Photo by Betsy Farrell on Good Housekeeping
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/news/a47914/florida-school-shooting-victims-list/
O’Brien and colleagues (2013) argued that racism-related attitudes can predict whether or not their gun ownership and gun-control attitudes. Data from the American National Election Study (ANES) encompassed an individual’s demographic, anti-government sentiment, and implicit racism of U.S. whites. These variables were then compared to examine the relationships between racism, gun ownership, and opposition to gun control, through which researchers found that symbolic racism was positively correlated to having a gun in the home and opposition to gun control policies in US whites. Specifically, for each 1 point increase in symbolic racism, there was a 50% increase in the odds of having a gun in the home and a 28% increase in support of gun permits. Strikingly, the relationship between symbolic racism and opposition to banning handguns in the home was non-significant after accounting for having a gun in the home, which likely represents self-interest in the right to bear arms.
Australia has not seen a fatal mass shooting since 1996 when the government encouraged people to get rid of their guns by buying them back and imposed stricter gun reforms (Chapan, Alpers, Jones, 2016). Since attitudes are notoriously difficult to change, it would be far more effective to try and reduce the number of guns in the home, like Australia has, than to try and change individuals attitudes on gun control.
-Alexa Montemayor, Senior in APUG