A new study finds higher levels of racism in white Americans is associated with having a gun in the home and greater opposition to gun control policies.
After accounting for numerous other factors such as income, education, and political ideology, the researchers found that for each one point increase (on a scale from one to five) in symbolic racism there was a 50 percent increase in the odds of having a gun in the home and a 28 percent increase in support for policies allowing people to carry concealed guns.
Each one point increase in symbolic racism (a modern measure of anti-black racism) was also associated with a 27 percent increase in the odds of opposing bans on hand guns in the home. After accounting for those who already had a gun in the home, the odds were reduced to a non-significant 17 percent increase. However, the authors note that this reduction is unsurprising as opposition to bans on guns equates to self interest on behalf of those who already own a gun and do not wish to give it up.
And racism was already strongly associated with having a gun in the home.“Coming from countries with strong gun control policies, and a 30-fold lower rate of gun-related homicides, we found the arguments for opposing gun control counterintuitive and somewhat illogical,” says Kerry O’Brien who led the research at Monash University.
“For example, white Americans oppose gun control to a far greater extent than do black Americans, but whites are actually more likely to kill themselves with their guns than be killed by someone else. So why would you keep them? We decided to examine what social and psychological factors predict gun ownership and opposition to gun control.”
Study co-author Dermot Lynott from Lancaster University in the UK says they were initially surprised no one had studied this issue before, however, the US government cut research funding for gun-related research over a decade and a half ago, so research in this area has been somewhat suppressed.
http://www.futurity....-gun-ownership/
Oh, this is an interesting read.
