Asymmetric issue evolution in the American gun rights debate

Gun Owners and Gun Control: Shared Status, Divergent Opinions

“…Do guns ensure freedom, check tyrannical government, and permit self‐reliance, or do they permit mass violence, facilitate self‐harm, and increase accidental suffering? Such competing framings of guns have increased in recent decades along partisan lines, as the gun issue has evolved (Conley, 2019; Melzer, 2009). Conley (2019, p. 8) explains that “the chasm between the NRA’s influence and comparatively feckless gun control groups for the past several decades suggest that Democratic and Republican Party voters respond differently to political leaders and elite cues.” He also argues that there is now “an enduring association between gun rights and the Republican Party” (p. 7).…”

“…Gun owners are politically engaged and for many of them guns are a voting issue (Lacombe, 2019b; Reinhart, 2017)—some are even what Melzer (2009, p. 174) calls “gun crusaders.” If, as our findings suggest, the symbolic meaning of guns varies across owners, depending on their political values, and shapes their attitudes toward gun control, net of their beliefs about gun effectiveness, then reformers should not turn a blind eye to this symbolism. They could work to change the symbolic meaning of guns, although doing so may be difficult, and it may be harder to change rightward than leftward meanings (Conley, 2019). Reformers could work to frame policies in ways that are less threatening to Republican gun owners and could work to demonstrate an understanding of their concerns.…”

Protective Gun Ownership as a Coping Mechanism

“…This complex of messages may have also resonated especially well with a certain set of the population. Politically, there is relatively robust relationship between gun ownership and conservatism: 57% of Republican households own a gun, compared with just 25% of Democratic households (Parker et al, 2017), a relationship that has dramatically strengthened since the 1970s (Joslyn, Haider-Markel, Baggs, & Bilbo, 2017; see also Conley, 2019). Views that the world is a dangerous place are associated with right-wing beliefs (Duckitt, Wagner, du Plessis, & Birum, 2002), and political conservatism is strongly associated with both needs for safety and certainty (e.g., Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2013; Kay & Eibach, 2013) and sensitivity to threat (e.g., Oxley et al, 2008).…”

“…A gun culture, once established, may be hard to roll back. Recent survey work suggests that American beliefs about gun rights and gun-owning identity may now be driving political orientation and engagement as much as being driven by it, further enshrining rights as central to one of the two primary American political parties (Conley, 2019; Lacombe, Howat, & Rothschild, 2019). It may, however, not be impossible to roll back, as the case of Australia demonstrates.…”

Who Wants to Know? White Racial Attitudes and Survey Item Refusal on Gun Ownership Questions

“…Since the 1970s, the proportion of liberals and Democrats owning firearms has slowly declined, and over the same period, attitudes about gun policy have come into alignment with the parties as well (Joslyn 2020). The mechanism for this political sorting has largely been achieved through the defection of gun‐rights oriented voters from the Democratic party since the 1990s (Conley, 2019). As they become a relatively smaller minority of the population, gun owners often behave as “single issue voters” in a way that is not true for those who do not own firearms, and the successful political advocacy of the National Rifle Association (NRA) has been relatively unique in US politics (Conley, 2019; Joslyn, 2020; Kessler, 1983).…”