The Gun Debate: Where Do You Stand?: Articles

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol 55(3), Sep, 2016. pp. 622-636
The United States is awash in a sea of both faith and firearms. Although sociologists and criminologists have been trying to understand the predictors of gun ownership in the United States since the 1970s, it has been over two decades since social scientists of religion have been part of this important conversation. Consequently, religion is nothing more than a control variable in most studies of gun ownership. Even then, scholars have rarely gone beyond a basic measure of religious affiliation in which Protestant = 1 (else = 0). This article therefore seeks to bring social scientists studying religion back into the conversation about gun ownership in America and to move the discussion forward incrementally. It does so in three ways. First, it employs a more sophisticated measure of religious affiliation than has been used to study gun ownership in the past. Second, it measures religiosity beyond simply religious affiliation. Third, it recognizes and seeks to specify some of the various ways in which the relationship between religion and gun ownership may be mediated by other religiously influenced sociopolitical orientations. Using data from the 2006–2014 General Social Survey, hierarchical binary logistic regression models show significant effects of evangelical Protestant affiliation, theological conservatism, and religious involvement on personal handgun ownership.

Law And Human Behavior [Law Hum Behav] 2018 Apr; Vol. 42 (2), pp. 110-118. Date of Electronic Publication: 2017 Nov 27.
Adolescent gun violence is a serious public health issue that disproportionately affects young Black males. Although it has been postulated that differential exposure to childhood risk factors might account for racial differences in adolescent gun carrying, no longitudinal studies have directly examined this issue. We examined whether childhood risk factors indexing neighborhood crime, peer delinquency, and conduct problems predicted the initiation of adolescent gun carrying among a community sample of Black and White boys. Analyses then examined whether racial differences in risk factors accounted for racial differences in gun carrying. Data came from a sample of 485 Black and White boys who were repeatedly assessed from 2nd grade until age 18. Multi-informant data collected across the first 3 years of the study were used to assess neighborhood crime, peer delinquency, and conduct problems. Illegal gun carrying was assessed annually from 5th grade through age 18. Growth curve analyses indicated that children with higher initial levels of conduct problems and delinquent peer involvement, as well as those who increased in conduct problems across childhood, were more likely to carry a gun prior to age 18. Black boys were also more likely to carry guns than Whites. Racial differences were greatly reduced, but not eliminated, after controlling for initial levels of conduct problems and delinquent peer involvement. Findings suggest that early prevention programs designed to reduce adolescent gun violence (including racial disparities in gun violence) should target boys with severe conduct problems and those who affiliate with delinquent peers during elementary school.

The Yale Law Journal. 123(1):82-146
Second Amendment doctrine is largely becoming a line-drawing exercise, as
courts try to determine which “Arms” are constitutionally protected, which “people” are
permitted to keep and bear them, and in which ways those arms and people can be regulated.
But the developing legal regime has yet to account for one potentially significant set of lines: the
city limits themselves. In rural areas, gun crime and gun control are relatively rare, and gun
culture is strong. In cities, by contrast, rates of violent gun crime are comparatively high, and
opportunities for recreational gun use are scarce. And from colonial Boston to nineteenthcentury Tombstone to contemporary New York City, guns have consistently been regulated
more heavily in cities—a degree of geographic variation that is hard to find with regard to any
other constitutional right. This Article argues that Second Amendment doctrine and state
preemption laws can and should incorporate these longstanding and sensible differences
between urban and rural gun use and regulation. Doing so would present new possibilities for
the stalled debate on gun control, protect rural gun culture while permitting cities to address
urban gun violence, and preserve the longstanding American tradition of firearm localism.

Connecticut Law Review, 2013/07/01, Vol: 45, p1773
The gun lobby has succeeded in focusing the gun debate on a narrow, oversimplified question: "If a criminal attacked you, wouldn't you prefer to have a gun to protect yourself?" The easy answer, for all but the most devoted pacifist, would be an emphatic "Yes!" A prominent example of what I call in this Article the "Wouldn't you want a gun if attacked?" argument was the gun lobby's response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

Religions, Vol 9, Iss 6, p 189 (2018)
Mass shootings in the United States have generated significant media coverage and public concern, invigorating debates over gun control. Media coverage and academic research on gun control attitudes and reactions to mass shootings have paid little attention to the role of religion. Recent research sheds light on the complex relationship between religion and guns, including higher rates of gun ownership and stronger opposition to gun control among white evangelical Protestants. Using nationally representative survey data, this study examines the relationship between religious identity, gun ownership, and support for a range of gun control policies, including proposed remedies for preventing mass shootings. Compared with individuals from other religious traditions, evangelical Protestants are most opposed to stricter gun control laws and enforcement, even with statistical controls for gun ownership and demographic characteristics. Rather, they favor individualistic solutions and putting more emphasis on religious values in their social surroundings. I discuss how these findings reflect the cultural tools evangelical Protestants use to construct their understandings of social problems, including gun violence, and the broader implications for gun policy in the United States.

Maclean's. Apr2018, Issue 4, p52-53. 2p.
The article discussion the relation of gun ownership and gun safety to children in the U.S. Topics include deaths due to gun accidents involving children in the U.S., cultural aspects of disputes regarding children visiting homes where guns are present, and the potential use of guns by teachers in relation to school shootings.

Suicide & Life-Threatening Behavior; Dec2016, Vol. 46 Issue 6, p678-696, 19p, 4 Charts, 1 Graph
Past studies on suicide have investigated the association of firearm ownership and suicide risk in the United States. The aim of the present study was to build on previous work by examining the impact of firearm storage practices and the strictness of firearm regulation on suicide rates at the state level. Data were compiled from primarily three sources. Suicide and firearm ownership information was obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Strictness of handgun regulation was derived from figures available at the Law Center to Prevent Violence, and controls were taken from the US Bureau of the Census. Mixed models were fitted to the data. Household firearm ownership was strongly associated with both suicide by all mechanisms, and firearm suicide. Storage practices had especially elevated consequences on suicide rates. Percent with loaded guns and gun readiness increased suicide rates, and strictness of gun regulation reduced suicide rates. Ready access to firearms can make a difference between life and death. Loaded and unlocked firearms within reach become risk factors for fatal outcomes from suicidal behavior. Future research might want to examine ways of obtaining more recent data on individual firearm ownership. This study proposes several policy recommendations for suicide prevention.

Annals Of Internal Medicine [Ann Intern Med] 2018 Nov 20; Vol. 169 (10), pp. 704-707. Date of Electronic Publication: 2018 Oct 30.
For more than 20 years, the American College of Physicians (ACP) has advocated for the need to address firearm-related injuries and deaths in the United States. Yet, firearm violence continues to be a public health crisis that requires the nation's immediate attention. The policy recommendations in this paper build on, strengthen, and expand current ACP policies approved by the Board of Regents in April 2014, based on analysis of approaches that the evidence suggests will be effective in reducing deaths and injuries from firearm-related violence.

International Social Science Review. 2018, Vol. 94 Issue 2, preceding p1-23. 25p.
The article focuses on a National Study in the U.S. from 2009-2015, which focuses on the relationship between gun control strictness and mass murder in the U.S. Topics include recent media polls reveal that about half of the U.S. people support enactment of stricter gun control laws, and not surprisingly, such support tends to increase as the country bares witness to the horror of these shootings via the media in the aftermath of a mass shooting.

Stanford Law Review. 64(1):1-54
Sometimes a constitutional right to do a particular thing is accompanied by a right not to do that thing. The First Amendment, for example, guarantees both the right to speak and the right not to speak This Article asks whether the Second Amendment should likewise be read to encompass both the right to keep or bear arms for self-defense and the inverse right to protect oneself by avoiding arms, and what practical implications, if any, the latter right would have. The Article concludes—albeit with some important qualifications—that a right not to keep or bear arms is implied by what the Supreme Court has called the "core "and "central component'' of the Second Amendment: self-defense, especially in the home. Recognizing such a right might call into question the constitutionality of the growing number of "anti-gun control" laws that make it difficult or illegal for private individuals to avoid having guns in their actual or constructive possession.

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Volume 16, Issue 2, 198–247, April 2019
This article uses more complete state panel data (through 2014) and new statistical techniques to estimate the impact on violent crime when states adopt right-to-carry (RTC)
concealed handgun laws. Our preferred panel data regression specification, unlike the statistical model of Lott and Mustard that had previously been offered as evidence of crimereducing RTC laws, both satisfies the parallel trends assumption and generates statistically significant estimates showing RTC laws increase overall violent crime. Our synthetic control approach also finds that RTC laws are associated with 13–15 percent higher aggregate violent crime rates 10 years after adoption. Using a consensus estimate of the elasticity of crime with respect to incarceration of 0.15, the average RTC state would need to roughly double its prison population to offset the increase in violent crime caused by RTC adoption.