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.     

Multiple Imputation of the Supplementary Homicide Reports, 1976–2005

The Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), assembled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), have for many years represented the most valuable source of information on the patterns and trends in murder and non-negligent manslaughter. Despite their widespread use by researchers and policy makers alike, these data are not completely without their limitations, the most important of which involves missing or incomplete incident reports. In this analysis, we develop methods for addressing missing data in the 1976–2005 SHR cumulative file, related to both non-reports (unit missingness) and incomplete reports (item missingness). For incomplete case data (that is, missing characteristics on victims, offenders or incidents), we implement a multiple imputation (MI) approach based on a log-linear model for incomplete multivariate categorical data. Then, to adjust for unit missingness, we adopt a weighting scheme linked to FBI annual estimates of homicide counts by state and National Center for Health Statistics mortality data on decedent characteristics in coroners’ reports for deaths classified as homicide. The result is a fully-imputed SHR database for 1976–2005. This paper examines the effects of MI and case weighting on victim/offender/incident characteristics, including standard errors of parameter estimates resulting from imputation uncertainty.

The effect of sexual priming cues on emotional recognition in nonviolent child sexual abusers: a preliminary study

This article describes a study that used a computer-based task to investigate the emotional recognition skills of child sexual abusers. The experiment consisted of two phases (prime and probe) and measured both response time and error rates to facial expressions. The priming phase of the experiment consisted of the presentation of short phrases via computer of either sexual or neutral content. The probe phase of the experiment consisted of the presentation of adult facial expressions depicting either the emotion fear or surprise. Results showed child sexual abusers to be slightly less accurate overall. Furthermore, contrary to prediction, the effect of sexual priming appeared to make child sexual abusers actually better at recognizing fearful faces (p = .055). This result is discussed in relation to current victim empathy theory and treatment implications for sexual offenders.     

Can Birth Trauma Be Confused for Abuse?

Abstract: An unexpected infant death is usually investigated with a complete autopsy. If evidence of prior trauma is found at autopsy in these cases, suspicion is raised for nonaccidental trauma. In a young infant, the residua of trauma received during birth has the potential to be incorrectly interpreted as nonaccidental trauma. We report a the findings of a 4 1/2‐month‐old‐infant that died unexpectedly with a healing linear skull fracture and a circular lesion over the calvarium found at autopsy. Though this lesion was concerning, the remainder of the autopsy and the histological findings did not support a diagnosis of recent trauma. Review of the literature describing birth injuries made the diagnosis of healing, residual birth trauma more convincing in this case.     

Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design

Policy Sciences - The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments to impose major restrictions on individual freedom in order to stop the spread of the virus. With the successful development of a...     

Does business influence government regulations? New evidence from Canadian impact assessments

Regulatory impact assessments frequently embed stakeholder consultations in their design. Canada was one of the early adopters of such an approach and therefore has systematic documentation on the actors taking part in these consultations. This article asks whether these consultations have an influence on regulatory change and whether business disproportionally benefits from them. After converting the documentation into data, we find that these consultations do in fact matter: the more diversified the stakeholders taking part, the more stringent the changed regulations. But we also found that for a subset of regulatory changes, those likely to carry high economic stakes, business takes advantage of the consultation, often obtaining some reduction in regulatory stringency. These reductions, however, are conditioned on the limited presence of opposing views expressed during the consultations.     

The Revised German Raw Materials Strategy in the Light of Global Political and Market Developments

Raw material markets have proven to be challenging in recent years. The so‐called critical raw materials (CRMs), which are required for green technology, have particularly high environmental and supply risks. The revised German raw materials strategy attempts to address challenges of production and supply of CRMs and other mineral‐based raw materials. This contribution analyzes the motivation, measures, goals, and challenges of the German raw materials strategy in the light of global economic and political developments, applying the qualitative method GABEK®. Results show that the revised strategy is more ambitious and reaches farther than the initial strategy of 2010. Challenges that remain include the lack of willingness of the German industry to engage in mine production and the more pro‐active political approaches demonstrated elsewhere. As all major economic powerhouses outside of Europe pursue a hands‐on approach, it remains questionable if the revised German raw materials strategy will fundamentally be able to sustainably secure raw material supply for the German industry.