Why do people support gun control?: Alternative explanations of support for handgun bans

Many scholars have suggested that Americans' positions on gun control are the product of culture conflicts. This assertion has been largely based on associations of gun control opinion with membership in social groups believed to be hostile, or favorable, towards gun ownership, rather than with direct measures of the cultural traits thought to mediate the effects of group membership on gun control opinion. Data from a 2005 national telephone survey were analyzed to test competing theories of why people support handgun bans. Instrumental explanations, which stress belief in a policy's likely effectiveness, accounted for less than 25 percent of the variation in support. The results supported the culture conflict perspective. Those who endorsed negative stereotypes about gun owners, and who did not believe in the need to defend their own homes against crime (versus relying on the police) were more likely to support handgun bans.     

The effect of maternal incarceration on adult offspring involvement in the criminal justice system

Researchers have estimated that 63 percent of incarcerated women have one or more minor children and most reported living with their children prior to incarceration (Mumola, 2000). Unfortunately, children of incarcerated parents have been a relatively invisible population in the research on the collateral consequences of incarceration. The goal of the current study was to examine the long-term effect of maternal incarceration on adult offspring involvement in the criminal justice system using data from the mother child sample of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Based on existing research, it was hypothesized that the adult offspring of incarcerated mothers would be more likely to have been convicted of a crime or to be sentenced to probation. The effect of maternal incarceration on correlates of criminal behavior in adolescence and early adulthood (e.g., negative peer influences, positive home environment) was also modeled to assess possible indirect effects. The results highlighted the direct effect of incarceration on adult offspring involvement in the criminal justice system, but parental incarceration had little association with correlates of criminal behavior.     

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.     

The Gender Gap among Teen Survey Respondents: Why are Boys more Likely to Report a Gun in the Home than Girls?

It is a reliable though unexplained feature of national surveys that include items on gun ownership that wives are less likely to report a gun in the home than husbands. In this article we extend the inquiry regarding this gender gap in reporting of household guns to include adolescent children (age 12–17 years). The California Health Interview Survey of 2001, the largest-ever state survey of its kind, includes over 4000 marital households in which both a parent and adolescent child were interviewed and asked whether there was a gun in the home. There is little “age gap” in reporting—California teens are almost as likely to say that there is a gun as are their parents—but there is a gender gap among both the teens and their parents. We also find a large gap in personal experience with guns—boys are three times as likely to report hunting or shooting with a family member than girls. This difference in experience fully accounts for the gender gap in reporting. The relevance of these findings for the interpretation of survey data is clear. Whether there is a gun reported in a home depends to a remarkable extent on which member of the household is asked the question. Hence, the method of selection of respondent(s) from within a household will affect estimates of the patterns and prevalence of gun ownership, and, potentially, the accuracy of case–control studies that use self-report information about guns in the home.

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.     

Women's Emancipation and the Ownership of Firearms

ABSTRACT

Criminologists argue that the involvement of women in traditionally male forms of criminality has increased as a result of their increased economic and social liberation from patriarchal control. Although this argument remains controversial, it has been suggested that emancipated attitudes and behaviors can also be linked to women's gun ownership. Using data from the General Social Survey, we test an emancipation model of women's firearm ownership. Our analysis reveals that emancipation is related to the ownership of such weapons among married but not among unmarried women. Further analysis suggests that this finding reflects the power of culture to shape the action strategies through which attitudes are put into action.     

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.     

Children of the American Prison Generation: Student and School Spillover Effects of Incarcerating Mothers

Formal equality and judicial neutrality can lead to substantive inequality for women and children, with social costs that extend beyond individuals and families and spill over into the larger social settings in which they are located. We consider the uniquely damaging effects of an “equality with a vengeance” (Chesney‐Lind & Pollack 1995) that resulted from “tough on crime” policies and the 1980s federal and state sentencing guidelines that led to the incarceration of more women and mothers. We argue that legal equality norms of the kind embedded in the enforcement of sentencing guidelines can mask and punish differences in gendered role expectations. Paradoxically, although fathers are incarcerated in much greater numbers than are mothers, the effect threshold is lower and the scale of effect on educational outcomes tends to be greater for maternal incarceration. We demonstrate both student‐ and school‐level effects of maternal incarceration: the damaging effects not only affect the children of imprisoned mothers but also spill over to children of nonincarcerated mothers in schools with elevated levels of maternal incarceration. We find a 15 percent reduction in college graduation rates in schools where as few as 10 percent of other students' mothers are incarcerated. The effects for imprisoned fathers are also notable, especially at the school level. Schools with higher father incarceration rates (25 percent) have college graduation rates as much as 50 percent lower than those of other schools. The effects of imprisoned mothers are particularly notable at the student level (i.e., with few children of imprisoned mothers graduating from college), while maternal imprisonment effects are found at both student and school levels across the three measured outcomes. We demonstrate these effects in a large, nationally representative longitudinal study of American children from the 1990s prison generation who were tracked into early adulthood.     

Marriage,work, and social reproduction in one area of southern Europe at the end of the 18th century: Lorca (1797)

In this article, the process of social reproduction has been analyzed in Lorca, a municipality in the western Mediterranean region of Murcia (Spain) at the end of the 18th century. An exhaustive subset of the data from the local Godoy's census (1797) was used consisting of 29,875 individuals living in a total of 7566 households. This population was distributed between the town, the Huerta (the Murcian irrigated market garden community), and the countryside. Results confirmed, on the one hand, that a direct relationship existed between higher social status and size of household, with a higher number of older children in the households of land-owning farmers than of tenant farmers or day workers. More children in higher status households indicate that children left home later, and therefore inheritance problems rose, which influenced social reproduction within these groups. Spatially, a clear division can be found between the countryside with more male work-hands and a higher index of male activity and the Huerta with a certain female dominance.     

Marriage,work, and social reproduction in one area of southern Europe at the end of the 18th century: Lorca (1797)

In this article, the process of social reproduction has been analyzed in Lorca, a municipality in the western Mediterranean region of Murcia (Spain) at the end of the 18th century. An exhaustive subset of the data from the local Godoy's census (1797) was used consisting of 29,875 individuals living in a total of 7566 households. This population was distributed between the town, the Huerta (the Murcian irrigated market garden community), and the countryside. Results confirmed, on the one hand, that a direct relationship existed between higher social status and size of household, with a higher number of older children in the households of land-owning farmers than of tenant farmers or day workers. More children in higher status households indicate that children left home later, and therefore inheritance problems rose, which influenced social reproduction within these groups. Spatially, a clear division can be found between the countryside with more male work-hands and a higher index of male activity and the Huerta with a certain female dominance.     

THE SOCIAL ECOLOGY OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN*

Despite more than three decades of research on the topic of violence against women, the relative contribution of individual, family and community factors to victimization risk remains unknown. We use self‐report data from the Area‐Identified National Crime Victimization Survey to study the correlates of stranger, nonstranger and intimate‘partner violence against women. Regardless of victim‐offender relationship, we find that the risk for victimization is highest among young, single women with children, particularly those who have lived in the current home for relatively shorter periods. Area family and age composition appear to have stronger direct relationships with women's violence than poverty or racial composition measures. We also find there to be more similarities than differences in the individual, family, and community correlates of stranger, nonstranger and intimate partner violence. We discuss these findings as part of the growing body of multilevel literature on violence and on violence against women.     

The nature and circumstances of defensive gun use: A content analysis of interpersonal conflict situations involving criminal offenders

Analyses of gun-regulation policies have recently focused on the benefits of firearms, and research has shown that guns are frequently used for defense. An important implication is that restricting gun ownership may increase the net harm in the United States. However, a more thorough understanding of gun-defense situations is required before conclusions can be drawn about the harm that is prevented or generated through defensive gun uses (DGUs). This study examined a unique subset of DGU incidents that involved convicted offenders as defenders. It found that DGUs are not likely to provide similar social benefits, implying that prevalence estimates may not simultaneously estimate social benefits and that the relationship among gun carrying, encountering risky situations, and DGU is more complex than has been portrayed.     

STABILITY AND CHANGE IN ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR: THE TRANSITION FROM ADOLESCENCE TO EARLY ADULTHOOD*

This longitudinal research, based on two samples of respondents who were differentially involved in delinquency as teenagers, identifies latent trait and life‐course correlates of the persistence of antisocial behavior into young adulthood. The data show that prior delinquency is a stable predictor among respondents in both our household and institutional samples. However, although social bonding has a substantial impact on continued criminality among the household respondents, its influence is minimal among those who were previously institutionalized. The data suggest that the bonding levels and antisocial behavior of serious offenders are more resistant to change than are those of more typical and less serious offenders.     

Characteristics of sexual assault and disclosure among women in substance abuse recovery homes

Research suggests that many women experience some form of sexual assault in their lifetime and that women who engage in substance abuse often have a higher incidence of past sexual assault than women in the general population. Given the documented rates of sexual assault among women in recovery from substance use, it is important to explore community interventions that promote positive recovery from substance use and sexual assault. One model that promotes successful substance use recovery is the Oxford House--a democratic, self-supported substance use recovery home. Research demonstrated that living in an Oxford House provides sober social support and that this increased social support may promote the use of positive coping strategies to strengthen recovery from substance use, however; the relationship between social support and sexual assault for women is unclear. Thus, the current study examines the Oxford House model for women in recovery from substance use who have experienced sexual assault. A cross-sectional sample of women living in Oxford Houses in the United States was obtained to examine the relationship among disclosure of sexual assault, social support, and self-esteem. Results suggested that many women used Oxford House as a setting in which to disclosure prior sexual assault. Results also indicated that women who disclosed their assault experience reported higher self-esteem and social support than women who had not disclosed. Possible implications include the value of substance abuse recovery homes as a safe, supportive environment for women to address issues related to sexual assault.     

Who were the families of “natural” children in nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro,Brazil?: A comparison of baptismal and census records

The article analyzes the census records for Sao Cristovao in 1870 to determine the proportions of single mothers in the population and whether they were living in female-headed households, as companheiras in male-headed households (in consensual union), or as agregadas or dependent members of a household headed by someone else, who was not the sexual partner of the single mother. The socio-economic and racial characteristics of the single mothers are also compared to each other and to the married population. The data suggest that approximately one-third of single Brazilian mothers and their children were living in informal two-parent relationships. These women were not substantially different from the two-thirds of single mothers who were living either as female heads of households or as dependents in other households, in terms of race, age, or occupation. Women who were female heads of households were somewhat older than the average single mother in a consensual union, and the women living in dependent situations were slightly younger. The greatest difference between these two groups of women is that many married mothers had no occupations while the vast majority of single mothers listed professions. The baptismal records of illegitimate babies suggest that the vast majority of them had ritual kinfolk, and some were grandparents involved in their baptisms and perhaps also in their daily living arrangements.     

THE FACTUAL FOUNDATION FOR CERTAIN KEY ASSUMPTIONS OF GUN CONTROL

The case for legal restrictions on gun ownership and use as a strategy for reducing criminal violence relies on factual assumptions about the nature of gun ownership and violent behavior. Five of the most crucial ones are identified and subjected to a comparison with the available empirical evidence. All of the following assumptions were found to be substantially at variance with the evidence: (1) Guns are five times deadlier than the weapons most likely to be substituted for them in assaults in which guns are not available. (2) The sight of a gun can elicit aggression, due to the learned association between guns and violence. (3) If guns are made more expensive, more difficult to obtain, or legally risky to own, people will do without them. (4) Guns are useless for self-defense or protection of one's family, home, or business, and have no deterrent effect on criminals. (5) Homicides are largely "crimes of passion" committed by otherwise law-abiding citizens not distinguishable from other people. Therefore, control must be directed at all gun owners rather than select criminal subgroups.     

Differential indicators of defensive weapon ownership: a comparison by genderPublications received

While the majority of studies examining defensive weapon ownership identify variables related to ownership, these studies suffer from several methodological problems. Inclusion of sporting influences into a measure of defensive weapon ownership and errors in attribution of demographic variables weaken the results in many of these studies. In order to overcome these obstacles, only those respondents claiming to live alone were included in this analysis, and respondents were asked specifically if they had purchased a weapon for self-protection. Separate probit equations were estimated for males and females to assess differential indicators for men and women. Results indicate that although having a prior victimization was a significant positive indicator of self-help for men, women did not display similar relationships. Variables dealing with neighborhood characteristics, such as the percent of single parent households with children aged twelve through twenty and perceptions that crime is increasing in the neighborhood, were significant predictors of defensive weapon ownership for women.     

Specifying the role of exposure to violence and violent behavior on initiation of gun carrying: a longitudinal test of three models of youth gun carrying

Two waves of longitudinal data from 1,049 African American youth living in extreme poverty are used to examine the impact of exposure to violence (Time 1) and violent behavior (Time 1) on first time gun carrying (Time 2). Multivariate logistic regression results indicate that (a) violent behavior (Time 1) increased the likelihood of initiation of gun carrying (Time 2) by 76% after controlling for exposure to violence at Time 1, which is consistent with the stepping stone model of youth gun carrying, and (b) youth who were both exposed to violence at Time 1 and engaged in violent behavior at Time 1 were more than 2.5 times more likely to initiate gun carrying at Time 2 compared to youth who had neither of these characteristics, which supports the cumulative risk model of youth gun carrying. The authors discuss the implications of these findings in clarifying the role of violence in the community on youth gun carrying and the primary prevention of youth gun violence.     

Gender, traditionalism, and attitudes toward domestic violence within a closed community

This research was aimed at examining the attitudes toward domestic violence of people living in communal secular and religious kibbutzim. The findings, disregarding gender or traditionalism, indicate that most of the kibbutz members examined view the kibbutz as almost totally lacking any problem of violence toward women by their partners. The belief that the kibbutz home is a secure place for women within the family framework appears, surprisingly, at a higher frequency among women than among men. There are two possible theoretical explanations for this finding. First, the kibbutz lifestyle has indeed brought about equal power relationships, which explains why domestic violence is not viewed as a social problem, mostly by secular women. Second, women, who play a relatively minor role in constructing the public agenda in the kibbutz, have not become aware of the existence of this issue in the closed community.