The belief that guns deter crime and support for capital punishment

One of the many reasons for gun ownership in the USA is the belief that citizen gun ownership helps to reduce crime. The rationale for this belief can be linked to deterrence – the perception that the threat of harm from confronting someone with a gun outweighs the potential benefit from crime – and will reduce the likelihood of engaging in criminal behavior. Similarly, deterrence is often referenced as a reason to support capital punishment. This is the first study to explicitly link support for the individual threat of lethal violence and the state threat of lethal violence by testing the hypothesis that the belief that guns reduce crime is positively correlated with support for capital punishment. Tests using a 2010 survey support this hypothesis for general support of capital punishment and for support of capital punishment with the life without parole option. The theoretical implications of considering deterrence as a value-expressive argument are explored.     

FIREARMS OWNERSHIP, GUN CONTROL ATTITUDES, AND NEIGHBORHOOD ENVIRONMENT

Consensus has not been reached on whether a relationsip exists among violent crime, fear of crime, and firearms ownership. The questions addressed here are how, if at all, the neighborhood environments of urban blacks and whites affect their patterns and levels of gun ownership, what their attitudes are toward gun regulation, and whether there is a relationship between gun regulation attitudes and firearms ownership. Data collected through a mail questionnaire from white and black residents of high and low homicide risk neighborhoods in Detroit were used to test the questions. Results indicate, for the most part, that blacks and whites hold different attitudes toward gun regulation, that gun regulation attitudes affect gun ownership patterns, and that only in one instance did neighborhood environment explain gun ownership relatively well.     

GENDER,FEAR, AND PROTECTIVE HANDGUN OWNERSHIP*

Nonrecursive models which have been used to assess the potentially reciprocal relationship between fear of crime and handgun ownership may suffer on two accounts: (a) the use of “weak” instrumental variables: and (b) the measurement of household (versus personal) handgun ownership. Data from the 1980 NORC General Social Survey are used in this study to minimize these problems in examining the relationships among fear of crime, victimization, and protective handgun ownership among males and females. Significant effects of fear and victimization on personal gun ownership are found among men but not among women. These results are discussed in light of two concerns. First, earlier research is confirmed that finds gender differences in the factors influencing gun ownership. Second, a clear need is emphasized for further research addressing questions of both conceptualization and measurement in the study of fear of crime and its effects on protective handgun ownership.     

Trends in Women's Gun Ownership, 1973–2002

In recent years controversy has arisen over whether the rate of women's gun ownership has increased over time. While media reports claimed a rising trend in women's gun ownership, existing scholarly studies found stable rates over time. This paper investigates the issue using the 1973–2002 General Social Survey data. Our bivariate analysis reveals a declining trend in female gun ownership, especially in recent years. The logistic regression results indicate that holding relevant variables constant, the probability of female gun ownership decreases over time. Comparisons are also made with men. Similar results for male gun ownership are obtained. Possible explanations and implications of findings are discussed.     

Guns,Southernness, and gun control

Southerners have been found to have higher levels of gun ownership than persons who reside elsewhere. This may be due to cultural factors peculiar to the Southern region. If so, this would have interesting implications for gun control initiatives. Although the differential in gun ownership has been linked to varying support or opposition to gun control, the relationship between this variable and specific types of gun control has not been examined. With this in mind, we investigate how specific types of gun ownership interact with Southernness, controlling for the effects of other variables, to determine preferences for three different types of gun control. We use 1975 data collected by DMI on a stratified random sample of 1538 noninstitutionalized adults in the United States. An analysis of several logistic regression equations indicates that a cultural component, related to Southernness, affects attitudes toward gun control. Southerners, in general, were the most opposed to permits and handgun bans. Southern shotgun owners, in particular, were found to be the most opposed to gun registration. These findings point to the need to consider region, culture, and gun type when addressing the issue of gun control.We would be happy to supply the interested reader with an electronic copy of the data set.     

CRIMES, DISORDERS, AND THE DEMAND FOR HANDGUNS: An Empirical Analysis

In a recent paper, Bordua and Lizotte (1979) analyze determinants of firearm ownership using cross-sectional data for Illinois counties. Noting that firearms may be purchased for the purpose of sport, self-protection, or crime, they present clear evidence of sporting demand and limited evidence of defensive motives in the pattern of gun ownership. Crime rates are significant only in the equation explaining gun ownership by women (1979: 161). The purpose of the present article is to supplement the findings of Bordua and Lizotte and earlier empirical studies by focusing on the demand for handguns alone. In particular, the article analyzes the role of crime rates and fear of violence in motivating citizens to buy and keep handguns. For this purpose, aggregate time-series and cross-sectional data on handgun sales were collected and analyzed. Because handguns are durable pieces of equipment, it is necessary to use a model that distinguishes the stock of handguns at any one time from the rate of handgun purchases.     

State and Local Prevalence of Firearms Ownership Measurement, Structure, and Trends

Of the readily computed proxies for the prevalence of gun ownership, one, the percentage of suicides committed with a gun, is most highly correlated with survey-based estimates. It is the best choice for use in cross-section analysis of the effect of gun prevalence on crime patterns across states and larger counties.Analysis of this proxy measure for the period 1979–1997 demonstrates that the geographic structure of gun ownership has been highly stable. That structure is closely linked to rural tradition. There is, however, some tendency toward homogenization over this period, with high-prevalence states trending down and low-prevalence states trending up.     

The Strategic Prevention of Gun Violence Among Gang‐Involved Offenders

Problem‐oriented policing has been suggested as a promising way to understand and prevent complex gang violence problems. A number of jurisdictions have been experimenting with new problem‐oriented frameworks to understand and respond to gun violence among gang‐involved offenders. These interventions are based on the “pulling levers” deterrence strategy that focuses criminal justice and social service attention on a small number of chronically offending gang members responsible for the bulk of urban gun violence problems. As part of the US Department of Justice‐sponsored Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative, an interagency task force implemented a pulling levers strategy to prevent gang‐related gun violence in Lowell, Massachusetts. Our impact evaluation suggests that the pulling levers strategy was associated with a statistically significant decrease in the monthly number of gun homicide and gun‐aggravated assault incidents. A comparative analysis of gun homicide and gun‐aggravated assault trends in Lowell relative to other major Massachusetts cities also supports a unique program effect associated with the pulling levers intervention.     

Pulling levers focused deterrence strategies and the prevention of gun homicide

A number of jurisdictions have been experimenting with new problem-oriented policing frameworks to understand and respond to gun violence among gang-involved offenders. These interventions are based on the “pulling levers” deterrence strategy that focuses criminal justice and social service attention on a small number of chronically offending gang members responsible for the bulk of urban gun violence problems. Unfortunately, there is relatively little rigorous evaluation evidence on the effectiveness of these approaches to violence prevention. In Stockton, California, an interagency task force implemented a pulling levers strategy to prevent gun homicide among gang-involved offenders. A U.S. Department of Justice-sponsored impact evaluation suggests that the pulling levers strategy was associated with a statistically significant decrease in the monthly number of gun homicide incidents in Stockton. A comparative analysis of gun homicide trends in Stockton relative to other midsize California cities also supports a unique program effect associated with the pulling levers intervention.     

Louisiana boys and the politics of delay: gun carry law implementation in the sportsman's paradise

Gun ownership and control issues are remain divisive in academic and in public policy formation and media opinion-making. Despite the recent publication of comprehensive monographs on the subject of gun ownership and how it relates to law, culture and social structure, little is known about the actual practice of promulgating and carrying out various regulations. The implementation of seemingly permissive gun carry permit legislation in Louisiana has been obscured by politicians and law enforcement officials for largely political reasons. Racial and class-oriented subtests are inherent in local and state-level political maneuvers although issues about liability are frequently invoked when permits are not granted. Virtually all major players in this micro-level analysis are unwilling to discuss the issues involved. Consequently, not even those charged with granting the permits claim to not know just what the gun carry law actually means. The ultimate result is delay, confusion and ill-will.     

Criminal Labelling,Publicity, and Punishment

This paper considers whether publicizing criminal labels is justified as a form of punishment. It begins by arguing that making criminal labels public is inevitably stigmatizing and that stigmatization is not, as is often implied, a defining aspect of censure, but needs independent justification. It argues that justifying grounds for public criminal labelling cannot be found in either the communicative account of punishment or deterrence theory. Rather, public criminal labelling should be understood as undermining of both the communicative and the deterrent functions of punishment. Recent empirical work is drawn upon to support the claims about public criminal labelling and deterrence.     

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

Purposes

To determine if perceived risk of criminal victimization, and past criminal victimization experiences, increases the likelihood of a person owning a gun for self-protection, and to determine if defects in past research concerning the way gun ownership was measured had obscured such effects.

Methods

We analyzed data on over 2,500 U.S. adults, using different ways of measuring gun ownership, and also analyzed future plans (among persons who did not own a gun at the time of the survey) to acquire a gun for self-protection. The latter procedure avoids the causal order problem attributable to the possibility that acquiring a gun might affect victimization risks and perceived risks, as well as the reverse.

Results

The estimated effect of perceived risk and prior victimization changed from being nonsignificant when household gun ownership was the dependent variable (as in most prior research) to being increasingly strong, and statistically significant, when gun ownership of the individual respondent for defensive reasons was measured. Further, once the causal order issue was side-stepped, risk and victimization showed even stronger, significant positive effects on planning to get a gun.

Conclusions

Crime affects gun ownership, in addition to any effects that gun ownership may have on crime.     

PATTERNS OF LEGAL FIREARMS OWNERSHIP: A Cultural and Situational Analysis of Illinois Counties

Using county level data for the state of Illinois, we constructed a path analytic model predicting legal gun ownership for men. women, and minors. We consider the interplay between situational and cultural variables in determining legal ownership. Two patterns of firearms ownership are identified: (1) gun ownership among women as a response to high rales of violent crime and (2) a sporting culture. Neither pattern has strong relations to urban-rural differences amoung counties. Legal gun ownership is not necessarily related to a violent subculture. Ownership may be part of, a response to, or totally unrelated to a subculture of violence.     

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF GUN OWNERSHIP: SELF-PROTECTION IN AN URBAN ENVIRONMENT*

Based on a survey of 539 residents of Cincinnati, this study assesses various explanations of gun ownership. The analysis reveals that gender and childhood socialization into a gun culture are significantly related to protective and general (or “sport”) firearm possession. In contrast, only protective gun ownership appears to be linked to crime-related factors. Conservative crime ideology and concern about the relative level of crime in one's neighborhood increase armament for defensive purposes, while informal collective security—the belief that neighbors will provide assistance against criminal victimization—reduces protective gun ownership.     

Reducing Homicide through a “Lever‐Pulling” Strategy

The decade of the 1990s witnessed unexpected but welcome large declines in homicide and serious firearms violence. Yet, despite these declines, rates of firearms crime in the United States remain high compared to other western democracies and impose significant costs to society generally and to specific communities particularly. One promising approach to gun crime emerged in Boston during the mid‐1990s. This approach combined face‐to‐face communication of a deterrence message to youth gang members with social service outreach and crackdowns on several gangs. Boston then experienced very significant declines in youth gun crime. This approach was later repeated in Minneapolis with similar promising results. This paper presents the results of a study of a similar gun‐crime‐reduction effort in Indianapolis. Time‐series analyses suggest a significant decline in homicide similar to those observed in Boston and Minneapolis. Comparisons to six similar Midwestern cities revealed that Indianapolis was the only city to experience a significant decline in homicide. The results are discussed in the context of deterrence research and suggest the need to move beyond single‐city evaluations of promising interventions.     

ADVERSARY POLLING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL MEANING: Implications in Gun Control Elections in Massachusetts and California

Opinion survey data have been used to assert that the public's desire for serious gun control has been blocked by the "gun lobby." This construction is opposed by a survey-based counter construction developed by the gun lobby. The superiority of the gun lobby's construction is supported by this article's survey data and by analysis of actual elections in 1976 in Massachusetts and in 1982 in California. What blocks the public from getting strict gun control is that the public does not want it.     

FACTORS INFLUENCING GUN CARRYING AMONG YOUNG URBAN MALES OVER THE ADOLESCENT‐YOUNG ADULT LIFE COURSE*

This paper uses data from an ongoing panel study of urban youth to examine the causes and correlates of hidden gun carrying among young urban males. The analysis assesses the changing impact of gang membership, drug sales, and peer gun ownership for protection on gun carrying at nine separate points over the early adolescent to young adult life course. In early adolescence, gang membership is a strong motivation for gun carrying. At somewhat older ages, drug dealing, particularly high drug sales, and illegal peer gun ownership replace gang membership as the primary determinants of illegal gun carrying.     

REDUCING FIREARMS VIOLENCE THROUGH DIRECTED POLICE PATROL*

Research Summary: This evaluation of a directed police patrol project utilizes a pre-post quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group as well as an interrupted time series analysis. The results suggest that directed patrol had an impact on firearms crime in one of the target areas but not the other. Policy Implications: The results suggest that a specific deterrence strategy whereby the police utilize directed patrol to focus on suspicious activities and locations reduced violent gun crime. In contrast, a general deterrence strategy focused on maximizing vehicle stops did not have an apparent effect.