Are guns the new dog whistle? Gun control, racial resentment, and vote choice*

Abstract

Two principal movers of American politics appear increasingly to be connected: racism and guns. The racial content underlying gun rights rhetoric, however, is rarely made explicit during political campaigns. As such, it is possible that espousing pro-gun messages may be an effective way to surreptitiously court prejudiced voters without transgressing popular egalitarian norms. In other words, gun rights rhetoric may function as a racial dog whistle. In the present study, we test this theory using data from a survey experiment conducted with a national sample of registered voters. The findings from our experiment show that election candidates' National Rifle Association (NRA)-funding status and position on gun control impact voters' evaluations, and racial resentment moderates these effects. Racially resentful voters are more likely than low-resentment voters to say they would vote for a candidate when the candidate is funded by the NRA and does not support gun control. This is true among voters who own guns and among those who do not, and it is true regardless of the candidate's political party. The findings also show that there is a backlash effect among low-resentment voters-such individuals are aversive to NRA-funded candidates but strongly supportive of pro-gun control candidates.

Social order and social justice: Moral intuitions, systemic racism beliefs, and Americans’ divergent attitudes toward Black Lives Matter and police

“…Taking the argument further, our results may have implications for the “dog whistle” concept that is increasingly being used to explain American's attitudes toward police, BLM, and other divisive social issues (Drakulich et al., 2020; Lopez, 2014; Schutten et al., 2021). In a study of how Americans’ perceptions of both police and BLM influenced voting behavior in the 2016 presidential election, Drakulich et al.…”

“…Taking the argument further, our results may have implications for the "dog whistle" concept that is increasingly being used to explain American's attitudes toward police, BLM, and other divisive social issues (Drakulich et al, 2020;Lopez, 2014;Schutten et al, 2021). In a study of how Americans' perceptions of both police and BLM influenced voting behavior in the 2016 presidential election, Drakulich et al (2020) argued that support for police serves as a "dog whistle," whereby an expressed stance on one issue stands in for an unexpressed (or inexpressible) stance on a related issue (Lopez, 2014).…”

Implicit Resentment and the Gun Policy Preferences of White Americans

“…There have been several recent studies examining the impact of racism on gun ownership (Drakulich and Craig 2022;Filindra and Kaplan 2016;Filindra, Kaplan, and Buyuker 2021;O'Brien et al 2013;Schutten et al 2022). Among white Americans, traditional measures of racial resentment are linked to owning guns for protection rather than hunting or recreation (Filindra, Kaplan, and Buyuker 2021).…”

Cognitive and Apathetic Racism in Patterns of Gun Ownership and Gun Control Attitudes

“…Our study, with the newer measures of racism examined here, provides some insight into processes underlying racial attitudes and gun ownership and control attitudes. Could the mechanisms be racialized fear, perceived racial privilege, apathy toward non-white victims of gun violence, or something else (Schutten et al 2021b)? Here, we attempt to assess issues related to both cognitive processes and empathy.…”