Why People Own Guns

Abstract

Aggressive attitudes rather than fear of neighborhood or victimization are the main correlates; guns symbolize "fundamental questions about the . . . social system."The socialist promoters in Washington are going to try to take guns away from all Americans.Those who defend the private ownership of guns by law abiding citizens stand on the bedrock of the Constitution of the United States.. , . The citizens have rights that come before the rights of government. Our rights come from Cod, and cannot be taken away by any human laws.These excerpts are from Letters-to-the-Editor of a large southeastern metropolitan newspaper. They were chosen not because they are unusual but rather because they are typical of the issues associated with owning a gun, such as the right to bear arms and the supposed thwarting of socialistically-oriented government. And the United States is a gun-owning society. In fact, most recept estimates agree that there are over 90 million privately owned guns in the U.S. with approximately 24 million of these being small handguns (17).It would appear that most social and behavioral scientists believe that the surface, political issue of gun control is related to a myriad of other issues, such as aggressive attitudes and behavior, liberal-conservative ideology, class and class consciousness, the rising rate of violent crime, and so forth. Underlying the political issue of whether or not the government can achieve meaningful gun regulation is a fundamental social question-who owns guns and why. W e discern a t least six related issues: the changing way of life, fear for personal safety, the gun as a symbol, the phenomenon of loss, trust versus mistrust, and violence in society (7).

The effect of perceived risk and victimization on plans to purchase a gun for self-protection

“…While Williams and McGrath (1976) reported a significant positive association between fear of crime and handgun ownership, the sign on the fear of crime variable was negative and significant when the authors included long gun owners in their gun ownership measure. This finding highlights the importance of excluding sport owners from statistical models attempting to explain why civilians own firearms for self-defense.…”

“…Two studies even reported significant negative associations between fear and gun ownership (Sheley, Brody, Wright, & Williams, 1994;Williams & McGrath, 1976). While Williams and McGrath (1976) reported a significant positive association between fear of crime and handgun ownership, the sign on the fear of crime variable was negative and significant when the authors included long gun owners in their gun ownership measure.…”

“…Lizotte and Bordua (1980) (see also Lizotte et al, 1981), Marciniak and Loftin (1991), and Whitehead and Langworthy (1989) found significant positive associations between gun ownership and criminal victimization, while Cao, Cullen, amd Link (1997), Defronzo (1979), Glaeser and Glendon (1998), Jiobu and Curry (2001), and Williams and McGrath (1976) did not. Wright and Marston (1975) found an association for some measures of criminal victimization but not others.…”

“…hunters and nonhunters), the comparison group are respondents who do not own handguns. possibility that crime-related factors did affect defensive gun ownership, both and Williams and McGrath (1976) and Glaeser and Glendon (1998) found fear to be significantly and positively related to handgun ownership but not to gun ownership in general.…”

“…The most widely cited theoretical explanation for why people acquire firearms for self-protection, and the focus of the present study, derives from the "fear of crime" or "perceived risk" (hereafter referred to as fear/risk), and "victimization" traditions (Cao, Cullen, & Link, 1997;Dejong, 1997;Kleck, 1997;Williams & McGrath, 1976). This perspective views defensive gun ownership as an individualistic psychological coping mechanism for dealing with the "threat -actual, perceived, or emotional -posed by crime" (Cao et al, 1997;Reid et al, 1998).…”