many fatalities as those committed with other types of firearms (Roth & Koper, 1997).

Distribution

The distribution of guns is largely the responsibility of a network of middlemen between gun manufacturers and gun dealers. When a gun is recovered following its use (or suspected use) in a crime, law enforcement routinely requests that the gun be traced — that is, the serial number is reported to the manufacturer, who then contacts the distributor and/or dealer who, in turn, reviews records to determine the original purchaser of a specific weapon. The number of gun traces is such that the manufacturers get many calls about their guns each day. One researcher estimated that Smith and Wesson, with about 10 percent of market share, received a call every seven to eight minutes about one of their guns (Kairys, 2008). Thus, one could reasonably expect that manufacturers would have some knowledge of which distributors sell guns that are disproportionately used in crime, and distributors would, in turn, know which retailers disproportionately sell guns used in crime.

Following in the footsteps of cities and states that had successfully sued the tobacco industry under state consumer protection and antitrust laws for costs the public incurred in caring for smokers, beginning in the late 1990s cities and states began to file claims against firearm manufacturers in an attempt to recover the costs of gun violence they incurred. In response, in 2005, Congress enacted and President George W. Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which prohibits civil liability lawsuits against “manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others” ( 15 U.S.C. §§ 7901-7903 ). Thus, the option of using litigation, a long-standing and sometimes controversial tool by which to address entrenched public health problems (e.g., Lytton, 2004), was severely restricted.

Advertising

Advertisements for guns have largely disappeared from classified ads in newspapers. By contrast, advertising in magazines, specifically gun magazines, is strong (Saylor, Vittes, & Sorenson, 2004). Such advertising is subject to the same Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations as other consumer products. In 1996, several organizations filed a complaint with the FTC after documenting multiple cases of what they asserted to be false and misleading claims about home protection (for specific examples, see Vernick, Teret, & Webster, 1997). As of November 1, 2013, the FTC had not ruled on the complaint. However, the firearm industry changed its practices such that by 2002, self-protection was an infrequent theme in advertisements for guns (Saylor et al., 2004). To our knowledge, current advertising has not been studied. New issues relevant to the advertising of guns include online advertisements by private sellers who are not obligated to verify that purchasers have passed a background check, online ads from prohibited purchasers seeking to buy firearms, the marketing of military-style weapons to civilians, and the marketing of firearms to underage youth (for examples and more information, see Kessler & Trumble, 2013; Mayors Against Illegal Guns, 2013; McIntire, 2013; Violence Policy Center, 2011).

Sales and Purchases

Gun sales have been increasing in the United States. The FBI reported a substantial jump in background checks (a proxy for gun sales) in the days following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. In fact, of the 10 days with the most requests for background checks since the FBI started monitoring such information, 7 of them were within 8 days of Sandy Hook (FBI, 2013). Guns can be purchased from federally licensed firearm dealers or private, unlicensed sellers in a variety of settings, including gun shows, flea markets, and the Internet.

Responsible sales practices (for examples, see Mayors Against Illegal Guns, n.d.) rely heavily on the integrity of the seller. And usually that responsibility is well placed: Over half (57 percent) of the guns traced (i.e., submitted by law enforcement, usually in association with a crime, to determine the original purchaser of the weapon) were originally sold by only 1.2 percent of federally licensed firearm dealers (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms [ATF], 2000). However, there are problems. Sometimes a person who is prohibited from purchasing a gun engages someone else, who is not so prohibited, to purchase a gun for him or her. The person doing the buying is called a “straw purchaser.” Straw purchase attempts are not uncommon; in a random sample of 1,601 licensed dealers and pawnbrokers in 43 states, two thirds reported experiencing straw purchase attempts (Wintemute, 2013b).

Two studies tested the integrity of licensed firearm dealers by calling the dealers and asking whether they could purchase a handgun on behalf of someone else (in the studies, a boyfriend or girlfriend), a straw purchase transaction that is illegal. In the study of a sample of gun dealers listed in telephone directories of the 20 largest U.S. cities, the majority of gun dealers indicated a willingness to sell a handgun under the illegal straw purchase scenario (Sorenson & Vittes, 2003). In a similar study of licensed gun dealers in California, a state with relatively strong regulation and oversight of licensed gun dealers, one in five dealers expressed a willingness to make the illegal sale (Wintemute, 2010). Programs such as the ATF and National Sports Shooting Council’s “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy,” which provides posters and educational materials to display in gun stores as well as tips for gun dealers on how to identify and respond to straw purchase attempts, have not been evaluated.

It is important to be able to identify high-risk dealers because, in 2012, the ATF had insufficient resources to monitor federally licensed gun dealers (Horwitz, 2012); there were 134,997 unlicensed gun dealers in April 2013 (ATF, 2013). Some states have recognized the limited capacity of the ATF and the weaknesses of federal laws regulating gun dealers and enacted their own laws requiring the licensing, regulation, and oversight of gun dealers (Vernick, Webster, & Bulzacchelli, 2006) and, when enforced, these laws appear to reduce the diversion of guns to criminals shortly after a retail sale (Webster, Vernick, & Bulzacchelli, 2009). Undercover stings and lawsuits against gun dealers who facilitate illegal straw sales have also been shown to reduce the diversion of guns to criminals (Webster, Bulzacchelli, Zeoli, & Vernick, 2006; Webster & Vernick, 2013b).

To help ensure that guns are not sold to those who are prohibited from purchasing them, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System ([NICS], part of the Brady Law) was developed so that the status of a potential purchaser could be checked immediately by a federally licensed firearm dealer. Prohibited purchasers include, but are not limited to, convicted felons, persons dishonorably discharged from the military, those under a domestic violence restraining order, and, in the language of the federal law, persons who have been adjudicated as mentally defective or have been committed to any mental institution (see 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) (1)-(9) and (n)). About 0.6% of sales have been denied on the basis of these criteria since NICS was established in 1998 (FBI, 2012b).

A substantial portion of firearm sales and transfers, however, is not required to go through a federally licensed dealer or a background check requirement; this includes, in most U.S. states, private party sales including those that are advertised on the Internet and those that take place at gun shows where licensed gun dealers who could process background checks are steps away. Some evidence suggests that state policies regulating private handgun sales reduce the diversion of guns to criminals (Vittes, Vernick, & Webster, 2013; Webster et al., 2009; Webster, Vernick, McGinty, & Alcorn, 2013).

The ability to check the background of a potential purchaser nearly instantly means that in many states, someone who is not a prohibited purchaser can purchase a gun within a matter of minutes. Ten states and the District of Columbia have a waiting period (sometimes referred to as a “cooling-off” period) for handguns ranging from 3 (Florida and Iowa) to 14 (Hawaii) days (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2012). The efficacy of waiting periods has received little direct research attention.

With the exception of misdemeanor domestic violence assault, federal law and laws in most states prohibit firearm possession of those convicted of a crime only if the convictions are for felony offenses in adult courts. Research has shown that misdemeanants who were legally able to purchase handguns committed crimes involving violence following those purchases at a rate 2–10 times higher than that of handgun purchasers with no prior convictions (Wintemute, Drake, Beaumont, & Wright, 1998). Wintemute and colleagues (Wintemute, Wright, Drake, & Beaumont, 2001) examined the impact of a California law that expanded firearm prohibitions to include persons convicted of misdemeanor crimes of violence. In their study of legal handgun purchasers with criminal histories of misdemeanor violence before and after the law, denial of handgun purchases due to a prior misdemeanor conviction was associated with a significantly lower rate of subsequent violent offending.

Persons who are legally determined to be a danger to others or to themselves as a result of mental illness are prohibited by federal law from purchasing and possessing firearms. A significant impediment to successful implementation of this law is that the firearm disqualifications due to mental illness often are not reported to the FBI’s background check system. As mentioned earlier, in 2007 Connecticut began reporting these disqualifications to the background check system. In a ground-breaking study, Swanson and colleagues (2013) studied the effects of this policy change on individuals who would most likely be affected — that is, those who were legally prohibited from possessing firearms due solely to the danger posed by their mental illnesses. They found that the rate of violent crime offending was about half as high among those whose mental illness disqualification was reported to the background system compared with those whose mental illness disqualification was not reported.

Federal law allows an individual to buy several guns, even hundreds, at once; the only requirement is that a multiple-purchase form be completed (18 U.S.C. § 923(g)(3)(A)(2009)). Large bulk purchases have been linked to gun trafficking (Koper, 2005). Policies such as one-handgun-a-month have rarely been enacted. Evaluations of these laws document mixed findings (Webster et al., 2009, 2013;Weil & Knox, 1996).

The United States was one of the signers of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the use of hollow-point bullets in war (the goal being to wound but not kill wartime enemies), but hollow-point bullets are available to civilians in the United States. A hunting license is not a prerequisite for the purchase of hollow-point bullets in the United States. California passed a law requiring a thumbprint for ammunition purchases; the law was ruled “unconstitutionally vague” by a Superior Court judge in 2011, but some municipalities (e.g., Los Angeles, Sacramento) have similar local ordinances in effect.

In 2004, a national survey found that 20 percent of the U.S. adult population reported they own one or more long-guns (shotguns or rifles), and 16 percent reported they own a handgun (Hepburn et al., 2007). Self-protection was the primary reason for owning a gun. Most people who have a gun have multiple guns, and half of gun owners reported owning four or more guns. In fact, 4 percent of the population is estimated to own 65 percent of the guns in the nation.

Nationally representative studies suggest that the mental health of gun owners is similar to that of individuals who do not own guns (Miller, Barber, Azrael, Hemenway, & Molnar, 2009; Sorenson & Vittes, 2008). However, gun owners are more likely to binge drink and drink and drive (Wintemute, 2011).

In perhaps the methodologically strongest study to date to examine handgun ownership and mortality, Wintemute and colleagues found a strong association between the purchase of a handgun and suicide: “In the first year after the purchase of a handgun, suicide was the leading cause of death among handgun purchasers, accounting for 24.5 percent of all deaths” (Wintemute, Parham, Beaumont, Wright, & Drake, 1999). The risk of suicide remained elevated (nearly twofold and sevenfold, respectively, for male and female handgun purchasers) at the end of the 6-year study period. Men’s handgun purchase was associated with a reduced risk of becoming a homicide victim (0.69); women’s handgun purchase, by contrast, was associated with a 55 percent increase in risk of becoming a homicide victim. A waiting period may reduce immediate risk but appears not to eliminate short- or long-term risk for suicide.

Risk can extend to others in the home. Efforts to educate children about guns (largely to stay away from them), when tested with field experiments, indicate they are generally ineffective (e.g., Hardy, 2002). Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws focus on the responsibilities of adults; adults are held criminally liable for unsafe storage of firearms around children. CAP laws have been associated with modest decreases in unintentional shootings of children and the suicides of adolescents (Webster & Starnes, 2000; Webster, Vernick, Zeoli, & Manganello, 2004).

Most gun-related laws focus on the user of the gun (e.g., increased penalties for using a gun in the commission of a crime). Some research suggests that having been threatened with a gun, as well as the perpetrator’s having access to a gun and using a gun during the fatal incident, is associated with increased risk of women becoming victims of intimate partner homicide (Campbell et al., 2003). Regarding sales, note that persons with a domestic violence misdemeanor or under a domestic violence restraining order are prohibited by federal law from purchasing and possessing a firearm and ammunition. Research to date indicates that firearm restrictions for persons subject to such laws have reduced intimate partner homicides by 6 percent to 19 percent (Vigdor & Mercy, 2006; Zeoli & Webster, 2010).

As with initial discussions about motor vehicle safety, which focused on what was then referred to as the “nut behind the wheel,” current discussions about gun users sometimes involve terms such as “good guys” and “bad guys.” Although intuitively appealing, such categories seem to assume a static label and do not take into account the fact that “good guys” can become “bad guys” and “bad guys” can become “good guys.” One way an armed “good guy” can become a “bad guy” is to use a gun in a moment of temporary despondence or rage (Bandeira, 2013; Wintemute, 2013a).

Research on near-miss suicide attempts among young adults indicates that impulsivity is of concern. About one fourth of those whose suicide attempt was so severe they most likely would have died reported first thinking about suicide five minutes before attempting it (Simon et al., 2001). Although an estimated 90 percent of those who attempt suicide go on to die of something else (i.e., they do not subsequently kill themselves; for a review, see Bostwick & Pankratz, 2000), for those who use a gun, as noted in opening paragraph of this chapter, there generally is not a second chance.

Given the complexity of the issue, a multifaceted approach will be needed to reduce firearm-related violence (see, for example, Chapman & Alpers, 2013). Not all ideas that on the surface seem to be useful actually are. For example, gun buyback programs may raise awareness of guns and gun violence in a community but have not been shown to reduce mortality (Makarios & Pratt, 2012). Such data can inform policy. President Obama’s January 2013 executive orders about gun violence include directing the CDC to research the causes and prevention of gun violence. The federal government has since announced several funding opportunities for research related to gun violence. And the recent Institute of Medicine and National Research Council (2013) report called for lifting access restrictions on gun-related administrative data (e.g., data related to dealers’ compliance with firearm sales laws, gun trace data) that could be used to identify potential intervention and prevention points and strategies. So perhaps more data will be available to inform and evaluate policies designed to reduce gun violence.

The focus of this section has largely been on mortality. The scope of the problem is far greater, however. For every person who dies of a gunshot wound, there are an estimated 2.25 people who are hospitalized or receive emergency medical treatment for a nonfatal gunshot wound (Gotsch, Annest, Mercy, & Ryan, 2001). And guns are used in the street and in the home to intimidate and coerce (e.g., Sorenson & Wiebe, 2004; Truman, 2011).

Single policies implemented by themselves have been shown to reduce certain forms of gun violence in the United States. Adequate implementation and enforcement as well as addressing multiple intervention points simultaneously may improve the efficacy of these laws even more. After motor vehicle safety efforts expanded to include the vehicle, roadways, and other intervention points (vs. a focus on individual behavior), motor vehicle deaths dropped precipitously and continue to decline (CDC, 1999, 2013a). A multifaceted approach to reducing gun violence will serve the nation well.

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APA Panel of Experts

Dewey Cornell, PhD Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Education Curry School of Education University of Virginia

Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD Commissioner Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services Philadelphia, Pa.   Nancy G. Guerra, EdD (Coordinating Editor) Professor of Psychology Associate Provost for International Programs Director, Institute for Global Studies University of Delaware   Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD Associate Vice President for Community Engagement Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology Senior Associate National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice   Eric Mankowski, PhD Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology Portland State University

Marisa R. Randazzo, PhD Managing Partner SIGMA Threat Management Associates Alexandria, Va.   Ellen Scrivner, PhD, ABPP Executive Fellow Police Foundation Washington, D.C.   Susan B. Sorenson, PhD Professor of Social Policy / Health & Societies Senior Fellow in Public Health University of Pennsylvania

W. Douglas Tynan, PhD, ABPP Professor of Pediatrics Jefferson Medical College Thomas Jefferson University   Daniel W. Webster, ScD, MPH Professor and Director Center for Gun Policy and Research Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

We are grateful to the following individuals for their thoughtful reviews and comments on drafts of this report:   Louise A. Douce, PhD Special Assistant, Office of Student Life Adjunct Faculty, Department of Psychology The Ohio State University   Joel A. Dvoskin, PhD, ABPP Department of Psychiatry University of Arizona   Ellen G. Garrison, PhD Senior Policy Advisor American Psychological Association   Melissa Strompolis, MA Doctoral Candidate University of North Carolina at Charlotte   Mathilde Pelaprat, PsyD , provided writing and research assistance on Chapter 2.

Rhea Farberman, APR Executive Director Public and Member Communications American Psychological Association

Editorial and Design Services Deborah C. Farrell, Editor │ Elizabeth F. Woodcock, Designer

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10 Big Questions in the U.S. Gun Control Debate

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In May 2021, a disgruntled employee at a public transit rail yard in San Jose, California, opened fire on co-workers, firing 39 rounds that killed eight of them and wounding a ninth who later died, before taking his own life in front of law enforcement officers who had rushed to the scene. The mass killer had three 9-millimeter semi-automatic handguns with him and 11 ammunition magazines on his belt. Later, authorities found 12 more firearms and 25,000 rounds of ammunition at the suspect's home [sources: Fernando, Hays and Hauck ; Hanna and Vera ].

The horrific slaughter was yet another shock to a nation that in recent decades has been traumatized again and again by mass shootings, from the killing of 20 elementary school students and six adults by a 20-year-old gunman in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, to the massacre of 58 spectators at a country music concert in Las Vegas by a 64-year-old sniper who rained fire down on them from the 32nd floor of a resort hotel [sources: Candiotti and Aarthun ; Hutchinson, et al .].

From 1999 to 2021, more than 2,000 people were killed in mass shootings, according to an analysis by Reuters [source: Canipe and Hartman ]. But mass shootings are just part of the larger pattern of firearm violence. In 2020, despite the pandemic, nearly 20,000 people were killed in homicides and 24,000 died in suicides involving guns [source: Thebault and Rindler ].That unceasing carnage has led many Americans to call for stricter gun laws.

"We need to treat gun violence as a public health issue, " Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in a 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, explained in a 2021 interview [source: Allen ].

But gun rights advocates say such laws would violate Americans' constitutional right to bear arms. They also argue that citizens need weaponry to defend against criminals. "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun, " National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said in 2012 [source: CBS DC ].

Others even say that gun rights are essential to stave off the possibility of government tyranny.

"The Second Amendment is about maintaining, within the citizenry, the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government if that becomes necessary, " Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., told an audience a political rally in May 2021 [source: Chamberlain ].

So which side is right? That's for you to decide. But to help you make an informed decision, here are answers to 10 big questions in the U.S. gun control debate.

• How Many Guns Are in the U.S.?
• What Does the Second Amendment Say?
• Is the U.S. Gun Homicide Rate Really That High?
• Are There Countries With as Many Guns as the U.S. but With Less Crime?
• Could Technological Advances Make Gun Control Impossible?
• How Often Do Gun Owners Actually Prevent Crimes?
• How Often Are People Killed by Their Own Guns?
• Did the Federal Ban on Assault Weapons Affect Crime?
• Do States With Strict Gun Control Laws Have Less Gun Violence?
• Has American Public Opinion Shifted on Gun Control?

10: How Many Guns Are in the U.S.?

The U.S. has a lot of guns — so many, in fact, that there's more than one firearm for every person who lives in the country. According to the Geneva, Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey, in 2017 there were an estimated 393 million guns in the U.S., including 114 million handguns, 110 million rifles and 86 million shotguns [source: Karp ]. This already huge privately held arsenal is growing at a very fast rate. In 2020 alone, Americans purchased nearly 40 million firearms, according to FBI data [source: McIntyre ].

That may lead you to the mistaken impression that everyone is packing heat. In truth, however, the majority of Americans still are unarmed. A 2020 Gallup Poll found that only 32 percent of Americans personally owned a gun, though 44 percent lived in households in which someone possessed a firearm. Firearm owners were most likely to be male, white, Republicans or politically conservative, live in the South and have a household income of over $100,000. In contrast, only 19 percent of women owned guns, and low percentages of nonwhite Americans, political moderates and liberals, people in the Eastern U.S. and those earning less than $40,000 owned firearms [source: Saad ].

But gun purchases — and gun manufacturing — are both at all-time highs. So, if more guns are being sold, more people must be owning guns, right? Wrong. It appears most of the new gun purchases are by existing gun owners. In fact, a relatively small number of heavily armed people own most of the country's guns. A groundbreaking study published in 2017 by the Russell Sage Foundation found that half of America's gun stock (at the time, approximately 130 million guns) was owned by approximately 14 percent of gun owners [source: Azrael, et al .].

9: What Does the Second Amendment Say?

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states the following: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." But what that means is the subject of intense debate. Pro-gun partisans argue that the Constitution's framers guaranteed peoples' right to possess and carry just about any sort of firearm. Gun control advocates say it was intended to allow states to maintain the equivalent of today's National Guard units [source: Krouse ].

But as Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes once noted, "The Constitution is what the judges say it is" [source: Columbia University ]. And so far, probably to both sides' frustration, the courts have never fully defined the Second Amendment and its implications. Instead, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued a series of rulings that mostly have upheld the government's authority to impose restrictions upon weapons.

For example, in the 1937 case U.S. v. Miller , a court upheld a federal statute requiring licensing of sawed-off shotguns, saying that some types of weaponry weren't needed by a militia and thus weren't constitutionally protected. (Gun rights advocates replied that this type of weapon had been used by militia before.) More recently, in the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller , the court found that citizens did have a right to possess handguns at home for self-defense. But the justices said the government still could impose other limits — such as banning criminals and those with mental illness from owning guns, regulating gun sales and barring guns from schools and other places [source: Krouse ].

8: Is the U.S. Gun Homicide Rate Really That High?

In 2019, guns were used in 13,927 homicides in the U.S. — in nearly 74 percent of murders that year [source: FBI ]. Whether that rate seems high to you depends upon your perspective. According to a global database maintained by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the U.S. ranks 32nd in deaths from gun violence worldwide, with 3.96 killings per 100,000 people [source: Aizenman ].

But many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean had vastly higher rates. El Salvador's gun homicide rate was 36.78 per 100,000 — more than nine times the U.S. rate. Venezuela (33.27), Guatemala (29.06), Colombia (26.36), Brazil (21.93), Bahamas (21.52) and Mexico (16.41) all had proportionately much bigger problems. The Philippines (8.05) and South Africa (5.28) also outdid the U.S., according to the same report.

But those places tend to be developing countries where law and order is weak, or places with political unrest. Compared to other industrialized democracies, the U.S. gun homicide rate is through the roof. The U.K., for example, had just 0.04 gun killings per 100,000 in 2019, and Japan and South Korea had only 0.02. Canada had 0.47. In other words, the U.S. death rate from gun violence was eight times as high as that of Canada and 100 times that of the U.K. [source: Aizenman ].

So here's another question: Would the homicide rate in the U.S. be lower if there were fewer guns available? A comparison with England and Wales suggests that it might be. Those parts of the U.K. actually have higher rates of some violent crimes than the U.S. The English-Welsh assault rate was 925.4 per 100,000 population in 2018, compared to just 246.84 in the U.S., and the robbery rate of 131.227 per 100,000 in 2017 was 33 percent higher than the U.S. rate. But the U.S. has a lot more killing — its homicide rate in 2017 was more than quadruple the English-Welsh homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000 [source: UNODC ]. As the American Psychological Association concluded in a 2013 report on gun violence, "The use of a gun greatly increases the odds that violence will lead to a fatality."

7: Are There Countries With as Many Guns as the U.S. but With Less Crime?

No, because there isn't another country in the world with as many guns as the U.S. The U.S. comprises 4 percent of the world's population, but owns about 40 percent of the world's civilian firearms. The rate of about 121 guns per 100 people is tops in the world, followed by the politically unstable Yemen, at 53 guns per 100 people [source: Small Arms Survey ].

So, let's reframe the question. Are there countries with relatively high gun-ownership rates — and low crime rates? Yes: Finland, which has 32 guns per 100 people, and Canada, which has 34.7 guns per 100 people. (Finland ranks fourth in the world for the rate of private gun ownership.) Finland had just 9 gun homicides in 2016, a rate of 0.20 per 100,000 people. Canada, with 223 gun killings in 2016, had a slightly higher rate of 0.62 per 100,000 [source: Gunpolicy.org ].

But both those countries have stricter gun control laws than the U.S. In Finland, a nation where most use guns for hunting rather than protection, citizens must obtain gun licenses, which must be renewed every five years. They also must state the reason they wish to have a gun — and self-defense is not a valid reason [source: Finnish Police ].

Police deny or revoke permission if an applicant is convicted of a crime — or shows any sort of behavior that authorities think might indicate that he or she wouldn't be safe owning a gun. Large-capacity magazines aren't permitted, and weapons must be stored in locked cabinets and unloaded if taken outside the home [source: Ministry of the Interior ].

But even so, Finland suffered mass shootings at schools in 2007 and 2008, in which gunmen killed 18 people. Since then, Finland has tightened up its gun laws, although it experienced two other mass shootings in 2009 and 2016. Still, Finland's totality of roughly 26 deaths between 2000 and 2019 is a drop in the bucket compared with the thousands of deaths in the U.S. from mass shootings [source: Australian Associated Press ].

6: Could Technological Advances Make Gun Control Impossible?

In recent years, the development of 3D-printing , in which a printer can be used to build a solid object, has the potential to greatly complicate attempts to regulate firearms. The earliest 3D-printed guns were crude single-shot devices. But as Slate writer Ari Schneider reported in 2021 , the technology has come a long way in a short time, and it's now possible to print semi-automatic rifles and pistols that don't have serial numbers or registrations, bypassing background checks. Recently, for example, plans were released for a "100 percent homemade" semi-automatic rifle that is durable enough to shoot thousands of 9 mm rounds. Most of the rifle can be 3D-printed, while the rest can be fabricated from parts available in hardware stores.

3D-printed firearms not only would be easy to make at home, and easy to hide from authorities, but potentially could be far cheaper than weapons manufactured in arms factories and sold by dealers. In just a short time, plans for the 3D-printed rifle were viewed more than 44,000 times on the original website to which the files were uploaded, according to Schneider's article .

Currently, making your own 3D gun is legal under Federal law, which permits the unlicensed manufacturing of firearms, as long as at least some of the parts are metal, according to a February 2021 article in The Trace , an online publication that focuses on gun issues. A few states have moved to clamp down on them, including New Jersey, which requires anyone who wants to use a 3D printer to make a gun to obtain a federal gun-manufacturing license. New Mexico and Virginia are considering similar restrictions.

Law enforcement officials worry about the possibility of violent extremists using 3D printers to fabricate weapons without metal components, which would enable them to be smuggled inside places where guns are prohibited, such as government buildings and airports. So far, though, even plastic guns still would need to use bullets fashioned from metal, which could be spotted [source: Barton and Brownlee ]. Additionally, Design News reported in 2019 on development of a new scanning device with the potential to spot concealed weapons regardless of their composition.

5: How Often Do Gun Owners Actually Prevent Crimes?

People opposed to gun control often have argued that they need firepower to protect themselves against criminals. Take this example from January 2013 when a Georgia woman shot a crowbar-wielding intruder who broke into her home and confronted her and her two young children [source: CBS News ]. A number of armed American citizens have also used their firearms to stop or limit mass killings, including Stephen Willeford, the armed citizen who intervened to confront and pursue a gunman who attacked First Baptist Church of Sutherland Spring, Texas in 2017 [source: CNN ].

Gun control opponents say that a vast number of crimes are prevented by armed citizens, who either shoot an assailant — an event that happened 326 times in 2010, according to a 2012 Wall Street Journal state-by-state analysis of crime statistics — or more often, chase the would-be criminal away by brandishing a weapon [source: Palazzolo and Barry ].

There is some social science to back up that thesis. Perhaps the most often-cited evidence is a 1995 study by Northwestern University School of Law researchers Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. Based upon a random telephone survey of 5,000 Americans, they concluded that there were between 2.1 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year. This works out to about 1 percent use of a gun for defensive purposes [source: Kleck and Gertz ].

But critics questioned whether Kleck's and Gertz's findings were reliable. Harvard public health researcher David Hemenway published a paper refuting this and pointing out that "since only 42 percent of U.S. households own firearms and victims in two-thirds of the occupied households were asleep, the 2.5 million figure requires us to believe burglary victims use their guns in self-defense more than 100 percent of the time" [source: Hemenway ]. Another mid-1990s study, based upon a Justice Department survey of nearly 60,000 households, came up with a much smaller estimate of about 21,500 defensive gun uses annually [source: Committee on Law and Justice ].

Even if the low-end estimates are closer to the truth, this still could mean that tens of thousands of crimes are prevented by gun owners annually. But a 2009 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine study found that people with a gun were 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those who were unarmed.

4: How Often Are People Killed by Their Own Guns?

This is the point that gun control proponents often cite to counter arguments that guns deter crime . People who have guns in their households, they argue, actually may be at greater risk of being hurt or killed by a bullet — possibly one fired by an angry spouse or by a child playing with a gun that's been left out and loaded.

Again, there's some social science to support this. A 2003 study published in the journal Injury Prevention found that people in families where someone purchased a gun actually faced an elevated risk of homicide, suicide and accidental death [source: Grassel et al ]. Another study published in 2011 in the American Journal of Public Health found that 43 percent — neatly half — of all homes with guns and kids also had one unlocked firearm.

One big risk is that having a gun within easy reach can escalate an argument or fight into a homicide. A 1992 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that victims whose family members used a gun in an assault were 12 times more likely to die than when attackers used other weapons such as knives, or their bare hands [source: Saltzman et al ].

However, an article that appeared in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy pointed out that most of the "acquaintance homicides" involved, for instance, drug dealers shooting at each other. "Approximately 90 percent of adult murderers have adult records, with an average adult criminal career ... of six or more years, including four major adult felony arrests," said the authors [source: Kates and Mauser ].

Most Americans who die from gun violence in their own homes actually inflict it upon themselves: More than 47,000 people commit suicide every year in the United States and in 2019, more than half used a firearm [source: ASFP].

3: Did the Federal Ban on Assault Weapons Affect Crime?

In 1994, Congress passed a 10-year ban on the manufacture and sale of new assault weapons, which the law defined as semi-automatic rifles and handguns with certain military-style features — such as folding rifle stocks and threaded barrels for attaching silencers — that didn't have any value to hunters or self-defense. The law also banned magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds but exempted weapons manufactured before 1994. The law was allowed to expire in 2004, and how effective it was at preventing crime remains a subject of intense controversy, in part because there wasn't a systematic effort to gather data about its impacts.

A 2004 study by University of Pennsylvania researchers for the Department of Justice found that from 1995 to 2003, gun crimes involving assault weapons that were banned by the law declined in six U.S. cities by between 17 percent and 72 percent. But some of that progress was negated, the researchers found, because even though criminals couldn't buy new assault weapons, they still could easily outfit non-banned weapons with old large-capacity magazines from before the ban, which were plentiful and easily obtained [source: Koper ].

Additionally, manufacturers were able to get around the ban by redesigning weapons and making a few changes to remove the military-style features. The Colt AR-15 that the shooter used to kill moviegoers in the Aurora cinema would have been outlawed under the 1994 ban. Yet he could have used a very similar Colt Match Target rifle that would not have fallen under the ban [source: Plumer ].

After winning election in 2020 on a platform that included gun control, President Joe Biden has pushed Congress to revive the assault weapons ban, and to make high-capacity magazines illegal as well [source: White House ].

2: Do States With Strict Gun Control Laws Have Less Gun Violence?

Critics of gun control often point to places such as the District of Columbia, which has a high rate of gun crimes despite strict gun control laws . But gun control advocates say that states' efforts at gun control are undermined, to a degree, by lax laws in neighboring states. Everytown For Gun Safety , an organization lobbying for stricter gun legislation, points out that nearly 30 percent of guns recovered from crime scenes were first sold in a different state. And a 2009 study by Johns Hopkins University researchers found that cities in states with little regulation of gun dealers had guns passing into criminals' hands at two to four times the rate of cities in states with strict laws [source: ScienceDaily ].

Social scientist Richard Florida, who has analyzed crime and demographic data, has found a strong correlation between lower firearm deaths and tighter gun restrictions, such as bans on assault weapons and requirements for trigger locks and safe storage of guns. He says that gun violence is less likely to occur in states that have gun control laws. Interestingly, he found no correlation between states' unemployment rates or drug use and gun violence, but he did find that states with high poverty, low numbers of college grads and high numbers of working-class jobs also had more gun violence [source: Florida ].

1: Has American Public Opinion Shifted on Gun Control?

In the early 1990s, Gallup polling showed that 78 percent of Americans favored tighter gun control laws . But that support declined dramatically over the next two decades, and by the mid-to-late 2000s, support dipped to just 44 percent, with nearly as many Americans (43 percent) saying that laws already were strict enough. But in the wake of the Newtown massacre, a December 2012 Gallup poll found a sharp rebound in support, with 58 percent favoring tougher gun statutes, compared to just 34 percent who said they wanted laws to remain the same [source: Saad ]. Since then, support for gun control has fluctuated, often rising in the wake of shootings. Gallup's most recent poll on this issue in November 2020 found that 57 percent of Americans supported stricter gun control [source: Brenan ].

Other recent polls on gun control vary. A Pew Research Center poll released in April 2021 found a narrower majority — 53 percent — supported stricter laws, while a March 2021 Morning Consult-Politico tracking poll found that 64 percent of American voters generally supported more gun control, versus 28 percent who said they were opposed. [sources: Bowden , Pew Research Center ].

But when polls drill down further, they often find that specific gun control measures have even broader support. In the Morning Consult-Politico poll, for example, 83 percent of voters who supported background checks on all weapons purchases and statutes preventing people identified as mentally unstable from owning guns at all. And 76 percent supported banning anyone on a federal watchlist — such as "do not fly" lists — from owning guns, while 73 percent wanted a three-day federal waiting period before a gun could be taken home from a store. Seventy percent backed creation of a national database on gun sales [source: Bowden ].

Similarly, in the Pew poll, Americans strongly backed restrictions on the type of weaponry Americans should be able to buy. Sixty-four percent favored banning magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, and 63 percent favored banning assault weapons such as the military-style rifles that often have been used in mass killings [source: Pew Research Center ].

But Gallup data contains another important but often overlooked point. Though the number of Americans who want stricter gun control has gone up and down (and now up again), the overwhelming majority of Americans over the past 20 years have supported laws that restrict firearms. In a Gallup Poll from October 2017, only 4 percent of those polled said they oppose background checks for all gun purchases [source: Brenan ].

However, that same 2017 poll found that a 71 percent were opposed to a ban on handguns for anyone but police or other authorized personnel. Pollsters speculate this could reflect Americans' wish to keep the right of self-defense in the wake of high-profile gun violence.

Gun Control Debate FAQs

How many guns are there in the u.s., what does the u.s. constitution say about gun control, did the federal ban on assault weapons affect crime, what's a semi-automatic gun, is it illegal to not lock up your guns, lots more information.

Author's Note: 10 Big Questions in the U.S. Gun Control Debate

I grew up in western Pennsylvania, where the movie "The Deer Hunter" was set, and where a lot of my neighbors were avid hunters. So the idea of law-abiding people owning guns was never something I questioned. But except for my toy pistols, we didn't have any guns in our home, because my father, who wasn't a hunter, didn't want them around. He'd been a combat medic in the U.S. Army during World War II, and he had a huge, scary scar on his left bicep where a German machine gun bullet hit him on a battlefield in 1945. He'd had to bind up his own arm in a battlefield tourniquet, which enabled him to escape having it amputated. I still have a vivid picture in my mind of what a bullet can do to a person's body. I think that's given me a real-world perspective on the gun issue that a lot of debaters, who tend to get caught up in legal and constitutional abstractions, often seem to lack.

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• Aizenman, Nurith. "Gun Violence Deaths: How The U.S. Compares With The Rest Of The World. " National Public Radio. March 24, 2021. (May 30, 2021) https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/03/24/980838151/gun-violence-deaths-how-the-u-s-compares-to-the-rest-of-the-world
• Allen, Kristine. "Take Note: Fred Guttenberg, Father Of Parkland Shooting Victim, Fights Gun Violence. " WPSU. Feb. 13, 2021. (May 30, 2021) https://radio.wpsu.org/post/take-note-fred-guttenberg-father-parkland-shooting-victim-fights-gun-violence
• American Psychological Association. "Gun Violence: Prediction, Prevention, and Policy." APA.org. 2013. (May 30, 2021) https://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/gun-violence-prevention
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Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article:

• Open access
• Published: 06 September 2024

Political violence, racial violence, and new gun ownership: results from the 2023 National Survey of Gun Policy

• Rebecca Valek 1 , 2 ,
• Julie A. Ward 3 ,
• Vanya Jones 1 , 4 &
• Cassandra K. Crifasi 1  

Injury Epidemiology volume  11 , Article number:  48 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

U.S. firearm sales surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many purchases by first-time firearm owners. The 2023 National Survey of Gun Policy sought to understand the public health implications of this surge by comparing the purchasing motivations and firearm policy views of pandemic-era first-time purchasers to prior gun owners.

We fielded a nationally representative public opinion survey of U.S. adults (n = 3096) from 1/4/23 to 2/6/23. We oversampled for gun owners and Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans. Survey weights were applied to generate representative estimates. New gun owners were identified through affirmative responses to: “Have you bought any guns since January 1, 2020?” and “Did you buy your first gun after January 1, 2020?” Recent purchasers were additionally asked whether concerns of 1) political or 2) racial violence motivated their purchase. Purchase motivations and gun policy support were examined among new and prior gun owners (n = 1002) and compared using logistic regression and predictive probabilities.

Overall, 11% of respondents reported purchasing a gun since 1/1/20, 35% for the first time. Among recent purchasers, larger proportions of Democrat, Black, Asian, and Hispanic respondents were new gun owners than Republican or white respondents. Compared to prior owners, odds were 4.5-times higher that new gun owners’ recent purchase was motivated by racial violence and 3.2-times higher for political violence.

Majority support was found for protective gun policies, with few differences by purchase recency or motivations. The only policy for which support by new and prior gun owners differed significantly was the permit-to-purchase policy (76% v. 63%, respectively). Similarly, few significant differences in support were observed when stratifying by purchase motivation. Notably, both those who reported recent purchase motivations of racial violence and of political violence expressed significantly higher support for a “stand-your-ground” policy compared to those who did not report such motivations.

Conclusions

Racial and political violence appear to be larger concerns among new gun owners, motivating purchasing among demographic groups with traditionally lower gun ownership rates. These findings suggest a need for safety assurances amid racial and political tensions and growing gun ownership. Gun owners’ support for such policies remains strong.

Firearm sales surged across the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic, with estimates of over four million excess firearms purchased from March to July 2020 (Schleimer et al. 2021 ). In this time period, an estimated 34% of all purchasers were new gun owners (Crifasi et al. 2021a ). In addition to increasing individual gun ownership rates, these purchases increased household gun ownership rates, exposing over 11 million additional individuals to household firearm ownership (Miller et al. 2022 ). While little is known about the motivations behind this surge in purchasing, one study conducted in the summer of 2020 found that those reporting an intention to purchase a firearm over the next year had lower tolerance of uncertainty, stronger pandemic-related fears, and exaggerated threat expectancies compared to those who did not intend to purchase a firearm in the next year (Anestis and Bryan 2021 ). Another survey conducted between March 2020 and October 2021 reported that those who purchased a firearm during the pandemic expressed higher levels of agreement with various political beliefs (e.g., QAnon beliefs, pro-gun attitudes, Christian nationalism, COVID-19 skepticism) and exhibited higher levels of different mental health (e.g., suicidality, depression, alcohol use problems) and personality (e.g., desire for power, belief in a dangerous world) characteristics compared to both prior gun owners and non-gun owners (Hicks et al. 2023 ). Additionally, an examination of reasons for gun ownership among new and prior gun owners found that new gun owners more commonly cited multiple reasons for gun ownership as important or highly important, including reasons related to protection in ideological conflict, compared to prior gun owners (Ward et al. 2024 ).

This surge in firearm purchasing and new gun ownership occurred at the same time the nation saw reports of record-high rates of gun violence (Neuman  2023 ; Davis et al.  2023 ). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Underlying Cause of Death database reported record-high numbers of gun deaths in 2020 and 2021 (Davis et al. 2023 ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2024 ). Between 2019 and 2021, the national gun homicide rate increased by 45%, the largest two-year increase that the CDC has reported to date, and the gun suicide rate increased by 10% (Davis et al.  2023 ). An analysis of national gun violence rates using police reports of gun-related injuries and deaths documented in the Gun Violence Archive reported similar increases, with a 34% increase in nonfatal firearm injury and a 28% increase in firearm-related deaths during the pandemic compared to prior years (Sun et al. 2022 ). The U.S. also saw an increase in the number of hate crimes, especially those targeting Black and Asian Americans (U.S. Department of Justice  2023 ). Simultaneously, the COVID-19 pandemic and co-occurring social justice and police reform-related protests may have spurred uncertainty about economic wellbeing, status, or stability of established hierarchies and norms (Anestis et al. 2023 ). Such concerns have been associated with symbolically protective gun acquisition (Anestis et al. 2023 ; Warner and Steidley 2021 ). In short, increased concern about general crime, group-specific safety, or political and social unrest may uniquely influence firearm-related beliefs and behaviors (Anestis et al. 2023 ; Barnes and Ephross 1994 ).

Given that gun ownership has been associated with increased risks of firearm homicide, suicide, and unintentional shootings, there is a need to further characterize and understand the recent gun purchasing surge, particularly within the context of persistently heightened social and political tensions (Siegel et al. 2013 ; Miller et al. 2002 ; Wiebe 2003 ). Despite our knowledge of the surge in gun purchases during the pandemic, less is known about the motivations behind these recent purchasing behaviors and potential differences between new and prior gun owners or among different racial and ethnic and political groups. This information is critical to understanding how to reduce violence and promote safety through strategies such as education campaigns or policy change. This study sought to examine purchasing behaviors and motivations as well as support for policies and programs to reduce gun violence, comparing prior gun owners to those who bought guns for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We fielded the 2023 National Survey of Gun Policy using NORC at the University of Chicago’s AmeriSpeak panel from January 4 to February 6, 2023 (n = 3096) to examine public opinion on gun policy. The AmeriSpeak Panel is drawn from the NORC National Frame, a nationally representative, probability-based panel of adults ages 18 and older that uses address-based sampling to cover 97% of U.S. households (NORC at the University of Chicago  2022 ). Interviews were administered online and by phone in both English and Spanish. All question blocks were asked in random order to protect against potential for systematic priming.

The survey completion rate was 76.5%. We oversampled for gun owners (n = 1002) and Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. This oversampling allowed for an assessment of different purchasing behaviors and motivations among various demographic groups, particularly those groups for which there were increases in gun ownership during the pandemic. Race and ethnicity were self-reported by the survey participants and participants were classified into one of five mutually exclusive ethnoracial categories: non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic Asian, non-Hispanic other race or multiracial, or Hispanic of any race.

Gun ownership was determined through two questions: “Do you happen to have in your home or garage any guns or revolvers?” and “Do any of these guns personally belong to you?” A gun owner was defined as a respondent who was the personal owner of at least one firearm. Recent gun ownership and purchasing were identified through the questions: “Have you bought any guns since January 1, 2020?” and “Did you buy your first gun after January 1, 2020?” Those who purchased any guns since January 1, 2020, were labelled “recent purchasers” and recent purchasers who purchased their first gun since January 1, 2020, were labelled “new gun owners.” Gun owners whose first purchase was before January 1, 2020, were referred to as “prior gun owners.” Recent purchasers were asked about the motivations for their recent purchase: “Was your purchase motivated by concerns of racial violence?” and “Was your purchase motivated by concerns of political violence?” Eleven additional questions regarding reasons for gun ownership, including more conventional reasons like hunting and protection at home, were asked of all gun owners. The results of these questions were previously published (Ward et al. 2024 ).

We used detailed information about respondents’ demographic characteristics, including sex, age, race and ethnicity, education, income, employment status, region of residence, and political party affiliation provided by NORC. Supplemental Table 1 in Additional File 1 compares the survey weighted and unweighted sociodemographic characteristics and political party affiliation of the study sample in 2023 to national data (U.S. Census Bureau  2024a , b ; Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024 ; American National Election Studies  2022 ).

We examined respondents’ support for 42 gun-related policies. These policies were grouped into ten categories: license and background check policies, prohibited persons policies, assault weapon and ammunition policies, policies affecting gun dealers, temporary firearm removal policies, policies on carrying guns in public, policies prohibiting a person convicted of various crimes from having a gun for 10 years, funding-related policies, safe storage policies, and other policies. Support was measured via a 5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly favor’ to ‘strongly oppose’. We created a dichotomous support measure comparing ‘somewhat favor’ and ‘strongly favor’ to the other options to indicate the proportion in support of each policy.

Logistic regression was used to compare differences in gun ownership and purchase motivation among demographic subgroups (e.g., racial and ethnic group, political affiliation) and to compare differences in unadjusted policy support by gun ownership and purchase motivation. We conducted analyses using survey weights provided by NORC to adjust for known sampling deviations and survey nonresponse and to ensure the sample was representative of the U.S. population. Results are presented as weighted proportions with 95% confidence intervals. Average predicted probabilities of policy support were calculated as a sensitivity analysis to assess whether observed differences remained after accounting for demographic variables: ethnoracial group, political party identification, sex, age, income, and living in a metropolitan area. All analyses were conducted using the  svy  command in Stata version 17.0. This study was reviewed and approved by the Johns Hopkins Institutional Review Board.

Overall, 11% (95% CI: 9.4–12.4) of survey respondents reported having bought any guns since January 1, 2020, 35% of whom were new gun owners (95% CI: 28.4–42.0). A significantly larger proportion of Republicans reported having made a recent firearm purchase compared to Democrats (Republicans: 15%, 95% CI: 12.4–18.8; Democrats: 6%, 95% CI: 4.0–7.3). When stratifying by race and ethnicity, a significant difference in proportions of having made a recent firearm purchase only existed for one racial group: people who identified as non-Hispanic Asian. A significantly lower proportion of Asian respondents reported having made a recent firearm purchase (5%; 95% CI: 2.8–8.6) compared to white (11%; 95% CI: 8.9–12.7), Black (11%; 95% CI: 8.2–14.7), other/multiracial (16%; 95% CI: 7.9–30.3), or Hispanic (13%; 95% CI: 9.4–17.5) respondents. Among those who made recent purchases, proportions of new gun ownership were significantly higher among respondents identifying as Democrat (51%; 95% CI: 35.6–66.0), Black (53%; 95% CI: 37.1–67.5), Asian (70%; 95% CI: 42.4–88.5), or Hispanic (55%; 95% CI: 38.3–71.0) compared to those identifying as Republican (23%; 95% CI: 15.2–34.0) or white (24%; 95% CI: 16.8–32.6). Table 1 describes patterns in firearm purchasing and motivations during the COVID-19 pandemic by political party and by race and ethnicity.

Purchase motivations

Overall, 17% (95% CI: 12.8–22.5) of recent firearm purchasers reported that their purchase was motivated by concerns of racial violence and 24% (95% CI: 18.7–31.0) reported that their purchase was motivated by concerns of political violence (Table  1 ). New gun owners reported significantly different purchase motivations compared to recent purchases among prior gun owners. When controlling for political party and various demographic characteristics, odds of reporting recent purchases motivated by concerns of racial violence and concerns of political violence were 4.5 (95% CI: 2.0–10.1) and 3.2 (95% CI: 1.5–6.9) times greater, respectively, among new gun owners compared to prior gun owners who also made a recent purchase (Table  2 ). Among recent purchasers, significantly larger proportions of Black (36%; 95% CI: 22.4–51.4) and Asian (42%; 95% CI: 16.2–72.4) respondents reported recent purchases motivated by concerns of racial violence than white respondents (11%; 95% CI: 6.4–16.7; Table  1 ). A significantly higher proportion of recent purchasers identifying as Democrats reported being motivated by political violence concerns (34%; 95% CI: 20.4–51.0) compared to Republican recent purchasers (17%; 95% CI: 10.5–26.1; Table  1 ).

Policy support

Support for the gun-related policies was generally high among both gun owners and non-gun owners (Supplemental Table 2 in Additional File 1) and among new and prior gun owners (Table  3 ) for most protective policies; few significant differences in policy support were observed. Support only differed significantly between new and prior gun owners for one policy: firearm purchaser licensing/permit-to-purchase. New gun owners reported significantly higher support for a policy requiring a person to obtain a license from a local law enforcement agency before buying a gun to verify their identity and ensure that they are not legally prohibited from having a gun (76%; 95% CI: 64.7–84.6) compared to prior gun owners (63%; 95% CI: 59.2–67.1).

Similarly, few significant differences in support for the 42 policies of interest were observed when stratifying by whether recent purchases were motivated by concerns of racial or political violence (Table  4 ). Significantly larger proportions of those whose recent purchases were motivated by concerns of racial violence expressed support for a prohibition on handgun ownership for those under the age of 21 (67%; 95% CI: 51.6–78.9) compared to those whose recent purchases were not motivated by concerns of racial violence (50%; 95% CI: 41.8–57.8). Significantly larger proportions of those whose recent purchases were motivated by concerns of political violence expressed support for child access prevention laws that require a person lock up their guns when not in use to prevent handling by children or teenagers without adult supervision (66%; 95% CI: 51.6–78.4) compared to those whose recent purchases were not motivated by concerns of political violence (49%; 95% CI: 40.4–56.7). Recent political-violence-motivated purchasers also reported significantly higher proportions of support for requiring concealed carry applicants to pass a test demonstrating that they can safely and lawfully handle a gun in common situations they may encounter (79%; 95% CI: 66.8–87.2) relative to those whose recent purchases were not motivated by concerns of political violence (60%, 95% CI: 52.0–68.1). Three laws had significant differences in support when stratifying by either motivation, with higher support among those reporting concerns of either type of violence: requiring a license to buy a gun if you could substitute a valid concealed carry license; redirecting government funding currently spent on the police to social services for people at risk of gun violence; and the stand-your-ground law, which allows a person with a gun who feels a threat of serious injury from another person to shoot or kill that threatening person, even if the gun owner could safely retreat.

There were few differences between the unadjusted support and predicted probabilities of support that accounted for demographic characteristics, including political party affiliation (Supplemental Tables 3 , 4 in Additional File 1). The predicted probabilities of support tended to be slightly lower than the unadjusted weighted proportions, but overall support and trends were similar.

New and prior gun owners differed in terms of purchase motivations and demographics, including political party affiliation, race, and ethnicity. Among those who purchased a gun since January 1, 2020, significantly larger proportions of Democrat, Black, Asian, and Hispanic respondents reported being new gun owners compared to Republican and white respondents. The demographics of new gun owners seen in this survey are consistent with prior literature, including results from the 2021 National Firearms Survey, which reported higher proportions of new gun ownership among Black and Hispanic adults, but our results add context on the motivations behind these shifts (Miller et al. 2022 ). Among recent purchasers, significantly larger proportions of Black and Asian respondents and new gun owners reported concerns of racial violence motivated purchases compared to white respondents and prior gun owners. Significantly larger proportions of Democrats and new gun owners reported concerns of political violence motivated recent purchases compared to Republicans and prior gun owners. Despite the differences in demographics between new and prior gun owners and between those who reported purchases motivated by concerns of racial or political violence and those who did not, the self-reported support for gun-related policies was largely similar between these groups, reflecting high support for protective policies across groups.

While the higher proportions of new gun ownership among Democrat, Black, Asian, and Hispanic respondents may be due in part to the fact that white individuals and Republicans had higher baseline rates of gun ownership before the pandemic, this still reflects a shift toward higher gun ownership rates among demographic groups that have historically had lower rates of gun ownership (Hill et al. 2021 ). If persistent, this shift may gradually lead to the demographics of gun owners in the U.S. becoming more representative of the population overall. Understanding this shifting demographic trend in gun ownership will help inform targeted messaging to groups regarding safe and responsible gun ownership.

Furthermore, understanding the factors that motivated pandemic-era gun purchases is essential to contextualizing the rise in new gun ownership. The odds of reporting purchases motivated by concerns of racial or political violence were 4.5- and 3.2-times higher, respectively, among new gun owners compared to prior gun owners who also made recent purchases. These purchase motivations among new gun owners are aligned with previously reported reasons for gun ownership measured in this survey, which found that 85% of new gun owners identified protection in ideological conflict as an important reason for gun ownership compared to only 56% of prior gun owners (Ward et al. 2024 ). Although personal interpretations of racial or political violence may vary (Kalyvas 2019 ), these concerns are not unfounded. Racially motivated hate crimes increased by 32% from 2019 to 2020, with the most significant increases in hate crimes targeting Black Americans (49% increase) and Asian Americans (77% increase) (U.S. Department of Justice  2023 ). Significantly larger proportions of both Black and Asian respondents reported concerns of racial violence motivating recent purchases compared to white respondents. The U.S. has also experienced a well-documented rise in support for and anticipation of violence to advance political objectives. A 2022 national survey found that 14% of Americans believe there will be civil war in the U.S. in the next few years and approximately one-third of Americans believe that political violence is usually or always justified to advance specific political objectives (Wintemute et al. 2023 ). Given such evidence of racial and political violence, increased gun purchasing and ownership, and the documented risk of increased lethality of violent situations when firearms are used, there is an urgent need for increased research and understanding of the drivers of these surges in violence and co-occurring harms (Braga et al. 2021 ). Opportunity remains for equitable and intentional collaboration between public health and public safety professionals to prevent such violence.

We examined recent purchases in the context of a gun purchasing surge coinciding with the emergence of COVID-19, but the concerns motivating this surge and driving the shifting demographics of new gun ownership are more complex and potentially more enduring than just the pandemic. These concerns of racial and political violence as motivators may be considered within the framework of the coping model of protective gun ownership, which posits that the motivation to own guns for protection is rooted in larger fears about the dangerousness of the world and that gun ownership helps individuals cope with psychological threats to their safety and security (Buttrick 2020 ). When examining motivations for recent purchases, stratification by race and ethnicity only revealed significant differences in the proportions of recent purchases motivated by racial violence; stratification by political party only revealed significant differences in the proportions motivated by political violence. Additionally, previously reported findings from this survey found that larger proportions of new gun owners endorsed protection during political activities (46%) and protection against people who do not share their beliefs (47%) as important reasons for gun ownership compared to prior gun owners (31% and 27%, respectively) (Ward et al. 2024 ). These results may anticipate trends in gun purchasing in response to future crises or times of social unrest, as they indicate that some individuals buy guns when they feel uncertain or unsafe; this may be especially true when individuals fear violence toward the political parties or racial or ethnic groups with which they identify. Given the efforts by the firearm industry to convincingly sell assurances of safety through guns, comparably strong public health messaging to promote safe and responsible firearm ownership and more comprehensive assurances of safety through clearly communicated and well implemented policy are needed (Hussain et al. 2023 ).

Despite notable shifts in the demographics and motivations of new gun owners, few differences in their self-reported support for different gun-related policies were observed. This lack of significant differences in policy support between new and prior gun owners is surprising given the documented differences in policy support by political party and race and ethnicity from past surveys, even among gun owners of differing political parties and races (Crifasi et al. 2021b ; Burton et al. 2021 ). Still, as evidenced here and across past research, gun owners, including new gun owners, are broadly supportive of protective gun policies (Crifasi et al. 2021b ; Barry et al. 2018 ). Additionally, both prior and new gun owners maintained strong support for protective gun policies, including requiring a background check system for all gun sales; prohibiting firearm ownership among those subject to a temporary domestic violence restraining order; prohibiting a person convicted of a serious crime as a juvenile form having a gun for 10 years; and requiring first-time purchasers to take a safety course on safe handling and storage before buying a gun. The only policy for which new and prior gun owners reported significantly different rates of support was requiring prospective gun purchasers to first get a license, with new gun owners expressing higher rates of support. This increased support for firearm purchaser licensing policies may be particularly important to interests in safer environments and communities, given the significant evidence supporting the efficacy of these policies in reducing gun homicide and suicide rates (Crifasi et al. 2015 ; Webster et al. 2014 ; McCourt et al. 2020 ).

Similarly, few differences in policy support were noted among recent purchasers who reported their purchase being motivated by concerns of racial or political violence and those who did not report such concerns, despite key demographic differences in those who reported such motivations. Notably, both those who reported recent purchase motivations of concerns of racial violence and of concerns of political violence reported greater levels of support for a stand-your-ground policy compared to those who did not report such motivations. This suggests a willingness to or acceptance of the ability to shoot and kill another individual when feeling threatened, potentially including these perceived threats of racial or political violence. This support for a stand-your-ground policy among those reporting that their firearm purchases were motivated by concerns of racial or political violence is concerning given the simultaneous rise in support for political violence and acceptance of use of force to achieve political aims (Pape 2023 ; Wintemute 2021 ). Still, as was the case among new and prior gun owners, overall support for protective policies was high regardless of purchase motivation. This suggests that, even as new groups turn to guns for personal protection, support for policies to promote safe and responsible ownership remains strong.

These findings should be considered in the context of various limitations. Sampling biases may have impacted our findings, but these biases are minimized through NORC at the University of Chicago’s probability-based sampling, which covers 95% or more of U.S. households (NORC at the University of Chicago  2022 ). Sample sizes for some of the groups that we analyzed, including new gun owners when broken down by race and ethnicity and political party, were small, limiting our capacity to examine other intersecting identities. Respondents identifying as non-Hispanic multiracial and non-Hispanic other race were grouped into one ethnoracial category for analysis, potentially masking differences in gun purchasing behaviors and policy preferences between and within these groups. We created dichotomous variables of policy support in our analysis, combining the neutral and opposition responses. This choice may have obscured information on policies with large proportions of neutral responses. Our findings may have also been impacted by social desirability bias and potential underreporting of firearm ownership (Bond et al. 2024 ), but these concerns are minimized by the use of an anonymous survey, and rates of personal gun ownership among respondents measured through this survey are often higher than other reports. Recall bias may have impacted our findings as well when asking respondents about their gun purchasing behaviors and motivations potentially up to three years after the purchase. However, asking about the most recent purchase, rather than all purchases or those further back in time, can help to mitigate this issue. The lack of explicit definitions of racial or political violence in the survey questions and the order of the survey questions may have led to response bias, but this bias was minimized by the randomization of question blocks. Recent purchasers were only asked to respond “Yes” or “No” regarding whether their recent purchase was motivated by concerns of racial or political violence, preventing examination of the strength or importance of these motivations. As with any survey, alternative question phrasing may yield different results. Future research may consider the use of more open-ended and varied questions to elicit a broader response regarding purchase motivations. Additionally, future studies may further examine whether purchasing motivations differ by gun type, as there is some evidence that pandemic-related concerns increased handgun, but not rifle, desirability (Sola 2021 ).

Concerns of racial or political violence were cited as significant motivations for recent gun purchases among new gun owners, in particular among groups with historically lower rates of firearm ownership such as Democrats and Black, Asian, and Hispanic Americans. Understanding the demographics and motivations of new gun owners is essential to addressing concerns of targeted violence and crafting more effective messaging and interventions to encourage safe, responsible gun ownership. The belief that one’s only recourse for safety is to buy deadly weapons may lead to surges in firearm purchasing that further stoke, rather than resolve, the fear that motivated gun purchasing in the first place. Addressing concerns of racial or political violence, and the inequities in power and safety in American society that drive it, is a long-term challenge that public health must face.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available as analyses are ongoing, but the datasets will be made available to qualified researchers subject to the terms of a data use agreement.

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RV, JW, and CKC contributed to the study conception and design. RV conducted formal data analysis. RV, JW, CKC, and VJ contributed to the interpretation of data and drafting and revising of the manuscript. CKC contributed funding acquisition. RV, JW, CKC, and VJ reviewed and approved the final submission.

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Valek, R., Ward, J.A., Jones, V. et al. Political violence, racial violence, and new gun ownership: results from the 2023 National Survey of Gun Policy. Inj. Epidemiol. 11 , 48 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-024-00527-z

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Democracy at Gunpoint: American Gun Owners and Attitudes Towards Democracy

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In recent years, research on gun ownership has grown substantially but there has been less exploration of variation within gun owners. This study examines the differences in support for democracy between gun owners and non-gun owners, and in doing so makes an important contribution to the political science literature on group behavior and attitudes. We utilize OLS regression to analyze data from the 2020 American National Election Studies and 2016 General Social Survey public opinion surveys and find that there is a stark divide among gun owners on support for measures of democratic norms. Gun owners are more supportive than non-owners on some measures, but on others there was no relationship between owning a firearm and democratic attitudes. We suggest this is because partisanship—specifically support for Donald Trump—pulled gun owners’ attitudes in opposite directions. These results are consistent with previous work on cross-pressured voters and highlight the limits of group influence in a world where citizens have multiple identities. We conclude that gun owners don’t appear meaningfully different from non-owners on measures of democratic support.

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Introduction

While there is a worldwide decline in democracy and erosion of democratic norms, the US has historically exhibited some of the highest levels of support for democracy globally (Almond & Verba, 1963 ; Dahl, 1966 ; Inglehart & Welzel, 2010 ; Norris, 2011 ). There are also subgroups of Americans who may be more or less likely to support democracy. In the midst of a deadly global pandemic, peaceful but armed protests took place at the nation’s capitol and state houses across the country in the summer leading up to the 2020 presidential election, bringing about much discourse regarding support for democratic norms among Americans, as well as discussions about the role of guns in a democracy. Many pro-gun control organizations used this opportunity to discuss the threat firearms pose to American democracy. As a result of this discourse, popular rhetoric began to describe gun owning citizens as anti-democratic. This is a bold and unsubstantiated claim that requires an investigation into the democratic attitudes of gun owners. Owners are a distinctive political group of highly participatory citizens whose attitudes often dominate political discourse (Joslyn, 2020 ; Middlewood, 2021 ; Middlewood et al., 2019 ). Much of this political identity is attributed to gun culture (e.g. Lacombe et al., 2019 ; Mencken & Froese, 2019 ; Schwartz, 2021 ), which holds ownership as an essential pillar of democratic ideals. References to this democratic right consistently appear in firearms related gear like pro-gun t-shirts and bumper stickers, incorporating both patriotic elements and bits of the Constitution. These are simplistic, but convincing, reasons to delve deeper into this question—are gun owners less supportive of democratic norms than non-gun owners?

Considering gun culture’s emphasis on democracy and constitutional rights, we posit that gun owners as a group benefit from democracy and the protection of gun rights and therefore theoretically should be just as supportive of democratic norms as their non-gun owning peers; however there are instances where other identities may be more salient than gun ownership, thus creating attitudinal divisions within the group. We find gun owners are slightly more supportive of some measures of democratic norms than their non-gun owning counterparts, but do not appear to be substantially different in a meaningful way. On the measures where gun ownership has no statistical effect on democratic attitudes, it is because there is a stark division between gun owners who voted for Donald Trump and those who did not. We argue that on these democratic measures, partisan identity is more salient than gun ownership.

Our study is important for political science research on group behavior and attitudes and for researchers of gun owners broadly. We build upon the discipline’s existing literature on gun owners, which treats gun owners as a unique political group distinct in their behaviors and attitudes (see Joslyn, 2020 ). Footnote 1 Like many social groups, gun owners are not monolithic, they are influenced by a mix of drives and inclinations, including attitudes that may be divisive within the group itself. We find that there are noisy subgroups within gun owners that are responsible for the overriding impression of undemocratic values. The attitudes among gun owners that undermine democratic principles undeniably pose a real threat to American democracy, but should not be attributed to gun owners as a whole. By generalizing the attitudes which are portrayed by some subgroups within the larger whole, it can sometimes mask a more complicated truth. Gun owners are a prime example of this selection bias. Our study draws conclusions that not only contribute to research on gun owners, but also for the broader political science research regarding the behavior of political groups.

Importantly, this article approaches these questions from a foundation that America’s gun culture is rooted in widespread, lawful possession of firearms by a large segment of the population (see Yamane, 2017 ). Often, discussions of gun culture devolve into discussions of gun violence, and while gun violence is a serious problem in the US, a vast majority of lawful gun owners do not experience or perpetrate gun violence. Some would argue gun culture is better exemplified by the overarching position that “guns are normal and normal people use guns,” as coined by Yamane ( 2017 ).

Defining Democracy

Democracy is a system where “rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of the elected officials” (Schmitter & Karl 1991 , p. 76). It is in this public realm where “the making of collective norms that are binding on society [and] backed by state coercion” are formed (Schmitter & Karl 1991 , p. 77). Democratic norms and political culture emerge and ultimately make democracy possible . Without buy-in from the populace, democracy is little more than an idea. Thus, public support helps democracy survive (Easton, 1965 ; Lipset, 1959 ). We examine citizens’ values and attitudes towards the political system and towards the role of citizens in a democratic system, informed by what Almond and Verba ( 1963 ) call “political orientations—attitudes toward the political system and its various parts, and attitudes towards the role of self in the system” (13). Thus, support for democratic norms impacts the overall support of democracy and democratic institutions.

Democratic Political Culture

The importance of a democratic political culture in both old and new democracies is demonstrated in numerous studies (e.g. Booth & Richard, 2015 ; Dalton, 2004 ; Diamond, 1993 ; Inglehart, 1997 ; Norris, 2011 ; Rose, 1997 ; Seligson, 1994 ). In an ideal world, the majority of voters in a democracy would embrace a democratic political culture, recognizing that democratic principles extend beyond mere participation in elections. True integration into political processes, according to Azpuru ( 2023 ), is demonstrated by numerous factors: citizens' keen interest in actively engaging, exhibiting high levels of political efficacy, adhering to democratic norms in their behavior, and employing democratic means to express dissent and engage with elected representatives. While this type of participatory political culture is important for a democracy, we know gun owners participate in spades. Prior research shows that gun owners are strongly integrated into the political process; studies show that gun owners are more likely to vote than non-owners (e.g. Joslyn, 2020 ; Middlewood, 2021 ; Middlewood et al., 2019 ; Schwartz, 2021 ). Joslyn ( 2020 ) and Middlewood et al. ( 2019 ) suggest that gun owners are also more likely to pay attention to political news, engage in political discussions, and post about politics on social media. Additionally, Joslyn ( 2020 ), Middlewood ( 2021 ), and Middlewood et al. ( 2019 ) find that gun owners contact public officials, contribute money to political organizations, and sign political petitions more often than non-owners. All signs point to strong integration of gun owners in political processes.

However, as Azpuru ( 2023 ) notes, integration is not the only important dimension of democratic political culture. Integrated citizens must demonstrate allegiance to a democratic system by endorsing the principles, practices, institutions, and leaders of democracy, including the rejection of authoritarian principles (see Bratton & Mattes 2001 ; Mishler & Rose 2002 ). Put simply, upholding democracy as a comprehensive concept is a fundamental characteristic of individuals within a democratic political culture. These norms are instilled through political socialization, which involves ongoing interactions with other individuals or social groups throughout one's life (Azpuru, 2023 ). Prior studies show Americans largely support democracy and democratic norms (McClosky, 1964 ; Prothro & Grigg, 1960 ; Wike & Fetterolf, 2018 ) and elite opinion is generally unified in its support of democratic values (e.g. Chong et al., 1983 ). Thus, democratic values are built into the political culture of the United States at the individual, elite, and societal levels—much like gun culture. Scholars of political culture argue that the values, beliefs, and skills of the mass public have an important impact on democratic institutions and better predict the long-term stability of democracy than society’s level of democracy at any given point in time (Inglehart & Welzel, 2002 ). We suspect that the deep entrenchment of democratic norms in American gun culture influences gun owners’ attitudes towards democratic principles and practices, but that there may also be other motivating factors that may influence their democratic attitudes.

Notably, the meaning of democracy for individual citizens can be subject to motivated reasoning. Citizens who support a regime can claim to explicitly support democracy while simultaneously supporting undemocratic individuals and actions because those actions fit within citizens’ molded understanding of what democracy means (Bryan, 2023 ). For example, the issue of maintaining safety and security (see Adorno et al., 1950 ; Altemeyer, 1981 , 1996; Duckitt, 1989 ; Martin, 1964 ; Rokeach, 1960 ; Stenner, 2005 ), including aggressive responses to external threats (see Huddy et al., 2005 ; Perrin, 2005 ), has long been associated with authoritarian dispositions. To borrow phrasing from Stenner and Haidt ( 2018 ), “democracy does not breed democrats.” Citizens living in a liberal democracy like the United States are not necessarily supportive of democracy in all circumstances. Hyper partisanship and polarization can serve as a force for motivated reasoning and, as we will explore further in the following sections, influence citizens’ support for democracy.

Gun Culture & Democracy

Gun culture runs deep and is as old as the Republic. Its foundations began in the colonial, revolutionary, and early republican eras in the United States (Yamane, 2021 ). The United States is unique in being the “only modern industrial urban nation that persists in maintaining a gun culture” (Hofstadter, 1970 ). While contemporary gun ownership has taken on many symbolic meanings, historically, guns were tools necessary for hunting, self-defense, national defense, and symbols of citizenship (Yamane, 2021 ). As gun historian Clayton Cramer ( 2009 , p. 236) observed, firearms were “symbols of being a citizen with the duty to defend the society.” This earliest iteration of gun culture Footnote 2 espouses the potential need for citizens to take up arms and defend democratic freedoms, hence its enshrinement in the Second Amendment.

While American gun culture has evolved significantly, the contemporary version incorporates all of the earlier iterations of gun cultures in our history—Yamane ( 2019 ) asserts that the United States has gun cultures (plural) rather than culture (singular). Thus, the core of Gun Culture 0.0 still resonates with firearms enthusiasts today. Guns remain a symbol of democracy and freedom for many owners. Many gun rights supporters argue that an armed citizenry is “a final, emergency bulwark against tyranny” (French, 2018 ) and that gun ownership is an essential component of democratic citizenship (Burbick, 2006 ). Ownership allows individuals to consciously commit to what they perceive as the “American way,” which includes strong patriotism and citizenship that values civic engagement (Kohn, 2004 ). For many owners, guns are a tangible expression of patriotic citizenship. Gun culture and American political culture’s foundational values of freedom, self-determination, and civic responsibility overlap (Joslyn, 2020 ). Kristin Goss perfectly sums up this reality in her 2013 Newsweek op-ed “Why We Need to Talk About Guns Goss ( 2013 ):”

Gun politics is not simply about differences on policy proposals. Gun politics is about what it means to be a good American. It’s personal. Even gun owners who don’t belong to the NRA believe, as my dad did, that gun ownership is a civic virtue, a hallmark of American self-reliance and duty… for gun owners, ownership is evidence of their civic spirit.

Ideals of citizenship and civic duty are ingrained in the very foundation of American gun ownership, fundamental to gun owners’ perceived role in society, and upheld through their political behavior. Owners often perceive themselves as model citizens by carrying a firearm and fulfill these claims by consistently engaging in the political process, suggesting that they should care about the health of democracy—or are at least strongly motivated to uphold democratic practices that allow them to pursue their own political interests.

This is not to say all gun owners have the same attitudes on every issue. There is a mix of drives and inclinations within any political group. Meaningful variance has been found across social contexts, even within the same identity group (see Djupe & Lewis, 2015 ). We expect gun owners to elucidate this heterogeneity just as well as other political groups. Individuals hold a wide range of distinct and potentially overlapping identities and these are important drivers of political attitudes and actions. Individuals can identify with multiple groups and thus may be mobilized toward different political ends (Margolis, 2018 ). Lacombe et al. ( 2019 ) find gun ownership to be a social and political identity that influences behavior, though other studies show gun ownership is not the only salient identity that can shape citizens’ political attitudes. Gun owners are multifaceted and there is significant variance among gun owners based on gender (Middlewood, 2019 ; Middlewood et al., 2019 ), partisanship (Yamane et al., 2021 ), race (Bowen et al., 2023 ), age (Vegter & Middlewood, 2023 ), and geographic region (Ellison, 1991 ; Middlewood, 2021 ). We suspect gun ownership shapes citizens’ attitudes on democracy, but that it is not the only salient identity in owners’ opinion formation.

Identity Effects

Many scholars of gun politics tend to view gun owners as a homogenous group shaped by the values foundational to gun culture, but this could not be further from reality. Approximately 75 million heterogeneous Americans own firearms. In fact, gun ownership is becoming increasingly diverse with distinct subgroups—for example, gun ownership includes a growing population of liberal gun owners (Yamane et al., 2021 ), women gun owners (Kelley, 2022 ; Middlewood, 2019 ; Middlewood et al., 2019 ); Black women gun owners (Bowen et al., 2023 ); young gun owners (Vegter & Middlewood, 2023 ); and rural gun owners (Middlewood, 2021 ). Thus, gun ownership, like other large political groups, is full of competing identities and political divisions that can pull gun owners in various attitudinal directions.

Different types of gun owners may be prone to varying levels of support for democratic norms. One might consider how the Foa et al. ( 2020 ) finds that young people in the United States are increasingly dissatisfied with democracy, while Vegter and Middlewood ( 2023 ) note that gun ownership matters more as an identity to young gun owners in the United States. Therefore, this distinct subgroup—while small compared to gun owners as a whole—may reject some of the democratic ideals embedded in mainstream gun culture in effort to elevate their ownership in their personal hierarchies of values. Additionally, women gun owners experience their gender differently than their non-owning counterparts and participate in politics at higher rates (Middlewood et al., 2019 ). Given their increased participation, they may experience increased political efficacy and greater support for the system within which they participate. Though first researchers must establish the nuanced attitudes among gun owners as a whole in considering their support for democracy, further analysis of these subgroups may lead to interesting insights—especially on how these different gun cultures may lead to varying levels of support for democracy among gun owners in the United States.

Partisan Effects

It is unrealistic to expect gun owners to form political opinions in a social vacuum (see Mutz, 2013 ). Public opinion on government policy has long been group-centric and is strongly influenced by the attitudes citizens possess toward groups that are perceived to benefit from certain policies (Nelson & Kinder, 1996 ). Additionally, every public issue is contested and partisan elites attempt to impose their own meaning on the issue at hand (see Gamson, 1992 ; Gamson & Lasch, 1983 ; Gamson & Modigliani, 1987 , 1989 ).

As with all political attitudes, the saliency of pro-democracy attitudes cultivated by gun culture could potentially be affected by external influences like partisanship and elite framing. As Joslyn ( 2020 ) notes, pro-gun groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) astutely exploit the belief that gun ownership is an important element of democratic citizenship. While only 4.3 million of the 75 million gun-owning Americans belong to the NRA and its influence in the gun-owning community has been rapidly declining over the past decade (Mak, 2021 ), the organization still has a large influence on gun politics. The NRA’s advocacy frequently activates the public’s distrust of government and celebrates the Second Amendment as the one thing standing against a tyrannical government. In fact, the NRA refers to the right to bear arms as “America’s first freedom,” because it protects all other civil liberties found in the Bill of Rights (Cook & Goss, 2014 , p. 158). This protection against a tyrannical government and the “first freedom” description are prime examples of how, when framed in a particular way, some gun owners may lean into anti-government sentiments if and when it is politically beneficial to do so. The NRA’s tactics to politically mobilize gun owners, while seemingly democratic on the surface, are harmful and weaken democracy because the organization relies on fear-based mobilization (Lacombe, 2021b ). Often, the frames used by elites permeate public discussions of politics, teach supporters how to think about and understand complex political problems, and influence public opinion (Nelson & Kinder, 1996 ). Thus, NRA tactics make compromise less achievable, contribute to polarization and the delegitimization of political opponents, encourage politicians to violate long-standing norms, and ultimately reduce democratic accountability and responsiveness (Lacombe, 2021b ). This approach has increased affective polarization among some gun owners, portraying gun enthusiasts as patriotic defenders of American heritage and its enemies (usually gun-control supporters) as villains. Lacombe ( 2021b ) argues that the NRA’s use of fear-motivated group identity has been magnified by the group’s rising prominence within the Republican Party, especially during Donald Trump’s presidency, expanding from its members to broader swaths of the gun-owning and conservative electorates. For example, the NRA frequently vilifies not only gun-control supporters, but also the Democratic Party and the media (Lacombe, 2021b ). This raises important questions about partisan effects on gun owners’ commitment to democracy.

There is contradicting literature on the relationship between partisanship and citizens’ commitment to democratic norms. Numerous studies show that for many Americans, partisanship can take precedence over a commitment to democratic values (e.g. Albertus & Grossman, 2021 ; Berliner, 2022 ; Carey et al., 2020 ; Graham & Svolik, 2020 ) and some aspects of supporting democracy, notably those that deal with the power and rules of government, are subject to change based on the appeal of partisan gain (Bryan, 2023 ). On the other hand, Holliday et al. ( 2024 ) find that while partisan elites have increasingly eroded democracy, citizens of both parties remain staunchly opposed to violations of democratic norms, even when their own representatives engage in anti-democratic actions, including election denialism. Their analysis found that commitment to democratic norms is not a matter of partisanship, but, importantly, Americans may broadly support the tenets of democracy but they are simultaneously willing to support elected officials who do not.

The relationship between gun ownership and partisanship is complicated. For some gun owners, party ID and gun ownership may be reinforcing identities, but still others face a difficult trade off on which identity is the most salient in a given context. Gun ownership predicts support for Republican candidates in presidential (Joslyn et al., 2017 ), gubernatorial (Gimpel, 1998 ), and congressional (Joslyn, 2020 ) elections. However, gun ownership is distinct from partisanship on a number of behavioral and attitudinal measures (Joslyn, 2020 ). From 2004 to 2016, for example, Joslyn ( 2020 ) found gun owners expressed surprising variation in their feelings towards presidential candidates. In 2016, 61% of gun owners may have cast their ballot for Donald Trump, but he was also the only Republican presidential candidate in two decades to be rated unfavorably by a majority of gun owners in ANES survey data. On a feeling thermometer from 0 to 100, over 20% of gun owners rated him at a 0 (very unfavorable), 4% at a 50 (neither favorable or unfavorable), and only 6% at 100 (very favorable). For comparison, in 2008, 10% of gun owners rated Barack Obama at a very favorable 100.

Citizens’ support for democracy may also be specifically molded by politically salient issues (Bryan, 2023 )—like gun ownership, partisanship, or a particular presidential candidate. Arguments that highlight salient identities may activate group sentiments that then become the dominant lens in which individuals evaluate issues and form attitudes (Nelson & Kinder, 1996 ). This can easily crowd out other identity-based considerations or potentially strongly reinforce one identity-based issue when a second identity is in alignment.

When social and partisan identities are made salient in a political environment, complicating how individuals form opinions (see McCabe, 2022 ), citizens have to confront multiple, often competing, frames for interpreting political issues and events. Klar ( 2013 ) finds that when one identity is salient, it has undue influence over preferences, even in the presence of a competing identity. In competitive information environments, citizens tend to align their positions with the stronger identity (Chong & Druckman, 2007 ). Thus, they are forced to make a trade off in deciding which identity or group alliance is more important in a given context. For example, gun ownership may be crowded out by partisan identity when measuring support for democracy, if partisanship is the individual’s more salient identity. Alternatively, gun ownership and partisanship may be reinforcing identities in some contexts. In practice, this means that gun owners—like members of all identity groups—may take an à la carte approach to democracy, picking and choosing which elements of democracy to support based on the particular identity that is salient at the moment. The goal of this study is not to determine the causal mechanism of gun owners’ support for democracy. Instead, we analyze support for democratic norms by a powerful political group while acknowledging the complexity of the individual calculi of gun owners in particular.

Data and Methods

To test the relationship between gun ownership and democratic support using OLS regression analysis, we utilize the 2020 wave of the American National Election Studies (ANES; N = 5441) and the 2016 wave of the General Social Survey (GSS; N = 5901) public opinion surveys. Both surveys were conducted before the years’ respective presidential elections from nationally representative samples of American adults.

Measuring Democracy

Our dependent variables test support for diverse measures of democracy. The literature surrounding support for democracy is broad and robust; measuring democratic attitudes has been shown to predict prospects for democracy (Claassen, 2020a ; Inglehart & Welzel, 2005 ; Qi & Shin, 2011 ), as well as impact individual voting behavior (Booth & Seligson, 2009 ; Gunther et al., 2007 ) and other forms of political participation (Bakule, 2021 ). In this study, we will measure diffuse support for democracy (see Easton, 1975 ), which focuses on citizen support for the political community and democratic regime. By focusing on diffuse support, we attempt to highlight support for principles of democratic governance while avoiding measuring specific support for or satisfaction with the government of the day, its leaders, and its policies. As Linde and Ekman ( 2003 ) find, questions that pertain to satisfaction with democracy Footnote 3 do not accurately capture support for the basic political arrangements of democracy, we therefore utilize measures of two key elements of democracy (and democratic survival) outlined by Mainwaring ( 2022 ): first, normative preference and commitment to democracy by political actors, which can help sustain democracy even in difficult circumstances. Second, the existence of institutions that serve as constraints on executive power—for example, checks and balances between the legislative branch and executive branch is fundamental in presidential systems. Both normative preferences and institutions are essential to understanding democratic support (Mainwaring, 2022 ; Norris, 1999 ). Our primary focus is on the support of democratic norms and their application in a democracy. Numerous studies conceptualize democratic norms and support for democracy in this way (e.g. Anderson et al., 2021 ; Welzel, 2007 ). While the measures in this study are bound to publicly available data and thus pose some limitations, utilizing a battery of questions allows us to account for multiple elements in respondents’ support for democracy without them needing to make tradeoffs (see Norris, 2011 ; Welzel, 2011 ). In choosing our measures, we use two of Norris’ ( 1999 ) three dimensions of democracy Footnote 4 : support for the principles of democratic regimes and support for the institutions of representative democracy. These operationalizations are typical of studies that assess democratic support using survey questions (see Claassen, 2020a ) and with the literature on perceptions on democracy by the populace (see Anderson et al., 2021 ; Welzel, 2007 ). Though, we acknowledge that there are some limitations to our conclusions based on the measures we chose. Namely, we measure support for democracy in the abstract while it is entirely possible that individuals may support these abstract sentiments while holding conflicting views about threats to democracy in practice, especially in a country with growing affective polarization (see Bryan, 2023 ; Schedler & Sarsfield, 2007 ). Our focus on threats to democracy relies on respondents connecting concrete threats to examples of these threats, but we acknowledge that these connections may not always be at the forefront of a respondent’s mind when answering these questions. Even so, we believe our findings accurately capture perceptions of democratic norms broadly. These limitations and our findings reinforce the need for continued research on political groups and their overall perceptions of democratic norms.

The first set of ANES variables concern support for democratic norms. We use survey questions to assess support for checks and balances, consequences for elected officials that engage in misconduct, agreement on verifiable facts, the harmfulness of a strong presidency that isn’t constrained by Congress and the courts, and the appropriateness of a president investigating political rivals. Footnote 5 All dependent variables are coded so that higher values indicate higher levels of support for democratic norms. We consider all five questions to be distinct and therefore consider them separately.

We also analyze two dependent variables from the 2016 GSS survey that measure support for democratic norms in the form of civil liberties—organizing public meetings and organizing public demonstrations against the government. Footnote 6 While we find the inclusion of GSS useful, it does have some limitations compared to ANES. Most prominently, it is a much smaller sample and also does not contain a measure of who respondents voted for in the 2016 presidential election. As such, the GSS data is excluded entirely from the second half of this analysis.

The second set of ANES dependent variables pertains to a free press, which is an essential institution in democracies. We measure support for restricting journalists’ access to information about government decision-making, concern for undermining the news media’s ability to serve as a check on government power and a general trust in the media variable. This last variable does not measure a free press, but does provide important insights into the results of the first two measures. As with our previous dependent variables, higher values indicate higher support for a free press and we consider both questions to be distinct and therefore consider them separately.

Independent Variables and Controls

Our main independent variable captures gun ownership as a dummy variable, comparing gun owners with non-owners. Gun owners make up 40.65% of the ANES sample. As noted, gun owners are a diverse group and these datasets account for this variance. In the ANES data, 46% of gun owners identified as women, over a third as Democrats, and 43% did not vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. In GSS, gun owners make up 22% of the sample; the partisan breakdown was about the same, with 35% of gun owners identifying as Democrats. However, the GSS sample had significantly less gender diversity; only 30% of gun owners in the sample were women.

There are a myriad of factors that may influence attitudes toward democratic norms and therefore, we control for: age, race, gender, education level, partisanship, evangelical identification, partisan strength, community type, and geographic region. All control variables were measured the same, regardless of whether they were from ANES or GSS, and are detailed in the Appendix.

Our theory hinges on the relationship between gun ownership and support for democratic norms and institutions. We hypothesize that gun owners will be more supportive of democratic norms than their non-owning counterparts. To test this, we first look at support for democratic norms. Table 1 shows that gun owners are more likely to support checks and balances than non-gun owners, believe that elected officials are deserving of consequences for misconduct, and believe it is important for Americans to agree on basic facts even when they disagree politically. These relationships have weak coefficients, but are statistically significant.

There was no significant relationship between gun ownership and the belief that it would be helpful if the president was not restricted by Congress and the courts or the assessment of appropriateness for a president to investigate a political rival. Unlike the other democratic measures, we suspect that these particular scenarios trigger partisan saliency. Both of these variables are strongly connected to specific actions of former-president Donald Trump. Throughout his presidency, Trump routinely made large-scale unilateral decisions that further eroded the US system of checks and balances (Goldgeier & Saunders, 2018 ) and positioned himself as an authoritarian leader (Kellner, 2018 ). Footnote 7 Furthermore, attitudes toward the appropriateness of investigating political rivals could be interpreted as a preference for Trump’s actions when he called upon Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Trump’s political rival Joe Biden. While gun owners are quickly becoming more diverse in their political views, they have historically been more likely to support Donald Trump (Joslyn, 2020 ), Republicans in general (Gimpel, 1998 ; Joslyn, 2020 ; Joslyn et al., 2017 ), and to be responsive to presidential partisanship (Ratcliff, 2022 ). Thus, gun owners may be divided on these measures, pulled in opposite directions based on support for the former president and his actions. Trump-supporting gun owners may be unwilling to condemn anti-democratic actions given their particular affinity for the former president, while those who didn’t support Trump may find these actions unacceptable. We explore this further in the second part of this analysis.

Older Americans, whites, men, the college educated, Democrats, liberals, strong partisans, urban and suburban dwellers, and non-Southerners are also more supportive of these democratic measures, as shown in Table  1 . The compelling findings from Table  1 are that gun owners don’t appear to be all that meaningfully different from non-owners in their support for democratic norms. While some measures do show statistical significance, the coefficients are fairly weak.

Table 2 displays the GSS models analyzing gun owners’ support for civil liberties via protest rights. In both models, gun ownership predicts support for democratic protests against the government. These relationships, though consistent with the pro-democracy elements of gun culture, have fairly small coefficients suggesting gun ownership has a weak effect. Thus, gun owners once again do not appear all that meaningfully different from non-owners.

Furthermore, unlike the models in Table  1 , younger people are significantly more favorable of meetings and demonstrations that protest the government. This is perhaps because young people are significantly more likely to protest than take part in other political activities (e.g. Campbell, 2013 ; Moeller et al., 2014 ).

When it comes to the media, gun owners are far less consistent in their support of a free press. As displayed in Table  3 , there is no significant relationship between gun ownership and the belief that media should be free to criticize the government without restriction nor the belief that media should not be undermined in its service as a check on government power. Gun owners do, however, display lower levels of trust in the media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly compared to non-owners, though there is once again a small coefficient. This significance may be a result of a perceived anti-gun bias in reporting and editorializing from many mainstream media outlets. Democrats, liberals, whites, the highly educated, and urban and suburban residents consistently support a free press, while older Americans, men, and strong partisans show various levels of support for media freedoms.

The media’s importance in a democracy is undeniable; providing citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2021 ; Strömbäck, 2005 ). However, as these results demonstrate, opinions of and trust in the media has become extremely polarized in recent years, indicating that not all Americans continue to see the media—or at least the media in its current form—as a key democratic institution. We suspect these measures, similar to the two in Table  1 , pull gun owners in opposite directions because of the partisan divides made salient by former-president Trump’s vocal and ongoing criticism of the news media (see Meeks, 2020 ). For example, during his speech at the NRA’s annual meeting in 2019, Trump drew loud applause when he attacked the media as “fake” and Lacombe ( 2021b ) finds that NRA members are significantly more likely to say that the media prevents political leaders from doing their job.

A free press is of little democratic use if citizens do not trust the news, which the third model in Table  3 suggests gun owners do not, though once again with a small coefficient. Modern media criticism is often spurred by political ideologies (Gunther, 1988 ) and certain worldviews (Fawzi, 2019 ) and it's undeniable that public trust in the media has rapidly declined over the past four decades. Gallup reports that in the period between 1972 and 2016, public trust in the media declined from 72% at its height, to just 32%. Lewis ( 2020 ) suggests that broad distrust of journalism today is due to the institutional weakness of the press, which was arguably weakened further during the Trump administration. Some research suggests lack of trust in news media is correlated to less use of mainstream media and greater use of non-traditional information sources (see Kalogeropoulos et al., 2019 ; Mourão et al., 2018 ). We believe this explanation makes the most sense in the context of gun owners. Further research along this avenue is warranted, but is beyond the scope of this article.

As evidenced in Tables 1 and 3 , there are a variety of democratic measures for which gun ownership broadly does not predict support. These survey questions measure different democratic norms upon which gun owners seem to hold contradictory views. We suspect this is because, for some gun owners, these survey questions make partisan Footnote 8 identity salient. Citizens often become more supportive of anti-democratic actions when their preferred political side can benefit. Individual interpretations of democracy can mold to fit one’s partisan self-interest. For example, citizens may emphasize the need for a strong president, and obey such authority, when their preferred party is in power. This results in an à la carte approach to democracy where gun owners may piecemeal an understanding of democracy that fits their partisan self-interest.

We believe partisanship was likely made salient because these survey questions pertain to aspects of democratic norms that had been regularly politicized and attacked by Donald Trump throughout his presidency. Thus, results reflect a partisan division beyond standard party identification, ideology, and partisan strength, which are all controlled for in the models. The NRA also became deeply intertwined with the GOP and conservative politics during the Trump presidency, including in the vilification of political rivals. For example, at the 2018 meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Wayne LaPierre, the former long-time CEO and vice president of the NRA, stated that the Democratic Party is “now infested with saboteurs who don’t believe in capitalism, don’t believe in the Constitution, don’t believe in our freedom, and don’t believe in America as we know it.” (Goodwin 2018 )

To test the impact of partisanship on gun owners’ support for democratic norms, we broke down the subset of gun owners further and compared gun owners who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 to gun owners who did not—i.e. those who voted for Joe Biden or a third party or independent candidate. 57% of gun owners in the ANES sample voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, while 43% did not. Of the gun owners who did vote for Trump, around 75% are over forty years old, nearly 90% are white, 55% identify as men, 40% have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 90% identify as a Republican. Though, it is notable that 10% of Republican gun owners did not vote for Trump, which is higher than the typical partisan defection. Concerning gun owners who did not vote for Trump, 30% are under forty, 73% are white, 40% identify as male, 54% have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and only around 14% are Republican—a much more diverse group.

Table 4 displays the results of the analysis assessing democratic norm support among Trump-voting gun owners. On these measures, where gun owners did not differ from non-owners in previous models, Trump-voting gun owners were significantly less likely to express support for democratic norms than gun owners who voted for an alternative candidate. The models in Table  4 show Trump-voting gun owners are less concerned about institutional checks on presidential power and think it’s appropriate for a president to ask foreign leaders to investigate political rivals. In measures of a free press, gun owners were only united in their shared distrust of media, but when we look at subgroups, Trump-voting gun owners are far less supportive of a free press than their non-Trump-voting counterparts. The models in Tables 4 and 5 all have fairly large coefficients, suggesting strong relationships between Trump-voting gun owners and anti-democratic sentiments. These results provide some necessary nuance to the results in Tables 1 and 3 . Gun owners as a group are not united in their support for all measures of democratic norms. They, like members of other political groups, face cross pressures that can be mobilized to different political ends.

Furthermore, we ran additional models with interaction variables to test the relationships, shown in Tables 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 and 9 . We first tested the effect of the interaction between Republican attachment and gun ownership Footnote 9 on support for democratic norms and found no significant relationship. The results show that being a gun-owning Republican has no significant effect on an individual’s support for any of the democratic norm measures used in this study. The single model that does show a significant effect of this interaction is trust in the media. Unsurprisingly based on the literature and previous models, gun-owning Republicans are significantly less likely to trust the media (p > 0.035, b = − 0.126). To continue testing the relationship between partisanship and gun ownership, we ran additional models to determine if the interaction between Trump-voting and gun ownership yielded similar results. Footnote 10 There was no significant effect across all measures save one. On the appropriateness of investigating political rivals, Trump-voting gun ownership approaches significance (p > 0.083) but has a small negative coefficient (b = − 0.072). In this model, gun ownership alone is not significant, while Trump vote is and has a fairly large negative coefficient (p > 0.000; b = − 0.449). In every model, Trump vote on its own is significant with fairly large negative coefficients.

We ran additional robustness checks to investigate collinearity in these models and included them in the Appendix. By including partisanship, ideology, and partisan strength as controls in the Trump-Gun Owner models, collinearity was possible. In these robustness checks we re-ran all of the Trump-Gun Owner models three times: using only party ID as a control, only ideology as a control, and both ideology and partisan strength as a control. No significant differences were found in the results.

These findings suggest that gun-owning Trump voters are not unique compared to the rest of the population on any democratic measures. While support for Donald Trump leads gun owners towards less democratic sentiments than other gun owners, that un-democraticness seems to be largely drowned out when compared to the population as a whole. This is a positive discovery for American democracy, suggesting that while a subset of gun owners may be inclined to support democratic backsliding, they are a fairly small part of the greater population.

However, it also of concern that when the issue of gun rights is made salient by the Republican Party and/or its candidates—a group which has engaged in practices of questionable democratic nature in recent years Footnote 11 —it could potentially activate owners’ undemocratic sentiments in response. We cannot test this directly, but using an additional ANES variable on ease of access to firearms, we find that there does not seem to be a connection between support for gun rights among the gun owning sample and anti-democratic sentiments. Tables 10 and 11 examine the democratic sentiments of gun owners that favor gun rights (i.e. those that want to make it easier to access firearms) and we find that there is no significant relationship. Gun owners who support stronger gun rights are not more or less democratic than the rest of the population, suggesting that strong support for gun rights—like that found in the NRA and Republican Party—does not necessarily lead gun owners to support undemocratic actions. In fact, gun owners (independent from the interaction with gun rights) remain more likely to support more than half of our democracy measures. On investigating rivals and both measures of a free press, gun owners are not significant, so they do not differ from the non-owning population. Whereas, on five of the seven measures, supporters of stronger gun rights (regardless of ownership) are less likely to support the democratic norm. It seems, then, that gun rights and gun ownership are not mutually exclusive in their effect on support for democratic norms. We cannot make causal statements from these findings, but they do pose questions about gun owners’ potential for undemocratic sentiments if they may perceive gun rights as being under threat. Further research along this avenue is warranted.

Discussion & Conclusion

We believe these findings will surprise many. Our analysis contributes to the growing research on gun owners by showing that this group is not monolithic. Owners face a mix of drives and inclinations, like any other political group. Some gun owners may be more authoritarian—and perhaps even more forceful, and less civil—while others may go about their advocacy in ways that are fully consistent with standard democratic norms. While gun owners as a subgroup of citizens may be important to the durability of American democracy in some aspects, they are also a diverse group whose support for democracy may at times be undermined by other political factors. As Goodman ( 2022 ) highlights, recognizing and responding to democratic threats can be confusing and potentially conflicting for individuals who want to be both good partisans and good citizens. It seems as if some gun owners experienced this internal conflict in 2020, and political preference rather than democratic citizenship was more salient for some owners.

Our findings support Lacombe’s ( 2021a , 2021b ) argument that these negative impacts on democracy are magnified by the NRA’s increased influence in the Republican Party during the Trump presidency. Akin to this finding, recent research by Wintemute et al. ( 2024 ) found “MAGA Republicans” are more likely to endorse political violence. Considering Wintemute et al.’s ( 2024 ) results and discourse around gun owners and the January 6th insurrection, we believe measuring gun owners’ attitudes on measures of political violence would be a fruitful avenue for future research. We do not include these measures in this article because conceptions of democracy do not typically include measures of political violence (see Coppedge et al., 2011 ), most academic studies on support for democracy do not include political violence measures (e.g. Anderson et al., 2021 ; Bloom & Arikan, 2012 ; Claassen, 2020a , 2020b ; Graham & Svolik, 2020 ; Magalhães, 2007 ; Svolik, 2019 ; Welzel, 2007 ). When studies have included measures of violence, it is typically violent crime, not political violence (e.g. Claassen & Magalhães, 2022 ).

The findings in this article make an important contribution to the political science literature on group behavior and attitudes. We find that neither popular narrative—that gun owners are a pillar of American democracy nor that gun owners are inherently anti-democratic—is supported. In most instances, gun owners and non-owners are not meaningfully different from each other in their democratic support. Gun owners, like other political identity groups, are not homogenous and with that diversity comes variance in attitudes towards important democratic norms. These results are consistent with previous work and highlight the limits of group influence in a world where citizens have multiple identities. As our results suggest, partisan cues that threaten a particular identity may be strong enough to change opinions. It is also possible these cues may encourage group members to act on such opinions. Future research should dig deeper into these nuances.

As gun owners become increasingly diverse, future studies like ours will allow scholars to better understand gun owners’ varying preferences for how our democratic system should operate. Especially considering the ways in which citizens understand democracy can impact their political participation (see Canache, 2012 ; Oser & Hooghe, 2018 ). Those with high support for democracy are more likely to be active in politics, which in this case could mean that pro-democracy gun owners are those that are the most participatory of an already highly participatory group. However, as more diverse citizens purchase firearms, it could also impact the group’s levels of political participation. Individuals who have conflicting pressures—coming from competing identities such as partisanship, religion, class, and social status—vote at lower rates, delay making decisions about which candidates to support, and are generally less politically involved (Berelson et al., 1954 ; Campbell et al., 1960 ), and are less knowledgeable (Hutchings, 2001 ) relative to those without such cross pressures.

Advanced democracies generally do not experience rapid democratic backsliding, instead they undergo a gradual erosion of democracy through small, layered changes that add up over time (Goodman, 2022 ). Our findings highlight the variance within political groups that can have important implications for this reality. Multifaceted groups can contain subgroups that support democracy and those that are more inclined toward authoritarianism. Gun owners are a prime example of the tensions that can exist within political groups. Researchers should remain cognisant of these assorted attitudes within broader groups as they can contribute to the spread of anti-democratic sentiments and may expedite this gradual erosion. Though simultaneously, gun owners’ slight inclination towards pro-democracy attitudes and high levels of political participation may have the potential to help brace American liberal democracy through the current period of erosion—lending credence to the popular idea that “guns are a ‘small d’ democratic weapon”. Footnote 12

This article further supports the need for researchers to take a normality approach to studying gun owners. Gun owners are extraordinarily ordinary within the sphere of political groups. Gun owners, like other political identity groups, are diverse in their values, ambitions, and advocacy practices, and are remarkably similar to non-owners in their democratic attitudes.

Data Replication

Data for replication purposes are stored on Harvard’s Dataverse. ANES: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/DDOIOW . GSS: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/L3B79K .

We purposefully avoid labeling gun owners as an issue public or issue advocacy group as not all gun owners strongly identify as such socially and politically, and therefore do not meet Converse ( 1964 ) and Ryan and Ehlinger’s ( 2023 ) criteria for such labels. A pro-gun issue public or advocacy group would consist of gun owners who strongly favor gun rights and care deeply about the issue, which is not the case for all gun owners.

Sometimes known as Gun Culture 0.0.

For example, the 2020 ANES survey asks the question “On the whole, are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very satisfied, or not at all satisfied with the way democracy works in the United States?” but we do not include this question in our analysis.

We do not utilize Norris’ ( 1999 ) second dimension, assessing the performance of the regime in practice because questions that directly ask about satisfaction with democracy are closely associated with presidential approval ratings (see Azpuru 2024 ).

See Appendix for all survey question wording and variable coding.

We include analysis of the GSS data for three primary reasons: First, the ANES survey does not ask questions about protest, which is an important civil liberty in democratic regimes. Second, GSS provides separate measures of personal gun ownership and home gun ownership, while ANES only provides home gun ownership. Third, including the GSS data allows us to validate our ANES findings with those from another dataset in the same general time period—though, admittedly, the state of democracy in the United States was slightly better in 2016 than it was in 2020; FreedomHouse gave the United States a score of 86 out of 100 in 2020, 90 in 2016, and 83 in 2024.

The phenomenon of elected leaders claiming to support democracy while simultaneously attacking the very democratic institutions that brought them to power is not unique to the United States and it has broadly characterized the global “third wave of autocratization” (Lührmann and Lindberg 2019 ).

While we use the term “partisan” here, we specifically mean support for Donald Trump and acknowledge that there were Republicans who did not vote for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

Comparing gun-owning Republicans to all non-owners and gun owners who are not Republican.

The 2016 GSS data does not include a presidential vote variable and therefore we do not test this interaction for the organizing meetings and demonstrations variables.

In 2018 (the most recent year available), the V-Dem Institute labeled the Republican Party as high on the anti-pluralism index, giving the party a score of 0.719 on the scale from 0-1, with 1 being the highest possible score.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Brian Hanson (Wayne State College) for the insightful feedback on an earlier project that sparked the idea for this article. We also thank Mark Joslyn (University of Kansas) and Dinorah Azpuru (Wichita State University) for providing advice and guidance throughout the writing and publishing process.

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Middlewood, A.T., Finnell, R.E. & Vegter, A. Democracy at Gunpoint: American Gun Owners and Attitudes Towards Democracy. Polit Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-024-09973-3

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Assault weapons:  As defined by federal legislation, this term refers to semiautomatic weapons (guns that fire a round of bullets with each pull of the trigger). As defined by gun rights advocates, only fully automatic weapons (guns that continue to shoot until the trigger is released) should be considered assault weapons.

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Here’s what harris and trump could do about guns as commander in chief.

The Trace breaks down the candidates’ records on guns and the policies they might pursue if elected to the White House in November.

Go beyond the headlines.

Your weekly briefing on gun violence..

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Last week’s mass  shooting  at Apalachee High School in Georgia briefly brought gun violence back to the forefront of the presidential  race , but the issue didn’t get much oxygen during the debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night. The debate did surface a fact that hasn’t gotten much attention: Tim Walz isn’t the only gun owner on the Democratic ticket. 

After Trump said that Harris “has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun” — twice — Harris felt it necessary to correct the record. “Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” she said . “We aren’t taking anyone’s guns away so stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.” 

It’s true: Harris disclosed during her first run for president in 2019 that “I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do – for personal safety. I was a career prosecutor.” A campaign aide later clarified that the gun in question is a handgun.

There are no photos circulating of Harris shooting an AR or going hunting like of other political candidates ( from both parties ). But, like Harris, many gun owners support universal background checks.

Harris has backed gun safety regulations throughout her political career and has taken a prominent role in the Biden administration’s gun policy work. By contrast, Trump — who is also a gun owner — has positioned himself as a staunch defender of the Second Amendment and aligned with the interests of gun lobbying groups like the National Rifle Association. If reelected, Trump is expected to resist new restrictions on guns, observers say. 

Still, some Second Amendment experts say that potential success of either of the two candidates in passing gun legislation will depend on Congress, and whether lawmakers can overcome a potential filibuster. The Trace’s Alma Beauvais breaks down the candidates’ records on guns and the policies they might pursue if elected in November. 

From The Trace

• What Harris and Trump Might Do About Guns If Elected : Heading into the presidential candidates’ first debate, we take a look at their records on guns and the policies they might pursue as commander in chief.
• Inside David Hogg’s $8M Bid to Elect Young Progressives : The Parkland school shooting survivor’s PAC has spent millions in state elections nationwide and is already claiming wins at the ballot box.
• Kamala Harris’s Record on Guns (July 2024) : Groups on both sides of the gun debate have weighed in on Harris’s presidential bid. The reactions reflect her work on gun issues over 20-plus years in politics.

What to Know Today

The mother of the gunman at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, called the school and warned a counselor about an “extreme emergency” on the morning of the mass shooting, which left four people dead and nine injured. The shooter is charged with four counts of felony murder, while his father is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children. [ ABC News / The Washington Post ]

Mental health professionals stress the importance of quickly responding to the needs of survivors following a school shooting because they may immediately show signs of distress. If they don’t, survivors are at risk of developing long-term issues including anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep disturbances, intrusive flashbacks of the event, and a lack of trust in and fear of the world around them. [ CNN ] 

Since the beginning of last year, Philadelphia taxpayers have paid nearly $60 million in federal lawsuits over police misconduct — the fastest spending pace on such cases in recent memory, according to an analysis by The Inquirer. The payouts range from a few thousand dollars for accusations of false arrests or excessive force to several million for wrongful convictions, often filed by those who were released from prison and accused detectives of flawed or corrupt investigations. [ The Philadelphia Inquirer ] 

Police raided a Detroit house and uncovered an illegal 3D-printed gun operation, where firearms were allegedly being made to be sold. The joint effort by the Detroit Police Department and Homeland Security also led to the arrest of a 14-year-old facing felony weapons charges after authorities intercepted a package containing a Glock switch from China. [ CBS News ]

Illinois Democratic lawmakers and firearm safety advocates are pushing for stronger gun storage legislation. The proposed law would require gun owners to securely lock weapons in homes where anyone aged 18 or younger is present. Current state law requires storage in homes with children 13 or younger. [ Chicago Sun-Times ]

Online threats against several schools in four southern New Jersey districts led to school closures and canceled classes for almost 6,000 students on September 9. Police said two youths from Woodbury and one from Glassboro were arrested. [ North Jersey ] 

More than 160,000 calls were made to Congress for gun reform using AI-recreated voices of gun violence victims, including that of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, who died in the 2022 Uvalde school shooting. The Shotline effort is a collaboration between March for Our Lives and Change the Ref, both founded after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. [ Houston Public Media ]

This section was written by Alma Beauvais.

$60 million — the amount that police misconduct lawsuits have cost Philadelphia taxpayers since the beginning of 2023. [ The Philadelphia Inquirer ]

Non Sequitur

On off-topic story for a change of pace.

Robot controlled by a king oyster mushroom blends living organisms and machines : “Powered by conventional electricity via plug or battery, these simple robotic creations would be unremarkable, but what sets these two robots apart is that they are controlled by a living entity: a king oyster mushroom.” [ CNN ] 

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What Harris and Trump Might Do About Guns If Elected

Heading into the presidential candidates’ first debate, we take a look at their records on guns and the policies they might pursue as commander in chief.

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Fearing the worst, schools deploy armed police to thwart gun violence

Christine Spolar

Police maintain a presence following a school lockdown after 911 calls falsely reported a gunman in Oakland Catholic and Pittsburgh Central Catholic schools on March 29, 2023. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images hide caption

The risks of gun violence in schools were made tragically clear again in Georgia, where a teenager stands accused of shooting his way through his high school and killing two students and two teachers.

In Pittsburgh in March 2023, it was a false alarm that a gunman was roaming one Catholic high school and then another that touched off frightening evacuations and a robust police response in the city. It also prompted the diocese to rethink what constitutes a model learning environment.

So months after SWAT teams met hundreds of students, the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh began forming its own armed police force.

Wendell Hissrich, a former safety director for the city and career FBI unit chief, was hired that year to form a department to safeguard 39 Catholic schools as well as dozens of churches in the region. Hissrich has since added 15 officers and four supervisors, including many formerly retired officers and state troopers, who now oversee school campuses fitted with Stop the Bleed kits, cameras, and defibrillators.

Wendell Hissrich, a former career FBI unit chief, was hired by the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh in 2023 to help thwart gun violence in schools. He has since hired many retired officers and state troopers, who oversee school campuses fitted with Stop the Bleed kits, cameras, and defibrillators. Christine Spolar for KFF Health hide caption

When religious leaders first asked for advice after what are known as “swatting” incidents occurred, the veteran lawman said he didn’t hesitate to deliver blunt advice: “You need to put armed officers in the schools.”

But he added that the officers had to view schools as a special assignment: “I want them to be role models. I want them to be good fits within the school. I’m looking for someone to know how to deal with kids and with parents — and, most importantly, knows how to de-escalate a situation.”

Gun violence is a leading cause of death for young people in America, and the possibility of shootings has influenced costly decision-making in school systems as administrators juggle fear, duty, and dizzying statistics in efforts to keep schools safe from gun harm.

Still, scant research supports the creation of school police forces to deter gun violence — and what data exists can raise as many questions as answers. Data shows over half of U.S. firearm deaths are, in fact, suicides — a sobering statistic from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that reflects a range of ills.

Gun violence grew during the COVID-19 pandemic and studies found that Black children were 100 times as likely as white children to experience firearm assaults.

Research on racial bias in policing overall in the U.S. as well as studies on biased school discipline have prompted calls for caution. And an oft-cited U.S. Secret Service review of 67 thwarted plots at schools supports reasons to examine parental responsibility as well as police intervention as effective ways to stop firearm harm.

The Secret Service threat assessment, published in 2021, analyzed plots from 2006 to 2018 and found students who planned school violence had guns readily at home. It also found that school districts that contracted sworn law officers, who work as full or part time school resource officers, had some advantage. The officers proved pivotal in about a third of the 67 foiled plots by current or former students.

“Most schools are not going to face a mass shooting. Even though there are more of them — and that’s horrible — it is still a small number,” said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. “But administrators can’t really allow themselves to think that way. They have to think, ‘It could happen here, and how do I prevent it.'"

A student from Oakland Catholic High School receives comfort following the evacuation of the school after a call of an active shooter on March 29, 2023 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Many schools, including Oakland Catholic and Pittsburgh Central Catholic, were targeted as part of what authorities are calling "computer-generated swatting calls." Many agencies, including state and municipal police, are conducting investigations. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images hide caption

$1 million to station police in schools

About a 20-minute drive north of Pittsburgh, a top public school system in the region decided the risk was too great. North Allegheny Superintendent Brendan Hyland last year recommended retooling what had been a two-person school resource officer team — staffed since 2018 by local police — into a 13-person internal department with officers stationed at each of the district’s 12 buildings.

Several school district board members voiced unease about armed officers in the hallways. “I wish we were not in the position in our country where we have to even consider an armed police department,” board member Leslie Britton Dozier, a lawyer and a mother, said during a public planning meeting.

Within weeks, all voted for Hyland’s request, estimated to cost $1 million a year.

Hyland said the aim is to help 1,200 staff members and 8,500 students “with the right people who are the right fit to go into those buildings.” He oversaw the launch of a police unit in a smaller school district, just east of Pittsburgh, in 2018.

Hyland said North Allegheny had not focused on any single news report or threat in its decision, but he and others had thought through how to set a standard of vigilance. North Allegheny does not have or want metal detectors, devices that some districts have seen as necessary. But a trained police unit willing to learn every entrance, stairway, and cafeteria and who could develop trust among students and staffers seemed reasonable, he said.

“I’m not Edison. I’m not inventing something,” Hyland said. “We don’t want to be the district that has to be reactive. I don’t want to be that guy who is asked: ‘Why did you allow this to happen?’”

People visit memorials for victims of a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Nineteen children and two adults were killed after a man entered the school through an unlocked door and barricaded himself in a classroom where the victims were located. Law enforcement officers waited in the hallway for over an hour before entering the classroom and confronting the gunman. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/Getty Images North America hide caption

A tragic failure in Uvalde

Since 2020, the role of police in educational settings has been hotly debated. The video-recorded death of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis who was murdered by a white police officer during an arrest, prompted national outrage and demonstrations against police brutality and racial bias.

Some school districts, notably in large cities such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., reacted to concerns by reducing or removing their school resource officers. Examples of unfair or biased treatment by school resource officers drove some of the decisions. This year, however, there has been apparent rethinking of the risks in and near school property and, in some instances in California, Colorado, and Virginia, parents are calling for a return of officers .

The 1999 bombing plot and shooting attack of Columbine High School and a massacre in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School are often raised by school and police officials as reasons to prepare for the worst. But the value of having police in schools also came under sharp review after a blistering federal review of the mass shooting in 2022 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Justice Department report finds 'cascading failures' in response to Uvalde attack

The federal Department of Justice this year produced a 600-page report that laid out multiple failures by the school police chief, including his attempt to try to negotiate with the killer, who had already shot into a classroom, and waiting for his officers to search for keys to unlock the rooms. Besides the teenage shooter, 19 children and two teachers died. Seventeen other people were injured.

The DOJ report was based on hundreds of interviews and a review of 14,000 pieces of data and documentation. This summer, the former chief was indicted by a grand jury for his role in “abandoning and endangering” survivors and for failing to identify an active shooter attack. Another school police officer was charged for his role in placing the murdered students in “imminent danger” of death.

Pursuing accountability for gun violence

There have also been increased judicial efforts to pursue enforcement of firearm storage laws and to hold accountable adults who own firearms used by their children in shootings. For the first time this year, the parents of a teenager in Michigan who fatally shot four students in 2021 were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for not securing a newly purchased gun at home.

In recent days, Colin Gray, the father of the teenage shooting suspect at Apalachee High School in Georgia, was charged with second-degree murder — the most severe charges yet against a parent whose child had access to firearms at home. The 14-year-old, Colt Gray, who was apprehended by school resource officers on the scene, according to initial media reports, also faces murder charges.

Hissrich, the Pittsburgh diocese’s safety and security director, said he and his city have a hard-earned appreciation for the practice and preparation needed to contain, if not thwart, gun violence. In January 2018, Hissrich, then the city’s safety officer, met with Jewish groups to consider a deliberate approach to safeguarding facilities. Officers cooperated and were trained on lockdown and rescue exercises, he said.

We, The Voters

Where gun violence is common, some students say physical safety is a top concern.

Ten months later, on Oct. 27, 2018, a lone gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue and within minutes killed 11 people who had been preparing for morning study and prayer. Law enforcement deployed quickly, trapping and capturing the shooter and rescuing others caught inside. The coordinated response was praised by witnesses at the trial where the killer was convicted in 2023 on federal charges and sentenced to die for the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

“I knew what had been done for the Jewish community as far as safety training and what the officers knew. Officers practiced months before,” Hissrich said. He believes schools need the same kind of plans and precautions. “To put officers in the school without training,” he said, “would be a mistake.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

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Presidential debate fact check: Analyzing Trump, Harris on abortion, immigration, more

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump took the stage tonight in Philadelphia for their first presidential debate of the Nov. 5 election season.

The USA TODAY Fact Check Team investigated claims from the nominees and added context where it was missing on issues including abortion, immigration, guns and inflation.

Read on for our analysis of statements that exaggerated, mislead, misrepresented or otherwise strayed from reality. Our team uses primary documents, trustworthy nonpartisan sources, data and other research tools to assess the accuracy of claims.

More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page

Donald Trump claim: 2020 election lawsuits failed only on ‘technicality’ 

“They said we didn't have standing. That's the other thing. They said we didn't have standing. A technicality.” 

Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden was “rigged.” He continued down this line during Tuesday’s debate , claiming his election lawsuits challenging the results failed on “a technicality” of not having “standing,” a legal term for the right to bring a lawsuit based on one's connection to the issue at hand. 

But that’s not true. Dozens of cases brought by Trump and his allies appeared before judges in hearings, including 30 that were heard on the merits, USA TODAY reported . Every case but one failed.

More : Donald Trump falsely claims his election lawsuits failed in 2020 only on 'a technicality'  

Eight conservative legal experts published a report in 2022 that reviewed evidence in 64 cases in six swing states, finding that Trump and his supporters didn’t provide evidence of widespread election fraud. 

“These cases provided the forums in which Trump and his supporters could and should have proven their claims," the report concluded. "This report shows that those efforts failed because of a lack of evidence and not because of erroneous rulings or unfair judges."

Of the 64 cases brought by Trump and his supporters, 20 were dismissed before a hearing on the merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before a hearing on the merits, and 30 cases included a hearing on the merits, according to the report.

-Andre Byik , Erin Mansfield

Kamala Harris claim: Number of new manufacturing jobs under Biden surpasses 800,000

“We have created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs.”

This claim – which echoes one President Joe Biden made in 2023 – is not quite right anymore. Since Biden took office in January 2021, the U.S. added about 739,000 seasonally adjusted manufacturing jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data .

Previous estimates did put the job growth well over 800,000, but the Labor Department lowered it during its annual preliminary revision of its data. The department estimated that 115,000 fewer manufacturing jobs were created during the 12-month period that began in March 2024. Its final revision is expected in February 2025. 

– Joedy McCreary

Harris claim: SCOTUS ruled Trump would be immune from misconduct while president

“The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that the former president would essentially be immune from any misconduct if he were to enter the White House again.”  

This overstates the content of the ruling.

Harris is referring to a Supreme Court ruling from July that concluded in a 6-3 decision that presidents, including Trump, are  at least partially immune  from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. But the court’s decision isn’t as clear cut as Harris’ remarks make it seem. It  declares that “official” acts by presidents  are protected, but steps taken as a candidate are not.

The ruling also leaves room for presidents to be prosecuted under a narrow set of circumstances, related to responsibilities “within the outer perimeter” of presidential duties, or to unofficial acts, as  USA TODAY previously reported . The ruling did not grant Trump blanket immunity.  

Fact check:  No, Donald Trump was not criminally prosecuted for taking out, repaying loan

Fact check:  No evidence that hush-money trial jurors were 'Biden voters'

“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the president does is official. The president is not above the law,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the conservative majority in the ruling.  

 Trump is the  first president  – former or current – to be criminally charged.  

- Brad Sylvester, Chris Mueller  

Donald Trump claim: Migrants eating cats, dogs in Ohio 

“In Springfield, (migrants are) eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating... they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” 

This claim echoes allegations made by Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, who has accused Haitian immigrants of stealing and eating cats in his home state of Ohio. 

But Springfield city officials, including the city manager , say there is no evidence of any cats or other pets being harmed or eaten by Haitian immigrants, USA TODAY reported .  

More : ‘They’re eating the dogs’: Trump echoes false anti-immigrant rumor during debate

There was an incident in Canton, Ohio, about 170 miles northeast of Springfield, involving a 27-year-old woman who was arrested in August on suspicion of killing and eating a cat, but the woman was not a Haitian immigrant, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer .

-Andre Byik  

Donald Trump claim: Biden took $3.5 million from Moscow mayor’s wife

“Between (Joe Biden) and his son, they get all this money from Ukraine, they get all of this money from all of these different countries, and then you wonder why is he so loyal to this one, that one, Ukraine, China, why is he - why did he get $3.5 million from the mayor of Moscow’s wife? Why did she pay him $3.5 million?”  

Trump has made similar claims before, including during his first debate with Joe Biden in 2020. It’s a reference to a report released that year by the Republican-controlled Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

In a section called “key findings,” the reports claims, “Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow," as USA TODAY previously reported. A later section instead attributes this transfer to a company: "Rosemont Seneca Thornton, an investment firm co-founded by Hunter Biden, received $3.5 million in a wire transfer” from Baturina. The report’s source for the claim is a confidential document it says is on file with the committees, but it does not elaborate.

Fact check:  Federal employees, not agencies, donated to Harris campaign

Hunter Biden's lawyer, George Mesires, told CNN at the time  that his client was not an owner of Rosemont Seneca Thornton.

“Hunter Biden had no interest in and was not a ‘co-founder’ of Rosemont Seneca Thornton, so the claim that he was paid $3.5 million is false,” Mesires said.

Trump has tried before to link the claim to Joe Biden , who is Hunter Biden’s father. 

- Chris Mueller  

Catch up on our convention, debate fact-checks

We fact-checked key speakers throughout the Republican and Democratic conventions. Catch up here on what was false, what was true and what was in between from Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, JD Vance, Tim Walz and a host of others.

• DNC Day 4: Kamala Harris | Fact check live blog
• DNC Day 3:   Tim Walz | Fact check live blog
• DNC Day 1: Joe Biden | Fact check live blog
• RNC Day 4:   Donald Trump | Fact check live blog
• RNC Day 3 :  JD Vance | Fact check live blog
• Trump/Biden presidential debate : What the candidates got right (and wrong)

-Eric Litke

Donald Trump claim: No American casualties in Afghanistan in 18-month period during his presidency 

“For 18 months, we had nobody killed (in Afghanistan).” 

Trump made this claim during an exchange about his negotiations with the Taliban that preceded the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021. 

Trump didn’t specify the 18-month period he was referring to, but there is no such period in his presidency during which no U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department’s Defense Casualty Analysis System .

Fact check:  Fox News poll showed Harris' support in Sun Belt, not with veterans

In 2017, 14 total deaths – including “hostile” and “non-hostile” ones – were recorded, according to the data. In 2018, there were 15. In 2019, there were 23. And in 2020, there were 11.

PolitiFact reported there was an 18-month stretch between February 2020 and August 2021 when no U.S. service member died “in combat,” but the period overlaps with President Joe Biden’s term in office.

This claim has also been debunked by multiple independent fact-checkers. 

Donald Trump claim: Harris was first candidate to leave the presidential race in 2020

“And when she ran, she was the first one to leave because she failed.”  

This is wrong.  

While Harris did run unsuccessfully for president in 2020, she was not the first Democratic candidate to drop out of the race. More than a dozen Democrats vied for the party nomination, which ultimately went to President Joe Biden.  

Harris ended her campaign on Dec. 3, 2019, citing a lack of financial resources. Other Democratic hopefuls who called it quits before her included California Rep. Eric Swalwell, then-Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, New York Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, then-New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, then-Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, former Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak and then-Montana Gov. Steve Bullock.

- Brad Sylvester  

Kamala Harris claim: Trump invited Taliban leaders to Camp David 

“And (Trump) at the time invited the Taliban to Camp David, a place of storied significance for us as Americans.”  

Harris is right, but it’s worth noting that such a meeting never actually took place. 

In September 2019, Trump revealed he had planned to meet with Taliban leaders and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at Camp David to continue peace negotiations. But it didn’t happen – Trump suspended peace talks after the Taliban claimed responsibility for a car bomb that killed 12 people, including an American.

At the time, Democratic and Republican leaders criticized Trump for planning to bring Taliban members to the U.S., and specifically to Camp David , which has long been used as a presidential retreat. He was also rebuked for the timing of the meeting, which was set to happen days before the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Donald Trump claim: Harris proposed to take guns from all firearm owners

“She has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun.”  

This is false, and it echoes a claim we previously debunked that Harris would “end the Second Amendment ." 

While Harris has been a proponent of stricter gun control measures, there is no credible evidence of any plan to confiscate firearms from all gun owners.

Her campaign’s policy platform outlines gun control proposals that include bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, universal background checks and red-flag laws. But it makes no mention of confiscating guns from all Americans.

The campaign website credits the Biden-Harris administration for enacting “the first meaningful gun safety reform in decades,” referring to  a bipartisan bill  President Joe Biden signed into law in June 2022, a month after the  elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas . That  law enhances background checks on gun buyers  who are 18–21 years old, encourages states to develop better "red flag" laws and adds dating partners to the list of domestic abusers who are prohibited from buying firearms. 

– Joedy McCreary  

Donald Trump claim: Worst inflation in US history happened under Biden

“She is Biden – (responsible for) the worst inflation we’ve ever had.”  

The highest year-to-year inflation rate since the consumer price index was introduced was in 1917, when it hit 17.8%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis .

While the inflation rate has been consistently higher under Biden’s administration than it was under Trump, it still remains far below that number.

The highest monthly rate during Biden’s presidency was 9.1% in June 2022, compared to a peak of 2.9% under Trump in June and July 2022, according to consumer price index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics .

The average annual inflation rate is about 5.7% under Biden, according to an Investopedia analysis that found the average rate under Trump was 1.9% .

-BrieAnna Frank

Donald Trump claim: Harris wouldn’t meet with Netanyahu when he addressed Congress

“She wouldn’t even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech. She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers.”

This is misleading. It’s true that Harris, in her capacity as vice president, didn’t preside over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s July 24 address to Congress in order to attend a previously scheduled campaign event, USA TODAY reported .  

That event was the Zeta Phi Beta sorority’s national convention in Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Star reported . The sorority is among the country’s oldest historically Black Greek-lettered organizations.  

Harris did, however, meet with Netanyahu at the White House the following day, as numerous   news outlets reported . The vice president “reiterated her longstanding and unwavering commitment to the security of the State of Israel and the people of Israel” during the meeting, according to a White House news release .  

-BrieAnna Frank  

Kamala Harris claim: Trump said there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the presidential election

"Donald Trump the candidate has said in this election there will be a bloodbath if the outcome of this election is not to his liking"  

Harris is misrepresenting what Trump said, as Trump himself pointed out moments later. Harris is referring to a comment Trump made at a rally he held in Vandalia, Ohio, in March .  

While speaking at the event about the auto industry, Trump said it would be a “bloodbath” for the industry if he were to lose the election.

“ We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those guys if I get elected,” Trump said during the speech. “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it.” 

The full context of the comment shows he was warning about a metaphorical bloodbath for the auto industry, not promising violence if he doesn’t win the election.

“If you actually watch and listen to the section, he was talking about the auto industry and tariffs,” Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, told the Washington Post . “Biden’s policies will create an economic bloodbath for the auto industry and autoworkers.” 

Kamala Harris claim: Trump told Putin to ‘do whatever the hell he wants’

“It is well known that he said of Putin, that he can do whatever the hell he wants and go into Ukraine.”  

This is technically accurate but an oversimplification by Harris, who made a similar claim during her speech last month at the Democratic National Convention. 

It’s a reference to a remark Trump made during a Feb. 10 campaign rally in South Carolina, where he suggested he might not aid NATO members attacked by Russia if they weren’t contributing enough money to the alliance, as USA TODAY previously reported.

“One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’"  Trump said . “I said, ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you.”

He added, “In fact I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.” 

At the time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Trump's comments could  endanger lives and undermine the security  of NATO members, including the U.S.

-Chris Mueller    

Donald Trump claim: Department of Justice played role in his four criminal prosecutions

“Every one of those cases was started by them against their political opponent.”  

Trump has long sought to paint President Joe Biden and his administration as orchestrating his prosecutions. 

But under the Constitution, the administration did not have authority over the state of New York’s prosecution of Trump , who was convicted on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to an adult film actress ahead of the 2016 election.

Nor does it have that power in the former president’s case in Georgia , where he and others have pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to steal the 2020 election . That case is on hold while an appeals court reviews a ruling that allows Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on it.

“When you’re dealing with state prosecutions, it’s district attorneys elected by the voters of their jurisdiction,” said  Allan Lichtman , a professor of history at American University. “That has nothing to do with the federal government.”

Additionally, when the Justice Department had the authority to pursue a case against Trump over the hush money circumstances, it chose not to do so . 

The federal classified documents case against Trump was dismissed in July with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon saying Justice Department special prosecutor Jack Smith – appointed in November 2022 in part to add a layer of separation between the investigation and the administration – was improperly appointed. Smith in August filed a new indictment in Trump’s federal election interference case to address the Supreme Court’s July decision that Trump had broad immunity from charges related to official acts as president.

Trump is due to be sentenced in New York on Nov. 26 – three weeks after the election. 

Donald Trump claim: Crime has soared under Biden and Harris 

“Crime here is up and through the roof.”  

Trump’s claim conflicts with the latest available data.  

Earlier this year, the FBI released preliminary data that showed sharp declines in violent crime in the first three months of 2024 compared to a year earlier, continuing a trend ongoing since a pandemic surge . Murder and rape were both down 26%, robbery was down 18% and aggravated assault fell by 13%, the Associated Press reported . But some experts have cautioned that the data is still preliminary and likely overstates the drop.  

Many cities in the U.S. have reported declines in homicides from 2023 to 2024, Axios reported in April. Similarly, the number of murders in the first three months of 2024 fell by nearly 20% in 204 cities analyzed by AH Datalytics, a criminal justice consulting firm. 

The most recent FBI data, which dates to 2022, shows the country’s violent crime rate at 370 per 100,000 people, the third-lowest rate in the last 50 years, behind only 2014 and 2019, according to PolitiFact . The FBI hasn’t released the final 2023 violent crime figures, which come out each October.

-Chris Mueller  

Kamala Harris claim: Project 2025 calls for abortion monitor to track pregnancies, miscarriages 

“In his Project 2025 there would be a national abortion monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages.”

This significantly overstates the nature of the monitoring called for in Project 2025.

The playbook does support anti-abortion policies, and it laments the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abortion surveillance and reporting systems, calling them “woefully inadequate.”

Fact check:  Project 2025 is an effort by the Heritage Foundation, not Donald Trump

Fact check:  False claim Trump said he'd force government monitoring on pregnant women

It calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to use every available tool “to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.” But that's not the same as "monitoring your pregnancies." It appears to be calling for states to regularly report cumulative totals, not specific instances. 

It says reliable statistical data about abortion, abortion survivors and abortion-related maternal deaths “are essential to timely, reliable public health and policy analysis.”

Harris also repeats a common overreach by calling Project 2025 Trump's plan. Trump allies worked on the plan, but Trump has repeatedly said he does not support all elements of the plan and wasn't directly involved in creating it.

-Andre Byik

Donald Trump claim: Tim Walz supports abortion in the ninth month (updated)

• Corrections & Clarifications : This item was updated   Sept. 11 to clarify the timeline and nature of Walz’s actions on abortion as Minnesota governor, which included signing a bill that removed any restrictions based on gestational duration.

“Her vice-presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine.”  

There is no evidence Walz said this, though he signed a bill that removed limits to abortion based on gestational duration.

Walz said in 2022 that he supported “maintaining the timelines outlined by current law,” which at the time allowed abortions until the time of viability, around 24 weeks, for elective abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute . That viability standard was then removed from state law in 2023 through a law Walz signed.

Walz has taken other steps to protect abortion rights in the state. He  signed a bill enshrining the right to abortion  and other reproductive healthcare into Minnesota state statutes in January 2023, seven months after the  Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade . Months later,  Walz signed a bill  that protected people traveling to Minnesota for abortion care, as well as the professionals providing that care, from legal repercussions from other states.

However, USA TODAY found no record of Walz quotes expressing support for abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy.

There is no current restriction or ban on abortion based on gestational duration in the state, according to the Guttmacher Institute and Kaiser Family Foundation .

Nationally, only 1% of all abortions occur at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation . 

Donald Trump claim: The economy and stock market improved under the Trump administration despite the COVID-19 pandemic 

“We handed them a stock market and economy that was higher than it was before the pandemic.”  

Trump is right about the stock market, but the economy as a whole was worse off when he left office than it was before the pandemic.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (a popular stock market index) was up by about 8% (about 2,300 points) from February 2020 (the month before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared) to January 2021, when Trump left office.

But the overall economy was still reeling from the impact of the pandemic. U.S. GDP was down from where it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unemployment rate had spiked as millions of Americans had lost their jobs. The unemployment rate was at 3.5% in February 2020 compared to 6.4% when Trump left office in January 2021, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Kamala Harris claim: Trump left one of highest trade deficits in US history 

“The Trump administration resulted in a trade deficit, one of the highest we’ve ever seen in the history of America.”  

This is accurate.

The country’s trade deficit reached its highest level since 2008 under Trump, who had promised to reduce it during his 2016 campaign. In 2020, the combined U.S. goods and services trade deficit increased to $679 billion, up from $481 billion in 2016, before Trump took office, Politico reported. A trade deficit happens when a country imports more than it exports.

However, the U.S. trade deficit has been higher before, including in 2006, when it reached $764 billion under former President George W. Bush. In 2007, it dropped to $711 billion, remained about the same in 2008, then fell sharply to $395 billion in 2009 as a result of the recession, according to Factcheck.org , which cited data from the U.S. Census Bureau .

Kamala Harris claim: Trump tariffs would cost families $4,000 per year 

“Economists have said that that Trump sales tax would actually result, for middle-class families, in about $4,000 more a year.”  

Harris also brought up this number during her speech at the Democratic National Convention in reference to  Trump’s proposed tariff of between 10%   and 20% on imported goods . Her estimate is at the high end of the economic estimates.

While Trump has described it as  a way to raise revenue , economists say  it would mostly be passed along to consumers , effectively making it a tax. But they disagree on the additional cost families would face. 

A  study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center  found that tariff, and one of 60% on Chinese goods that Trump has also proposed, would  lower the average post-tax incomes of American households  by about $1,800. Another think tank, The Peterson Institute for International Economics, says the  larger tariff would cost households more than $2,600 per year. 

But a projection from the conservative  American Action Forum  falls closer to the figure Harris cited, saying the 20% tariff and 60% tariff on Chinese goods would amount to a tax increase of $3,900 for a middle-class family. 

Donald Trump claim: Immigrants in the country illegally have highest rate of ‘criminality’ 

“(Immigrants in the country illegally are) destroying our country. They’re dangerous. They’re at the highest level of criminality, and we have to get them out.”

Immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than the broader U.S.-born population in recent years, according to a 2023 National Bureau of Economic Research paper.

The paper, co-authored by Stanford University researcher Ran Abramitzky , used U.S. Census data and focused on immigrants present in the Census regardless of their legal status and on men between the ages of 18 and 40, according to a news release about the study .

Fact check:  Migrants approached school buses, did not try to 'hijack' them

Fact check: No, 51M 'illegals' have not entered US under Biden, Harris

Alex Nowrasteh , vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, in a Feb. 24 report , examined homicide conviction rates between those who entered the country illegally and native-born Americans in Texas. Nowrasteh found that those entering illegally had a lower homicide conviction rate (2.4 per 100,000) than native-born Americans (2.8 per 100,000) in 2015.

Donald Trump claim: Inflation was at 21% under Biden 

“We have inflation like very few people have ever seen, probably the worst in our nation’s history. We were at 21%.”  

This is wrong, according to consumer price index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics .  

The highest year-over-year inflation rate during Biden’s presidency was 9.1% in June 2022. The rate as of July 2024 was 2.9%.

By contrast, the highest rate during Trump’s presidency was 2.9%, which happened in both June and July 2018. The lowest rate was 0.1% in May 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  

How we pick and research fact checks

Ever wonder how fact-checkers do their work? We've got you covered.

Check out our process explainer  to see how we pick claims, research them and edit them. This includes a rundown of how we cover live events like tonight’s debate.

And if you've ever wondered  who fact-checks the fact-checkers , you might want to read this op-ed explaining our emphasis on transparency. Because the answer is you! We use the format and approach precisely so that everyone has the ability to check our work.

Debate background: Rounding up our recent claims on Donald Trump 

Former President Donald Trump has long been at the center of online misinformation.

That was especially true in the summer of 2024, when rumors swirled about Trump’s ties to Project 2025, the assassination attempt against him in July and the former president’s unprecedented conviction on 34 counts in his New York criminal hush money trial.

Here are some of USA TODAY’s latest fact-checks on claims related to Trump: 

• Claim: Trump posted about military relationship, interaction with ‘Civil War soldier’ (False) 
• Claim: Image shows Secret Service agents weren’t wearing earpieces during Trump assassination attempt (Altered) 
• Claim: Trump warned mpox will be used as an excuse for electoral fraud and lockdowns (False)  
• Claim: Trump mistakenly addressed North Carolina at Pennsylvania rally (False) 
• Claim: Trump said cereal costs $100 a pound at press conference (False) 
• Claim: Image shows Trump falling asleep at the 2017 NATO summit (False) 
• Claim: Image shows ‘Trump train’ truck crashed into bridge (Altered) 
• Claim: Trump couldn’t land in Bozeman, Montana, because he owed the airport $12,000 (False) 

-BrieAnna Frank   

Where to find our fact checks

In addition to live events like tonight’s debate, the USA TODAY Fact Check Team publishes about 100 checks each month on the most viral and significant claims circulating online. Here’s how to find our work.

• Subscribe to our Checking the Facts newsletter to have get the latest updates in your inbox each morning.
• Follow our Facebook page to get our latest work in your feed.
• This landing page always has our most recently published work.

- Eric Litke

Debate background: Rounding up our recent claims on Kamala Harris 

In the weeks since the Democrats selected Vice President Kamala Harris to replace President Joe Biden at the top of their ticket, an array of false or misleading claims about her circulated. 

Many centered on her background, her record as vice president or her campaign platform. Some have been around for years, dating to Biden’s pick of Harris as his running mate in 2020. Newer ones center around her role in addressing immigration and where she and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, stand on gun control and taxation . 

Among the false or misleading claims related to Harris that USA TODAY has debunked: 

• Fact check roundup: Biden exit, Harris entry spur flurry of false claims   
• Claim: Kamala Harris was raised in Canada, is not African-American and held Black prisoners past release dates (Partly false) 
• Claim: Kamala Harris is ineligible to succeed Biden because of her parents' citizenship (False) 
• Claim: Kamala Harris was 'put in charge of the border’ (False) 
• Claim: Image shows Kamala Harris' Communist Party membership card (False) 
• Claim: Harris said she will 'end the Second Amendment'; Walz backed AR-15 ban (False) 
• Claim: Post implies Harris plan includes tax on unrealized capital gains for everyone (Missing context) 
• Claim: Image shows Kamala Harris post calling teen a ‘racist’ (Altered) 
• Claim: Kamala Harris suggested young people shouldn't have children because of climate change (False) 

– Joedy McCreary   

Video series: Follow our work on TikTok, Instagram 

USA TODAY’s video fact-check series debuted in March and highlights our team’s most impactful work, from debunking viral pieces of false news to fact-checking high-profile political events. 

A new fact-check video is published most weeks on USA TODAY’s social media accounts and website . 

Here are some of our recent fact-check videos: 

• Video : Here's what claims Kamala Harris got right and wrong during her DNC speech  
• Video : Fact-checking Donald Trump’s speech on final night of RNC  
• Video : No, Tim Walz did not post an attack on Ann Coulter after she ridiculed his son  
• Video : Three Viral false claims made about the Trump rally shooting debunked  

- Andre Byik  

Debate background: Immigration a key issue even as encounters at southern border drop

Immigration has been one of the top issues for voters during the presidential campaign season. Under President Joe Biden, illegal border crossings reached record highs , averaging more than 2 million per year from 2021 to 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection. But more recently, illegal crossings – or “encounters” – at the southern border fell to the lowest total in nearly four years only months after Biden announced broad restrictions on asylum . 

Vice President Kamala Harris was never put in charge of the southern border or made "border czar," contrary to some posts on social media , but that hasn’t stopped former president Donald Trump and other Republicans from attacking her immigration policy. In 2021, Biden announced Harris would lead his administration’s diplomatic efforts with Mexico and the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to slow migration to the southern border. At the time, Harris said the administration “must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek, as the president described, to come here.” 

Trump, meanwhile, has promised the largest deportation effort in U.S. history if he is elected again. He also said he would reinstate strict immigration policies from his first term, limit asylum access at the U.S. southern border and eliminate automatic citizenship for people born in the U.S. to immigrant parents.  

In February, Republican lawmakers blocked an immigration bill that would have revamped the country’s immigration and border policies. Biden and Harris have blamed the bill's failure on opposition from Trump. Harris has vowed to bring back the bill and sign it into law if elected. 

• Claim: Kamala Harris was 'put in charge of the border' (False)  
• Claim: 51 million 'illegals' entered US under Biden, Harris (False)  
• Claim: Biden executive order granted citizenship to 1 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally (False)  
• Claim: Nearly 11,000 “illegals” were processed in Eagle Pass, Texas, in one day in mid-March 2024 (False)  
• Claim: The Texas National Guard has deployed tanks to the border with Mexico (False) 

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here .

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Gun Control and the Media

Spikes in attention and shifts in conversation.

In the four months since the Newtown, Connecticut shootings, the tone of the conversation about gun control on Twitter has shifted sharply several times in apparent response to ongoing events, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of nearly 21 million tweets from December 18 through April 21.

In that period, the Twitter sentiment overall was almost balanced between those supporting stronger gun control measures (42% of the conversation) and those opposed (38%), according to the report. That is in contrast to the first three days after the December 14 attack when an earlier Pew Research report found that pro-gun control voices dominated their opponents 64% to 21%. But what stands out even more is the fluid nature of the debate on Twitter. In 10 of the 18 weeks studied, assertions favoring tougher regulations outnumbered those opposing; in seven of those weeks, the sentiment against a new law was more prominent. In one of those weeks, the mix was exactly even.

The findings also suggest that while pro-gun control forces dominated in the emotional and painful hours immediately following the attack, over time the conversation shifted to reflect the nation’s more divided view of gun control that has become evident in recent years.  At the same time, one of the biggest shifts in Twitter opinion occurred the week of the April 17 Senate vote, when sentiment favoring tougher gun laws outstripped expressions of opposition by 3-1.

One key player opposing tighter gun laws-the National Rifle Association-faced more criticism than support on Twitter. In the four months studied, 58% of the assertions related to the NRA expressed opposition to the group compared with 42% that backed the organization.

Overall, the study found that 60% of the Twitter conversation about guns from December 18-April 21 focused on the legislative debate with another 9% focused on the NRA. Straight news accounts of events made up 26% of the conversation.

This examination of the coverage and conversation surrounding the gun debate also found that President Barack Obama was a key newsmaker and driver of the narrative, with spikes in social and mainstream media attention correlating closely with some of his actions and remarks on behalf of tighter gun control.  And an analysis of 20 key terms used in the coverage of the gun issue reveals that two of them -“Newtown” and “gun control”-were clearly the most prominent in the media.

These findings are part of a study by the Pew Research Center that examined the coverage and conversation about gun policy from December 10, 2012-April 21, 2013. That included an examination of nearly 21 million relevant Twitter posts, 20 key gun debate-related phrases in 24 major U.S. newspapers and on 2,090 news programs on cable and broadcast television. In addition, Pew Research analyzed public searches for terms related to the gun debate on Google, using Boolean search techniques. ( See methodology )

The Twitter Conversation

From the day of the Newtown massacre to the defeat of the legislation, the tone of conversation on Twitter shifted a number of times as one side or the other intensified its social presence. The first major shift occurred quickly after the attack as the outpouring of initial support eroded during the week of December 18-23, when 30% of the conversation called for more gun control and 35% opposed it. After two weeks in which tighter gun law supporters once again outnumbered their opponents, another change occurred. From January 7-20, opposition to new gun laws gained prominence with 49% of the conversation compared with 35% that supported new gun legislation. Two events that perhaps rallied anti-gun control voices in that period were the launch of former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ gun control campaign on January 8 and President Obama’s release of his gun proposals on January 16.

One such tweet in that period asked Second Amendment supporters to join a “Take Control of Gun Control Week” campaign on Facebook. And the NRA itself was busy tweeting that week, noting in one post that “Since the Federal ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban expired in 2004, murder and overall violent-crime rates have fallen.”

The next major shift in sentiment occurred in early February (4-10), when what had been evenly-split sentiment turned strongly in favor of gun control (47% to 35%). That dynamic lasted until the week of March 11-17, when gun control opponents edged ahead of supporters (44% to 41%). That coincided with a time when the legislative process around a new gun law heated up in the Senate.

After sentiments opposing tougher gun laws outnumbered those of supporters in four of the next five weeks, the pendulum swung yet again. During the week of the April 17 Senate vote (April 15-21), supporters of tougher gun control once again dominated the conversation (65% to 21). That 65%-21% margin almost mirrors exactly the sentiments in the first three days after the tragedy, with 64% of the assertions favoring tougher laws and 21% opposing.

The week of the vote also saw a major spike in the volume of the Twitter conversation, with more than two million relevant posts, roughly double of what it had been each of the previous two weeks.

A number of the most frequently retweeted posts at that time were highly critical of the Senate vote.  “There should be a background check before the NRA is allowed to buy a senator,” declared one. “Congratulations, felons! The Senate has upheld your right to buy guns without a background check. Send your donations to @NRA ,” read another.  A tweet from Obama urged followers to retweet the message, “I am one of the 92% of Americans who support background checks for gun sales.”

While the debate sentiment frequently shifted on Twitter, recent public opinion surveys have found broader public opinion moving away from gun control in recent months. An Associated Press poll released last week found the share of Americans favoring stricter gun laws dropping from 58% to 49% since January. Similarly, a USA Today poll conducted April 18-21 reported 49% of Americans favored a new gun control law while 45% opposed it, a shift from the 61% who supported stricter gun laws back in February. Pew Research will be updating its own trend on this question in the coming weeks, but just reported a related finding that 47% of Americans had a negative view of the Senate’s rejection of new legislation with 39% offering a positive opinion . 

Two Terms Dominate the Gun Conversation

One central finding across a number of media outlets is that two terms-“Newtown” and “gun control”-were the most prominent ways the media had of characterizing or discussing the issue.

A Lexis search of 24 newspapers from December 10-April 21 found that “gun control” appeared in  7,245 stories-more than the terms “National Rifle Association” (3,178) “second amendment” (2,047) and “gun rights” (1,421) combined. “Newtown” was second the most frequent term, appearing in 6,175 stories.

In assessing television news coverage on cable and broadcast, Pew Research found that 866 shows out of 2,090 mentioned the term “gun control” barely edging out the term “Newtown,” which appeared on 864 shows. “Gun control” was the leading term on cable news (656 programs out of 1,425) and No. 2 on network broadcast news at 210 shows out of 665. “Newtown” ranked second on cable (605 shows) and first on broadcast at 259.

The Google Trends data reveal the same basic pattern in public searches for key phrases related to the gun debate. “Newtown” represented the most-searched term and was so in every week but one. After that, “gun control” was searched most frequently.

The dominance of these terms highlights the continuing evocation of “Newtown,” the site of the tragedy, as a central catalyst and factor in the ongoing gun control debate. It also suggests that the phrase “gun control,” whether accurately or not, has become a kind of neutral way to reference the ongoing legislative effort in the press narrative and discussion.

Barack Obama as the Central Player

By many different measures, President Obama-who campaigned extensively for tougher gun control laws-was a key driver of the news and conversation on the topic. Overall, Obama’s name was tied to more gun-related search terms than any other individual or Congress in general.

There were several notable spikes in attention that followed a presidential action. One was his December 19 announcement of a Gun Violence Task Force headed by Vice President Joseph Biden. The other was his unveiling of gun control proposals on January 16, which came one day after the NRA released an ad calling him an “elitist hypocrite” because his daughters had Secret Service protection at school.

On Twitter, the biggest week for volume (more than three million relevant posts) was December 18-23, followed by January 14-20 at 2.3 million relevant posts. Obama’s actions on January 16 also corresponded with the biggest week for people searching for the term “gun control” and “Obama gun” on Google. More broadly, the term “Obama gun” was searched almost twice as frequently on Google as the terms “gun Congress” and “gun bill” over the four months studied.

In newspaper stories, these two weeks also showed spikes in volume, according to our search term analysis. The term “gun control” appeared in 861 stories, the week of December 17-23, a high water mark. After that came 741 mentions of that term from January 14-20.  The term “gun control” also appeared in the most television news programs the week of December 17-23 (90).

Over the four months studied, only two terms, “gun control” (7,245) and “Newtown” (6,175) appeared in more newspaper stories that included the words “Obama” and “gun” (4,592).

And in all the television news analyzed over four months, “Obama” and “gun” were found to be mentioned in close proximity on more programs (623) than any of the gun related terms other than “Newtown” (864) and “gun control” (866). The National Rifle Association trailed close behind, at 601 programs.

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Time-restricted eating found to improve blood sugar control in adults at risk of type 2 diabetes

by Diabetologia

Restricting the eating window to eight hours a day significantly improves blood glucose control in adults at risk of type 2 diabetes irrespective of whether it is earlier or later in the day, according to a randomized crossover trial presented at the Annual Meeting of The European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), held in Madrid (9–13 Sept).

"Our study found that restricting eating to a window of eight hours per day significantly improved the daily time spent in the normal blood glucose range and reduced fluctuations in blood glucose levels. However, altering the eight-hour restricted eating period to earlier or later in the day did not appear to offer additional benefits," said lead author Dr. Kelly Bowden Davies from Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

She added, "Our findings, which can be attributed to the 16-hour fasting window rather than the time of eating or changes in energy intake, also highlight that the benefit of time-restricted eating can be seen within just three days.

"Although time-restricted eating is becoming increasingly popular, no other studies have examined tightly controlled diet and altered the clock time of an eight-hour eating window on glycemic control in people at risk of type 2 diabetes."

Previous studies indicate that TRE (which limits when, but not what, individuals eat) can improve insulin sensitivity (the body's ability to respond to insulin) and glycated hemoglobin (HbA 1c ; average blood sugar levels over a period of weeks and months) in people at risk of type 2 diabetes.

However, the effect on glycemic variability (fluctuations in blood glucose levels ) is not clear and previous studies have attributed the positive effects of TRE to reduced energy intake. This study sought to understand alterations in meal timing when participants were in energy balance ( energy intake was matched with energy expenditure).

To find out more, researchers investigated the impact of TRE in a eucaloric manner—with diets provided to match energy requirements (taking into account sex, age, weight, height, activity level—comparing an early (E TRE ; between 8:00 and 16:00 hours) versus a late (L TRE ; between 12:00 and 20:00 hours) eating window on glycemic control in overweight sedentary adults.

Fifteen sedentary individuals (nine female / six male; average age 52 years; BMI 28 m/kg 2 ; HbA 1c 37.9 mmol/mol) who habitually spread their eating period over more than 14 hours per day were assigned to two different eating patterns for three days at a time.

Researchers compared the E TRE regimen (eating only between 8:00 am and 4:00 pm) and L TRE regimen (eating only between midday and 8:00 pm) periods, and the habitual eating regimen (more than 14 hours/day). A eucaloric standardized diet [50% carbohydrates, 30% fat and 20% protein] was provided during the TRE periods but participants consumed their own diets during habitual (free) living conditions.

Continuous glucose monitoring was used to assess daily time spent in euglycemia (with a normal concentration of blood glucose of 3.9-7.8 mmol/l) and markers of glycemic variability, including mean absolute glucose (MAG), coefficient of variation (CV), and mean amplitude of glucose excursions (MAGE).

The analyses found that in comparison to habitual eating (more than 14 h/day), TRE (eight h/day) significantly increased time spent within the normal blood glucose range by on average 3.3%, and also reduced markers of glycemic variability—MAG by 0.6 mmol/l, CV by 2.6%, and MAGE by 0.4 mmol/l.

However, no significant differences in glycemic control were found between the E TRE and L TRE regimens.

"Many people find counting calories hard to stick to in the long term, but our study suggests that watching the clock may offer a simple way to improve blood sugar control in people at risk of type 2 diabetes, irrespective of when they have their eight-hour eating window, which warrants investigation in larger studies and over the longer term," said Dr. Bowden Davies.

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