For example, illiberal leaders, such as Duterte in the Philippines, will often openly mock their opposition, while more established authoritarians such as Putin will silence critical voices through threats of violence and assassinations.
Further compounding the challenges around academic research on gun violence legislation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC is unable to conduct any independent, nonpartisan research on the subject. As a result, of the top 30 causes of death in the United States, gun violence is the least researched and second least funded, with many critical research questions left unanswered.
Recently, NRATV personalities have deployed this technique to argue against common-sense legislation introduced in the th Congress to implement a universal background check system for firearm sales. The bill would close existing loopholes in the background check process, which currently only requires licensed gun dealers to run a background check on buyers before selling them a firearm.
By requiring private sales of firearms—including online sales and sales made at gun shows—to require a background check on all buyers to ensure that they are legally allowed to obtain a firearm before completing the sale, the legislation would prevent prohibited people from exploiting gaps in the existing system to obtain a firearm.
However, instead of engaging in policy discussion, the NRA chose to pivot the debate using lies and tangents. That government overreach to block us from exercising our constitutional right is a clear and present danger. It is a threat to our republic disguised as gun safety, two words which are a tip off to mean unconstitutional.
Nothing in the bill would criminalize law-abiding citizens, and the bill contains explicit language barring the creation of a gun registry. Much like demagogues and autocrats demonize their opposition, the NRA attacks advocates of gun violence prevention in order to justify its political agenda. In this vein, the group and its surrogates have repeatedly painted the opposition as traitors who seek to strip the law-abiding gun owner and American patriot of their fundamental freedoms.
This tactic serves as an umbrella to vilify the media, government officials, and civil society members who advocate for legislation that would reduce gun violence. The focus on painting traditional media as a self-aggrandizing disinformation machine is a common theme across NRA media platforms. You guys love it. Crying white mothers are ratings gold to many in the legacy media.
Members of Congress advancing gun violence prevention legislation face regular attacks from the NRA. The NRA attempts to vilify the speaker by making her appear elitist and out of touch with the struggles of average Americans—willing to abuse her power in order to fulfill her personal agendas, including those that would allegedly limit the rights of gun owners. Feinstein as someone who is morally opposed to the Second Amendment and American freedoms.
The visibility of Sen. In response to a speech delivered by Sen. Senate and the Democratically controlled House of Representatives want to disarm me. That could cost me and my family our lives. Civil society is actively engaged in the quest to end gun violence and prevent more families from being torn apart by preventable tragedies.
Strongman leaders use fearmongering rhetoric as part of an overall agenda to gain power and retain control over a country. The National Rifle Association uses these tactics to control the debate around gun violence and ensure the gun industry continues to be profitable, regardless of the human toll. Public opinion research indicates that the majority of people in the United States—across partisan lines—support policies to reduce gun violence, such as universal background checks for all firearm sales and assault weapons bans, yet polling data also indicate that a majority of Americans believe gun ownership increases personal safety.
By perpetuating a culture of fear and divisiveness, the gun rights group is crippling legislators and lawmakers who want to address a public health crisis that kills more than 35, people a year in the United States. While the strategy of the National Rifle Association has been remarkably effective thus far, the United States has recently experienced a shift around gun culture.
In , following the murder of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, by a shooter armed with an assault rifle, several corporations severed ties with the gun rights organization.
The NRA has established a narrative that frames the organization as the protector of freedom while combating the passage of legislation that would make communities safer from gun violence.
Yet the group is not driven by a desire to protect fundamental freedoms. Much like a nondemocratic leader, its goal is centered around a desire to secure and sustain political power. She previously served in the Obama administration in the U.
Prior to her political appointment, she served as the inaugural Hillary R. The author wishes to thank Chelsea Parsons for her indispensable counsel. She thanks Steve Bonitatibus for his vital advice and guidance in writing this report. Arkadi Gerney , Chelsea Parsons. A study reported that new gun owners were younger and more likely to identify as liberal than long-standing gun owners Wertz et al. Although Kalesan et al. It would also be a mistake to equate gun ownership with opposition to gun legislation reform or vice-versa.
Although some evidence supports a strong association Wolpert and Gimpel, , more recent studies suggest important exceptions to the rule. Women tend to be more likely than men to support gun control, even when they are gun owners themselves Kahan and Braman, ; Mencken and Froese, Older age 70—79 Americans likewise have some of the highest rates of gun ownership, but also the highest rates of support for gun control Pederson et al.
According to a survey, the majority of the US public also opposes carrying firearms in public spaces with most gun owners opposing public carry in schools, college campuses, places of worship, bars, and sports stadiums Wolfson et al. Despite broad public support for gun legislation reform however, it is important to recognize that the threat of gun restrictions is an important driver of gun acquisition Wallace, ; Aisch and Keller, As a result, proposals to restrict gun ownership boosted gun sales considerably under the Obama administration Depetris-Chauvin, , whereas gun companies like Remington and United Sporting Companies have since filed for bankruptcy under the Trump administration.
Developing a psychological understanding of attitudes towards guns and gun control legislation in the US that accounts for underlying emotions, motivated reasoning, and individual variation must avoid the easy trap of pathologizing gun owners and dismissing their fears as irrational. Although the research on fear and gun ownership summarized above implies that non-gun owners are unconcerned about victimization, a closer look at individual study data reveals both small between-group differences and significant within-group heterogeneity.
For example, Stroebe et al. Fear of victimization is therefore a universal fear for gun owners and non-gun owners alike, with important differences in both quantitative and qualitative aspects of those fears. In addition, biased risk assessments have been linked to individual feelings about a specific activity.
Whereas many activities in the real world have both high risk and high benefit, positive attitudes about an activity are associated with biased judgments of low risk and high benefit while negative attitudes are associated with biased judgments of high risk and low benefit Slovic et al. For those that have positive feelings about guns and their perceived benefit, the risk of gun ownership is minimized as discussed above. However, based on findings from psychological research on fear Loewenstein et al.
Consistent with this dichotomy, both calls for legislative gun reform, as well as gun purchases increase in the wake of mass shootings Wallace, ; Wozniak, , with differences primarily predicted by the relative self-serving attributional biases of gun ownership and non-ownership alike Joslyn and Haider-Markel, Psychological research has shown that fear is associated with loss of control, with risks that are unfamiliar and uncontrollable perceived as disproportionately dangerous Lerner et al.
Although mass shootings have increased in recent years, they remain extremely rare events and represent a miniscule proportion of overall gun violence. While some evidence suggests that gun owners may be more concerned about mass shootings than non-gun owners Dowd-Arrow et al.
There is little doubt that parental fears about children being victims of gun violence were particularly heightened in the wake of Columbine Altheide, and it is likely that subsequent school shootings at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary, and Stoneman Douglas High have been especially impactful in the minds of those calling for increasing restrictions on gun ownership.
However, such responses may not only be ineffective, but potentially damaging. As with the literature on DGU, the available evidence supporting the effectiveness of specific gun laws in reducing gun violence is less than definitive Koper et al.
Crucially however, this perspective fails to consider the impact of gun control legislation on the fears of those who value guns for self-protection.
In other words, gun control proposals designed to decrease fear have the opposite of their intended effect on those who view guns as symbols of personal safety, increasing rather than decreasing their fears independently of any actual effects on gun violence. Such policies are therefore non-starters, and will remain non-starters, for the sizeable proportion of Americans who regard guns as essential for self-preservation.
In this essay, it is further argued that persisting debates about the effectiveness of DGU and gun control legislation are at their heart trumped by shared concerns about personal safety, victimization, and mass shootings within a larger culture of fear, with polarized opinions about how to best mitigate those fears that are determined by the symbolic, cultural, and personal meanings of guns and gun ownership.
It likewise suggests a way forward by acknowledging both common fears and individual differences beyond the limited, binary caricature of the gun debate that is mired in endless arguments over disputed facts. For meaningful legislative change to occur, the debate must be steered away from its portrayal as two immutable sides caught between not doing anything on the one hand and enacting sweeping bans or repealing the 2nd Amendment on the other. In reality, public attitudes towards gun control are more nuanced than that, with support or opposition to specific gun control proposals predicted by distinct psychological and cultural factors Wozniak, such that achieving consensus may prove less elusive than is generally assumed.
Finally, the Dickey Amendment should be repealed so that research can inform public health interventions aimed at reducing gun violence and so that individuals can replace motivated reasoning with evidence-based decision-making about personal gun ownership and guns in society.
Aisch G, Keller J What happens after calls for new gun restrictions? Sales go up. New York Times. Accessed 19 Nov Altheide DL The Columbine shootings and the discourse of fear. Am Behav Sci — Article Google Scholar. American Psychological Association One-third of US adults say fear of mass shootings prevents them from going to certain places or events. Press release, 15 August Anglemeyer A, Horvath T, Rutherford G The accessibility of firearms and risk for suicide and homicide victimization among household members: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Ann Int Med — Google Scholar. Accid Anal Prev — PubMed Article Google Scholar. Stanf Law Rev — Soc Sci Med — Am J Public Health — Bhatia R Center for American Progress. Braman D, Kahan DM Overcoming the fear of guns, the fear of gun control, and the fear of cultural politics: constructing a better gun debate. Emory Law J — Cook PJ, Ludwig J Guns in America: National survey on private ownership and use of firearms.
National Institute of Justice. J Risk Uncertain 39 3 — J Quant Criminol — Cramer CE, Burnett D Both sides use comparative data from other countries to bolster their arguments. Gun control advocates draw comparisons with countries that have stricter gun laws and much lower levels of gun violence. Opponents cite countries like Switzerland, with high levels of gun ownership and much lower gun-homicide rates, as evidence of the protective benefit of guns. Clearly, gun-related crime has more than a single cause, and measurements and trends are subject to manipulation by both sides.
For example, while decreasing adult homicide rates in urban areas with tough gun laws are cited as proof of the effectiveness of control, increasing youth homicide rates in the same areas are cited as proof of its futility. With such wildly divergent sets of statistical ammunition, one wonders if it even makes sense to prepare for this debate by arming oneself with facts and figures. At a minimum, it seems useful to try to quantify the problem, if not its exact nature. Most estimates place the number of guns in the United States at somewhere over million.
Approximately million guns became available to the general public between and , according to statistics compiled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, but some of these are presumably no longer in existence or at least not in working order.
Handguns and rifles each account for slightly over a third of the total, with shotguns slightly under a third. An estimated 4 million new guns are added to these totals annually, and in recent years, over half of the new guns were handguns. Somewhere over a million crimes are committed each year involving a firearm, with recent estimates in the range of 1.
The number of deaths due to guns each year is approximately 38,, divided about evenly between homicides and suicides, with a small fraction attributed to accidents. The "Debate" Reducing the issue of gun control to "pros" and "cons" is probably the least desirable outcome of studying gun control, but it may be a very useful beginning. The pure pleasure of argument will attract some students. Other students may appreciate being asked for their opinions, rather than having to come up with a "right" answer at the outset of the discussion.
The debate used to be waged-both in classrooms and elsewhere-largely on constitutional grounds in terms of the right of individuals to keep and bear arms versus the role of government in providing for the common good. The U. Supreme Court has had relatively little to say about the Second Amendment, the main constitutional buttress of arguments that regulation is illegal. The amendment reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
When the Supreme Court has ruled, it has been more likely to allow regulation than to prohibit it, at least at the state level. Even Daniel Polsby, a lawyer and one of the most eloquent and persuasive opponents of gun control, suggests that seeking constitutional protection under the Second Amendment is a flawed approach. He argues that a guaranteed right to bear arms under any circumstances, including those that might endanger public safety, would provide grounds for repeal of the amendment rather than a case for respecting it.
Instead, Polsby argues that the best reason for opposing gun control is that "gun control laws don't work. The terms, but not the tenor, of the debate have changed.
Some of the most persuasive of the gun control opponents employ economic arguments, using rational choice theory to demonstrate the inability of regulation to stop the flow of guns into neighborhoods where crime is the dominant employer in local labor markets.
Gun control advocates argue from a public health standpoint, noting that while guns may not cause violence, they do cause violence to be far more lethal. This "lethality," in suicide and accidents as well as homicide, is the imperative from a public health perspective for regulating guns like other deadly substances. I recently listened to a debate, staged by a public policy school, that featured two respected figures hurling statistics at each other. They treated each other with disdain.
I was appalled that this was the way in which we modeled "public affairs" for adults, let alone for young people. Despite my own bias in favor of regulation, I found myself wondering if such regulation could be effective in a society so full of discord and so lacking in civil discourse.
Opponents of regulation argue that laws are not the primary arbiter of behavior. On the other hand, there is surely a social cost when "bad" laws are disregarded, divert resources, or produce a false sense of security.
Others would argue that the role of law is not primarily to change behavior, but to reflect the behavioral norms that a society professes. Even when these norms conflict, the process by which they are negotiated suggests a value in accepting the outcomes. An Alternative Process Consider the following primary learning objectives established for a curriculum that addresses public policy approaches to reducing gang violence: 1 to increase student knowledge of the problem, substituting facts and specific information for stereotypes and generalities 2 to listen to a range of opinions, gaining practice both in persuading others to change and in being open to change 3 to understand that laws need not only to have worthy ends, but must provide effective means 4 to demonstrate the role of ordinary citizens in shaping good laws.
These objectives apply equally well to the study of gun control or to any other public policy issue. According to these sorts of arguments, people who never go to college stay reasonable, normal, or—depending on how you look at it—asleep.
My best friend had gone through a tough divorce and was remarrying. I was thrilled for him. As a bonus, the wedding would take place in New Orleans, where my friend lives. New Orleans is a miraculous place, and my favorite city to visit in America. The notion of a trip there shone out of the fog and dreariness of this whole era of history. In , when it was released, the song spawned a new microeconomy of commentary denouncing it as a distillation of rape culture , or fretting over whether enjoying its jaunty hook was defensible.
In the video, directed by the veteran Diane Martel, three models dressed in transparent thongs peacock and pose with a baffling array of props a lamb, a banjo, a bicycle, a four-foot-long replica of a syringe while Thicke, the producer and one of the co-writers Pharrell Williams, and the rapper T. Research has found that having children is terrible for quality of life—but the truth about what parenthood means for happiness is a lot more complicated.
Few choices are more important than whether to have children, and psychologists and other social scientists have worked to figure out what having kids means for happiness. Others have pushed back, pointing out that a lot depends on who you are and where you live. But a bigger question is also at play: What if the rewards of having children are different from, and deeper than, happiness?
The early research is decisive: Having kids is bad for quality of life. In one study , the psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues asked about employed women to report, at the end of each day, every one of their activities and how happy they were when they did them. They recalled being with their children as less enjoyable than many other activities, such as watching TV, shopping, or preparing food.
At least it seems that way, judging by the number of reporters calling me to ask about the sex lives of conjoined twins since the TLC reality show Abby and Brittany went on the air several weeks ago. But not as conflicted as we singletons seem to feel about them having sex. Typically, people who are close to conjoined twins come to adjust and see them as different but normal; they seem fairly untroubled by the idea of conjoined twins pursuing sex and romance.
But those who are watching from afar cannot abide. He answered with a whisper and walked out to the hallway to take the call. What was so urgent as to pull the chief of staff out of a Supreme Court confirmation hearing just two weeks before a presidential election? The first photo in the post was of Swift with the word VOTE superimposed on it in large blue letters.
But a swipe revealed a second photo, of Swift carrying a tray of cookies emblazoned with the Biden-Harris campaign logo. If your reaction to this news is something like, Wait a second, what? NASA is trying to land people on the moon again? Vaccination is the best protection against infection. But when breakthroughs do occur, a very basic question still has an unsatisfying answer.
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