final essay Professional Writting
Annierossi
123738154.pdf
Testing Theories of Gun Policy Preferences Among Blacks, Latinos, and Whites in America
∗
Alexandra Filindra, University of Illinois at Chicago
Noah Kaplan, University of Illinois at Chicago
Objective. Research examining the factors shaping gun policy attitudes has focused on the general population or whites. Little is known about how self-interest, political values, or racial prejudice shape the gun policy preferences of minorities. We seek to assess the effect of self-interest, political values, and racial prejudice on the gun policy attitudes of whites, Latinos, and blacks. We also introduce a measure of prejudice difference in group violence—which has not been previously used in the literature on gun policy opinion. Methods. We use data from a new survey (2015) and analyze whites, blacks, and Latinos separately. Results. We find that many of the drivers of support for gun control found in the general population apply to minorities as well, but the substantive effects vary across groups. Similar to prior general population findings, we find that for all groups concern about crime is associated with more support for gun control, and that gun ownership, being the victim of a crime, and conservative political values are associated with less support. Conclusion. In contrast, we find that racial prejudice is negatively correlated with support for gun control among whites and Latinos, while one type of racial prejudice—racial resentment—increases support for gun control among blacks.
Surveys suggest the existence of substantial differences in gun policy preferences across racial groups. Generally, white Americans show far less support for restrictions on gun con- trol than do blacks or Latinos. For example, a 2015 Pew Research Center survey shows that 40 percent of whites compared to 72 percent of blacks and 75 percent of Latinos believe it is more important to control gun ownership rather than protect the gun rights of individuals (Pew Research Center, 2015). Yet little is known as to the origins and determinants of these racial differences in gun policy preferences. The vast majority of studies of gun policy opinion analyze general population samples; a few have looked at whites specifically. Only two studies have investigated the gun control preferences of African Americans (Kleck, 1996; McClain, 1983) and no study has looked at Latinos. The dearth of analyses of the policy preferences of these groups is not surprising as political science has paid far more attention to the interests, identities, and opinions of white Americans than to those of minorities (Junn and Matto, 2008; Filindra and Junn, 2012).
The literature on gun policy opinion has developed along three broad theoretical perspec- tives. First, some authors have privileged instrumental theories, emphasizing the influence of self-interest. Measures of self-interest typically include gun ownership, criminal victimiza- tion, and/or fear of crime (e.g., Kleck, 1996; Wolpert and Gimpel, 1998; Celinska, 2007).
∗Direct correspondence to Alexandra Filindra, Department of Political Science, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 West Harrison Street, Chicago, IL 60607-7137 〈[email protected]〉. The authors would like to thank Don Haider–Markel, Mark Joslyn, Steven Corey, and Kate Boulay for their comments and edits. Funding for the 2015 YouGov survey was provided by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Development Discovery Grant program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (IRB #2013-0959).
SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, Volume 98, Number 2, June 2017 C© 2017 by the Southwestern Social Science Association DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12418
414 Social Science Quarterly
Although surveys link gun ownership to protection from crime (Pew Research Center, 2013), recent studies of public opinion on gun policy show that fear of crime increases support for gun control (e.g., Filindra and Kaplan, 2015; Celinska, 2007). This suggests that those who are more concerned about crime may believe that limiting gun ownership adds to individual safety. A second literature has focused on the role of political values as drivers of gun policy preferences. Relevant political values included in past analyses of gun attitudes are individualism, egalitarianism, preference for small government, and political ideology (Braman and Kahan, 2006; Kahan et al., 2007; Wozniak, 2015; Celinska, 2007; Filindra and Kaplan, 2015). A third research program has focused on the role of racial pre- dispositions in shaping gun attitudes. Earlier studies rejected the idea that racial prejudice may influence gun policy preferences, charging that such arguments serve to stigmatize gun rights supporters (Kleck, 1997). More recently, scholars have hypothesized that gun ownership and related gun policy preferences function as a symbolic expression of outgroup prejudice among whites. These studies have analyzed white opinion and shown that racial resentment is a significant predictor of gun policy preferences among whites (O’Brien et al., 2013; Filindra and Kaplan, 2015). However, there are no similar studies of minority groups. Furthermore, other measures of overt racism have received little attention in the literature on gun policy and public opinion despite studies showing a resurgence of old-fashioned racism (Tesler, 2013).
This article expands our understanding of public opinion and gun control in two key ways: first, we include analyses of black and Latino respondents in order to examine differences across groups. Second, we test two measures of prejudice—racial resentment and perceptions of difference in group violence—with samples of all three racial groups. This allows us to distinguish the effects of different types of racial attitudes on gun policy preferences.
In our analyses we use data from a 2015 national survey of American adults on gun control that was specifically designed to test hypotheses related to guns and gun policy preferences. This survey includes large oversamples of blacks and Latinos. Prior studies generally relied on surveys such as the American National Election Survey (ANES) or the General Social Survey (GSS) that included very few gun policy measures and not always a full set of the relevant independent variables (cf. Kahan et al., 2007). Our analyses use indices of multiple items as the dependent variable and include indicators for all relevant constructs.
Our results show similarities in the structure of gun policy preferences among whites and Latinos but less so among blacks. Specifically, racial resentment (a measure of anti-black attitudes) dampens support for gun control among whites and Latinos but it increases support among blacks. Similarly, perceptions of blacks as more violent than whites increase opposition to gun control among whites and Latinos but have no statistically significant effect on blacks. There are also differences across groups in terms of how they respond to fear of crime and experience with victimization. Finally, although values tend to have the same estimated impact for all groups, the size of those coefficients differs markedly from one group to the next, suggesting that they contribute differently to policy opinion across racial groups.
Public Opinion on Gun Policy by Race
Before we discuss the origins of differences in support for gun control across racial groups, it is important to substantiate that such differences do exist and that they are substantial.
Testing Theories of Gun Policy Preferences 415
TABLE 1
Support for Gun Control Proposals by Race
Strongly/somewhat support Total (percent) Whites
(percent) A Blacks
(percent) B Latinos
(percent) C
Require five-day waiting period to purchase a firearm
79 79 84 77
Require trigger locks that can only be released by the gun owner
71 67 83A 79A
Create a federal database of all gun sales
67 62 86A/C 78A
Require liability insurance for guns 61 56 77A 74A
High capacity ammunition ban 61 58 73AC 67A
Assault weapons ban 58 55 74A/C 61A
Impose higher sales tax on guns 49 43 67A 64A
Ban on all handguns 25 19 41A 41A (n = 1,450) (n = 1,000) (n = 450) (n = 450)
NOTE: Superscript letters denote a statistically significant difference (χ 2 < 0.05).
The 2015 YouGov survey, which constitutes our main data set for the purposes of analysis, included several items that relate to gun policy regulations that are either in effect or have been proposed at different times. Table 1 shows the level of support for these proposals by race.1 With the exception of “requiring a five-day waiting period on firearm purchases,” for all other proposals, blacks and Latinos show greater support than do whites. Across the board, white support for most policies lags by 10–20 percentage points. Even in the case of a handgun ban, a proposal that received the least approval among all groups, there is a 21 percentage point difference between whites and the two minority groups.
Instrumental Theories of Gun Policy Preferences
The most straightforward instrumental predictor of gun policy preferences is gun owner- ship (e.g., Wolpert and Gimpel, 1998; Filindra and Kaplan, 2015; Kleck, 1996). Scholars hypothesize that gun ownership correlates with opposition to gun control because gun owners oppose impediments to gun purchases that could affect them personally (e.g., Wolpert and Gimpel, 1998; cf. Pederson et al., 2015). Scholars have also suggested a rela- tionship between experiences or perceptions of crime and gun control preferences. Several studies have shown a positive correlation between fear of crime and support for gun control (Celinska, 2007; Kleck, 1996; Filindra and Kaplan, 2015). Experimental studies also sug- gest a link between personal safety concerns and support for gun control (Haider-Markel and Joslyn, 2001).
There is little information as to whether these findings hold for both blacks and whites and no study has looked at Latinos. Filindra and Kaplan (2015) studied white respondents and found a positive correlation between fear of crime (measured as support for higher federal spending on crime) and support for gun ownership restrictions. Kleck (1996) finds that attitudinal measures of fear of crime produce a positive and statistically significant
1Superscript notations indicate statistically significant differences in proportions based on chi-square tests for the specified columns (e.g., A/C means that the proportion mentioned in column B is significantly different (p < 0.05) from those in columns A or C).
416 Social Science Quarterly
relationship for whites but not for blacks. However, the same study reports that crime rates correlate positively with support for gun control among blacks but not whites. Conversely, McClain (1983) found no statistically significant relationship between fear of crime and support for gun control among either whites or blacks. Another study shows that nonwhites, including blacks, are more likely to oppose a ban on handguns than are whites but this is not the case for other restrictions where there is no difference in opinion by race. Authors Brennan, Lizotte, and McDowall (1993) interpret this finding as the result of higher fears of victimization among blacks.
Scholars have suggested that experience with victimization correlates with opposition to gun control. The underlying hypothesis is that gun ownership makes a victim feel safer. Kleck et al. (2009) find that prior physical assault produced a statistically significant negative correlation with support for gun control. Celinska (2007) shows mixed results depending on the nature of victimization while Kleck (1996) finds null effects. Little is known about how experience with victimization affects the gun policy preferences of various racial groups. One study showed that among blacks, experience with victimization correlates with increased support for gun control, but not so for whites (Kleck, 1996).
Political Values and Cultural Explanations for Gun Policy Preferences
A number of theories have privileged social and political values as explanations for Americans’ gun policy preferences. In this view, gun attitudes can be best explained by whether a person holds individualistic or collectivistic values and whether he or she espouses a more egalitarian or hierarchical view of society (Braman and Kahan, 2006; Kahan and Braman, 2003; Wolpert and Gimpel, 1998). Equally important are people’s political views and whether they believe that government should play a small or large role in social and economic life (Wozniak, 2015). In this perspective, guns do not have a mere utilitarian function as tools, but a symbolic one: guns represent a way of life and a worldview (Kahan and Braman, 2003).
Among whites, conservatism, partisanship, level of support for egalitarianism over hierar- chicalism, and beliefs in small government contribute significantly to gun policy preferences in expected ways. Specifically, more conservative and hierarchical values correspond to lesser support for gun control. With the exception of political conservatism, measures of values have not been tested with minority samples. Surveys show that the vast majority of blacks identify as politically liberal; as a result, political ideology plays a lesser role in explaining differences in gun control preferences among blacks (Kleck, 1996). This may also be the case for Latinos, who tend to have more liberal political preferences than do non-Latino whites. Extant research on race suggests that blacks tend to embrace egalitarianism to a greater extent than do whites (Sears, Henry, and Kosterman, 2000). If this is the case for Latinos as well, this may account for part of the racial differences in gun policy preferences. Generally, differences in political values may account, in part, for racial differences in support for gun control.
Racial Prejudice and Gun Policy Preferences
In addition to values, we expect that attitudes and beliefs about racial groups play a role in shaping gun policy attitudes among Americans. Researchers have found that whites with higher levels of racial resentment are less supportive of gun control. Some have viewed this as evidence of extremely punitive criminal justice preferences (O’Brien et al., 2013). Another perspective explains gun ownership as a symbolic expression of racial privilege and
Testing Theories of Gun Policy Preferences 417
ties white gun policy attitudes to racial prejudice (Filindra and Kaplan, 2015). The authors argue that the narrative of gun rights as developed since the 1970s reflects a discourse of racial resentment.
Recent scholarship has shown that racial resentment toward blacks plays a role in shaping political opinions not only for whites but also for blacks and Latinos. According to Tesler and Sears (2010), among Latinos, racial resentment has a function that mirrors that for whites: it captures negative affect and beliefs that blacks have failed to embrace core American values. However, among blacks, it is an indicator of low racial consciousness, that is, weaker feelings of attachment and identification with the ingroup. Blacks scoring high on racial resentment against blacks are more likely to endorse anti-black stereotypes and they were also less supportive of Obama in the 2008 election. As Tesler and Sears stress, racial resentment in blacks does not indicate animosity toward the ingroup but rather lower levels of ingroup solidarity. Testing the role of racial resentment for blacks and Latinos can provide important clues as to the racial disparities in gun policy preferences.
In addition to the racial resentment measure, we include a measure of old-fashioned racism: difference in violence between blacks and whites. This variable is based on taking the difference between two variables that measure perceptions of how violent blacks and whites are. There are several important reasons for including a measure of stereotypes about group violence in the models. First, the stereotype of black violence has been central to accounts of crime in America (e.g., Peffley and Hurwitz, 2010; Entman and Rojecki, 2000). However, it is whites more so than blacks who embrace the stereotypical view of black criminality (e.g., Unnever and Cullen, 2007). Second, recent studies suggest that old-fashioned racism has enjoyed a resurgence among whites in the Obama era and it has affected both policy preferences and electoral choices (Tesler, 2013; Knuckey and Kim, 2015). Third, differences in perceptions of group violence may account for part of the differences in support for gun control across racial groups. Fourth, the violent stereotype measure has high face validity and none of the conceptual problems associated with the racial resentment measure (for a review of these concerns, see Filindra and Kaplan, 2015). The addition of a measure with high construct validity obviates these issues.
Data and Measures
The data used in this analysis come from a survey on gun control conducted online by YouGov.org in June 2015.2 The median interview time was 26 minutes. The survey included 1,000 self-described whites, 450 self-described African Americans, and 450 self- described Latinos. The data are weighted to represent the national population of whites, African Americans, and Latinos, respectively. An additional weight is included to represent the national population proportions for these three groups combined. Question wording for all items used in the analyses is provided in the Supporting Information Appendix.3
We developed three distinct dependent variables. The first dependent variable (DV) is an index of eight gun-policy-related items (alpha = 0.91). The second DV consists of an index
2For details on YouGov’s sampling methodology see Rivers and Bailey (2009). For other major surveys conducted using the YouGov online panel, see CCES 〈http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/cces/home〉.
3We also analyzed data from the 2012 ANES, which we view primarily as a robustness check for our main analyses. The results parallel the results presented here. Detailed analyses from the ANES are included in the Supporting Information Appendix. The ANES dependent variable is very similar to the Gallup measure. Specifically, it asks: Do you think the federal government should make it more difficult for people to buy a gun than it is now, make it easier for people to buy a gun, or keep these rules about the same as they are now?
418 Social Science Quarterly
FIGURE 1
Distribution of Racial Resentment Variable by Race/Ethnicity
of six gun-related beliefs (alpha = 0.93).4 Unlike the policy items that relate to concrete policy suggestions, the beliefs measure includes normative assessments about guns and gun ownership. We expect that there may be differences in the way people approach the policy and the normative dimension of firearms: for example, people may think that guns protect from crime but still support gun control measures. The third dependent variable is an item that Gallup has used to gauge opinion on gun policy for decades. It asks: “In general, do you feel that the laws covering the sale of firearms should be made more strict, less strict, or kept as they are now?”
We measure racial predispositions using two measures: the racial resentment index (Henry and Sears, 2002), consisting of four survey items, and a measure of perceived difference in violent stereotypes. Our measure of difference in violence is based on two items measuring stereotypes about group violence. Specifically, respondents were asked: “People have very different perceptions of groups in society. When it comes to African- Americans [whites], do you think that they are very violent, somewhat violent, somewhat peaceful or very peaceful?” Our measure consists of the difference between the black and white perceptions of violence. As noted earlier, this measure of racial attitudes has strong face validity and does not have the limitations associated with the racial resentment index used by previous studies. Figure 1 shows the distribution of racial resentment for each of the three racial groups, while Figure 2 does the same for the difference in violence measure. Racial resentment is a 13-point variable scaled from −6 to 6. In the analysis, this variable is rescaled as a 0 to 1 continuous variable in order to facilitate comparison across coefficients. As Figure 1 shows, racial resentment is not normally distributed and the distribution varies across groups. Whites, more so than blacks or Latinos, are clustered at the higher end of the distribution. The difference in violence measure is a seven-point measure that ranges from −3 to 3. Since for all groups we take the difference between blacks and whites, for all
4We chose to use indices rather than individual policy and attitudinal items as dependent variables because analyses have shown significant variation and instability in opinion by item (Semet and Ansolabehere, 2011).
Testing Theories of Gun Policy Preferences 419
FIGURE 2
Distribution of Difference in Violence Variable by Race/Ethnicity
three graphs, lower values indicate a perception that blacks are more violent than whites. Higher values on this scale indicate that blacks are rated as more violent than whites (we have subtracted perceptions of whites from perceptions of blacks). The modal response for all groups was zero; however, whites and Latinos were somewhat more likely to rate blacks as more violent than were blacks themselves.
Drawing upon instrumental theories, we have included measures of gun ownership (for the respondent and family members because women are more likely to live in households where other members own guns than own a gun themselves) and victimization, specifically whether the respondent or a close family member has ever been the victim of an assault.5
Since the literature also suggests that fear of crime is an independent predictor of gun policy attitudes, regardless of actual victimization, we have also included two measures related to perceptions of crime. One item asks whether there is “any area right around your home where you would be afraid to walk alone at night?” while the second item asks the respondent’s opinion whether “in the past five years, do you think that crime in the United States has increased a lot, increased somewhat, stayed the same, decreased somewhat or decreased a lot?” The first item taps the individual’s fear of possible victimization, while the second assesses crime as a social concern.
Our models include three items that measure values that according to extant research play a role in this domain. First, we have a measure of egalitarianism that consists of three items (alpha = 0.85). This index has been extensively used in the political science literature (e.g., Sears, Sidanius, and Bobo, 2000). A second index measures a preference for small government (alpha = 0.82). This measure captures respondents’ beliefs about the proper role of government in relation to individual freedom.6 Finally, the models include standard
5The survey included two additional items that asked whether the respondent or a close family member had ever been the victim of a home break-in or a mugging, respectively. However, neither of these items contributed to the fit of the models. This is consistent with the findings of Kleck et al. (2009). Since these items did not contribute to the fit of the models, we excluded them from the models presented in this article for the sake of parsimony. Models with these items included are available upon request.
6Previous studies have shown that small government beliefs correlate with a variety of conservative beliefs and policy preferences but are distinct from political conservatism (e.g., Kinder and Mendelberg, 2000).
420 Social Science Quarterly
measures for political ideology, partisanship, education, age, income, a dummy variable for Protestant faith, and one for residence in the South. Summary statistics of all variables are reported in Supporting Information Appendix A.
Method
To determine if the data warranted running separate models by race/ethnicity, we es- timated a single model in which we included the variables for race and the interactions between the race variables and all other predictors.7 The F-test for the interaction between black race and the predictors significantly contributes to the model (p < 0.01). However, this is not the case for the interaction between Latinos and the various predictors that fail to reach statistical significance at conventional levels. This indicates that the differences be- tween whites and Latinos are driven by the differences in the distributions of the predictors (e.g., that gun ownership is much higher among whites than among Latinos), whereas the difference between whites and blacks is due to both: a difference in the underlying process (as reflected in systematically different coefficients) and the difference in the distribution of the predictors (what econometricians sometimes refer to as a difference in endowments). Another distinct source of difference can be an intercept shift for a specific group: that is, blacks start out with higher levels of support for gun control even after accounting for the effect of the independent variables and their differential impact on the dependent variable. To facilitate comparison of the coefficients and goodness-of-fit measures, we report three separate models for each dependent variable, one for each race/ethnicity (weighted data).
We model responses to the policy and beliefs indices using OLS. Table 2 presents the results of both models for all three groups. Since all continuous predictors in these models are coded on a 0 to 1 scale, the OLS estimated coefficients represent maximum effects and can be compared to assess the relative substantive effects of the predictors within a model. Identical coding of all variables also permits comparison of results across models with the same dependent variable. After discussing statistical inference and the estimated direction of effect for the predictors for the models of policy preferences and beliefs, respectively, we compare the relative substantive effects of the predictors.
Results of Multivariate Analyses
First, we examine the effect of racial considerations on the gun attitudes of whites, blacks, and Latinos. In the three policy preference models (Table 2, columns 1–3) we find that for whites and Latinos, the direction of the relationship between anti-black racial resentment and support for gun control measures is negative , which is consistent with our expectations. However, racial resentment is statistically significant only for whites and only marginally so (b = −0.081; p < 0.10). Yet, our difference in violence measure, a measure of overt racial prejudice, is negative and statistically significant for both whites and Latinos. Both whites (b = −0.134; p < 0.05) and Latinos (b = −0.181; p < 0.10) who perceived that blacks are more violent than whites were more opposed to gun control than whites and Latinos who did not perceive that blacks are more violent than whites. It is also important to note that for whites, difference in violence is on a second tier of predictors in terms of substantive effects, behind gun ownership and political values. For Latinos, difference
7Analysis with interactions available upon request. Here, we show the coefficients for each group separately.
Testing Theories of Gun Policy Preferences 421
TA B
L E
2
M u
lti va
ri a
te R
e g re
ss io
n R
e su
lts B
a se
d u
p o
n 2
0 1
5 Y o
u G
o v
D a
ta
P o
lic y
P re
fe re
n c
e s
In d
e x
B e
lie fs
/A tt
itu d
e s
In d
e x
G a
llu p
It e
m (L
a w
s to
b e
M a
d e
S tr
ic te
r/ L
e ss
S tr
ic t/
K e
p t th
e S
a m
e )
W h
ite B
la c
k L
a tin
o W
h ite
B la
c k
L a
tin o
W h
ite B
la c
k L
a tin
o
R a
c ia
lr e
se n
tm e
n t
(a n
ti- b
la c
k) −0
.0 8
1 ∗
0 .0
6 4
−0 .0
3 2
−0 .1
2 7
∗∗ ∗
0 .1
2 6
∗∗ −0
.1 7
3 ∗∗
∗ −1
.3 9
6 ∗∗
∗ 1
.4 6
8 ∗∗
−0 .2
8 7
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
6 )
(0 .0
6 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .0
6 )
(0 .5
3 )
(0 .7
2 )
(0 .7
8 )
B la
c ks
m o
re vi
o le
n t
th a
n w
h ite
s −0
.1 3
4 ∗∗
−0 .0
1 7
−0 .1
8 1
∗ −0
.1 3
9 ∗∗
0 .0
1 7
−0 .2
8 4
∗∗ ∗
−1 .2
7 6
−0 .2
1 7
0 .1
3 5
(0 .0
6 )
(0 .0
7 )
(0 .1
0 )
(0 .0
6 )
(0 .0
7 )
(0 .1
1 )
(0 .8
5 )
(1 .0
1 )
(1 .1
5 )
A fr
a id
to w
a lk
a t
n ig
h t
b y
h o
m e
0 .0
2 5
0 .0
0 1
0 .0
3 5
−0 .0
1 2
0 .0
0 7
−0 .0
0 8
−0 .2
5 6
0 .3
3 8
0 .2
2 9
(0 .0
2 )
(0 .0
2 )
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
2 )
(0 .0
2 )
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .2
2 )
(0 .3
4 )
(0 .3
4 )
N a
tio n
a lc
ri m
e in
c re
a se
d (f
e a
r o
f c
ri m
e )
0 .0
8 2
∗∗ 0
.0 9
7 ∗∗
∗ 0
.0 6
5 0
.0 1
8 −0
.0 9
2 ∗∗
0 .0
1 8
0 .5
4 8
1 .6
8 4
∗∗ ∗
1 .5
9 3
∗∗ ∗
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .4
6 )
(0 .4
5 )
(0 .4
9 )
A ss
a u
lte d
(f a
m ily
m e
m b
e r)
−0 .0
5 0
−0 .0
5 6
−0 .0
3 3
−0 .0
2 5
−0 .0
7 6
∗∗ 0
.0 1
8 −0
.5 5
8 −1
.7 4
5 ∗∗
∗ −1
.0 3
1 ∗∗
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .5
1 )
(0 .5
2 )
(0 .4
8 )
A ss
a u
lte d
(s e
lf o
r se
lf a
n d
fa m
ily )
−0 .0
5 7
−0 .0
0 4
−0 .0
6 7
−0 .0
2 0
0 .0
0 5
0 .0
0 0
−1 .1
5 3
∗∗ ∗
−1 .1
4 5
∗∗ 0
.1 3
9 (0
.0 5
) (0
.0 5
) (0
.0 5
) (0
.0 4
) (0
.0 5
) (0
.0 5
) (0
.3 8
) (0
.5 7
) (0
.7 0
) G
u n
in h
o m
e (o
w n
e d
b y
fa m
ily m
e m
b e
r) −0
.1 0
6 ∗∗
∗ −0
.0 7
5 ∗∗
−0 .0
9 6
∗∗ ∗
−0 .0
9 9
∗∗ ∗
−0 .1
0 7
∗∗ ∗
−0 .0
3 2
−0 .9
6 1
∗∗ ∗
0 .3
5 1
−0 .1
7 1
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
2 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .2
9 )
(0 .8
9 )
(0 .6
6 )
G u
n in
h o
m e
(o w
n e
d b
y se
lf o
r se
lf a
n d
fa m
ily m
e m
b e
r)
−0 .1
8 1
∗∗ ∗
−0 .1
7 0
∗∗ ∗
−0 .1
8 3
∗∗ ∗
−0 .1
6 9
∗∗ ∗
−0 .1
8 3
∗∗ ∗
−0 .1
4 6
∗∗ ∗
−1 .3
2 9
∗∗ ∗
−0 .3
9 8
−0 .8
5 8
∗
(0 .0
2 )
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .0
2 )
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .2
3 )
(0 .3
9 )
(0 .4
7 )
S m
a ll
g o
ve rn
m e
n t b
e lie
fs −0
.2 3
1 ∗∗
∗ −0
.2 0
0 ∗∗
∗ −0
.2 2
9 ∗∗
∗ −0
.2 0
3 ∗∗
∗ −0
.1 6
2 ∗∗
∗ −0
.1 8
5 ∗∗
∗ −2
.1 4
6 ∗∗
∗ −2
.1 4
6 ∗∗
∗ −2
.2 4
6 ∗∗
∗
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
2 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .3
3 )
(0 .4
7 )
(0 .4
2 )
c o n tin
u e d
422 Social Science Quarterly
TA B
L E
2
C o
n tin
u e
d
P o
lic y
P re
fe re
n c
e s
In d
e x
B e
lie fs
/A tt
itu d
e s
In d
e x
G a
llu p
It e
m (L
a w
s to
b e
M a
d e
S tr
ic te
r/ L
e ss
S tr
ic t/
K e
p t th
e S
a m
e )
W h
ite B
la c
k L
a tin
o W
h ite
B la
c k
L a
tin o
W h
ite B
la c
k L
a tin
o
E g
a lit
a ri a
n is
m 0
.1 5
5 ∗∗
∗ 0
.1 6
6 ∗∗
∗ 0
.1 1
6 ∗
0 .0
6 6
∗ 0
.0 2
6 0
.0 4
9 1
.4 7
1 ∗∗
∗ 0
.3 8
7 1
.4 1
7 ∗∗
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .0
6 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
6 )
(0 .0
7 )
(0 .4
6 )
(0 .6
2 )
(0 .6
4 )
Id e
o lo
g y
(c o
n se
rv a
tis m
) −0
.1 6
2 ∗∗
∗ −0
.0 1
0 −0
.1 1
1 ∗∗
−0 .1
4 5
∗∗ ∗
0 .0
3 6
−0 .0
4 7
−1 .7
4 7
∗∗ ∗
−0 .1
7 0
0 .0
6 0
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .0
6 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .5
6 )
(0 .7
4 )
(0 .6
0 )
P a
rt is
a n
sh ip
(r e
p u
b lic
a n
is m
) −0
.0 6
5 ∗∗
−0 .0
6 3
−0 .1
2 7
∗∗ ∗
−0 .0
6 4
∗∗ −0
.0 5
2 −0
.1 1
1 ∗∗
−0 .4
7 9
−0 .8
3 5
−2 .0
8 0
∗∗ ∗
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .0
3 )
(0 .0
4 )
(0 .0
5 )
(0 .3
9 )
(0 .5
1 )
(0 .5
5 )
C o
n st
a n
t/ c
u t1
0 .6
4 6
∗∗ ∗
0 .4
7 4
∗∗ ∗
0 .7
8 9
∗∗ ∗
0 .6
4 2
∗∗ ∗
0 .5
2 8
∗∗ ∗
0 .8
4 0
∗∗ ∗
−4 .9
1 4
∗∗ ∗
−1 .1
5 9
−2 .8
8 2
∗∗ ∗
(0 .0
6 )
(0 .0
8 )
(0 .1
0 )
(0 .0
6 )
(0 .0
8 )
(0 .1
1 )
(0 .8
1 )
(1 .1
4 )
(1 .0
3 )
C u
t2 −1
.7 0
2 ∗∗
0 .6
3 1
−0 .5
5 0
(0 .7
7 )
(1 .0
6 )
(0 .9
5 )
N 1
,0 0
0 4
5 0
4 5
0 1
,0 0
0 4
5 0
4 5
0 1
,0 0
0 4
5 0
4 5
0 A
d ju
st e
d -R
2 /p
se u
d o
-R 2
0 .5
9 6
0 .2
5 7
0 .4
5 1
0 .5
9 6
0 .2
4 4
0 .4
2 4
0 .3
3 9
0 .1
9 0
.2 7
7 F
-v a
lu e
/χ 2 -v
a lu
e 7
9 .0
9 5
∗∗ ∗
8 .0
6 6
∗∗ ∗
1 8
.8 5
∗∗ ∗
7 8 .6
8 ∗∗
∗ 5
.5 8
5 ∗∗
∗ 1
5 .6
4 ∗∗
∗ 3
3 9
.7 8
∗∗ ∗
6 8
.8 7
6 ∗∗
∗ 1
2 6
.3 3
9 ∗∗
∗
L o
g p
se u
d o
lik e
lih o
o d
2 4
0 .5
8 4
1 1
8 .2
2 2
1 1
0 .4
8 3
5 6
.5 9
8 1
4 1
.3 0
7 1
2 9
.1 8
2 −6
6 0
.2 1
3 −2
5 7
.1 2
9 −2
7 7
.6 4
3
∗∗ ∗
p <
0 .0
1 ;∗
∗ p
< 0 .0
5 ;∗
p <
0 .1
0 (t
w o -t
a ile
d ).
R o b
u st
st a n d
a rd
e rr
o rs
in p
a re
n th
e se
s. A
ll IV
s a re
o n
a 0
to 1
sc a le
(s o
O L S
c o e ffi
c ie
n ts
c a n
b e
th o u g
h to
fa s
m a xi
m u m
e ff e c ts
). A
ll a n a ly
se s
a re
w e ig
h te
d to
re fle
c t
U .S
. a d
u lt
p o p
u la
tio n .
A n a ly
se s
c o n tr
o lf
o r
g e n d
e r,
a g
e ,
e d
u c a tio
n ,
in c o m
e ,
re si
d e n c e
in th
e S
o u th
, P
ro te
st a n t
re lig
io n .
Testing Theories of Gun Policy Preferences 423
in violence is second only to belief in small government and on par with gun ownership. Neither variable is statistically significant for blacks.
Similar results obtain for the gun beliefs models (Table 2, columns 4–6). Racial re- sentment is statistically significant for both whites (b = −0.127; p < 0.01) and Latinos (b = −0.173; p < 0.01) and the maximum effect of this predictor is substantively large. “Difference in violence” is also statistically significant and negative for both groups. Among whites (b = −0.139; p < 0.05), the effect is equivalent to that for racial resentment, while for Latinos (b = −0.284; p < 0.01) it exceeds the effect of racial resentment. Racial re- sentment is also statistically significant for blacks but positive (b = 0.126; p < 0.05); this suggests that the weaker one’s level of solidarity with the black ingroup, the more negative one’s beliefs about guns tend to be.
The Gallup model (Table 2, columns 7–9) shows “racial resentment” to be statistically significant for both whites (b = −1.396; p < 0.01) and blacks (b = 1.468; p < 0.05) while “difference in violence” was not statistically significant in any of the models. This may be related to question wording. Among whites, racial resentment has a large substantive effect, rivaling that of gun ownership. The same is true for blacks, for whom racial resentment has the largest effect after small government beliefs and certain crime-related measures.
Overall, these models suggest that both racial resentment and old-fashioned racism contribute to the gun policy preferences of whites and Latinos to an important degree. Although their effects are not as large as those of gun ownership and certain political values, these attributes are important in explaining both white and Latino views about guns. Our analysis also provides some evidence that racial resentment influences the gun attitudes of blacks but in this case it strengthens support for gun control rather than weakens it. Old-fashioned racial beliefs have no effect on black gun policy opinion, which underscores the social rather than realistic nature of such stereotypes.
Sociological research has sought to tie gun policy attitudes to instrumental considerations such as fear of crime and criminal victimization. As with racial considerations, we first start with the policy models presented in Table 2, columns 1–3. For all three groups, experience with victimization is negative but not statistically significant and the coefficients are substantively small. This suggests that victimization tends to drive opposition to gun control policies, but its effects are drowned out by other factors. Conversely, our measure of fear of crime (afraid to walk alone at night by the home) is positively signed but insignificant in statistical terms. However, the belief that the crime rate in the nation has increased is positive and statistically significant for both whites (b = 0.082; p < 0.05) and blacks (b = 0.097; p < 0.01) suggesting that societal-level anxiety about crime contributes to support for gun control measures. The substantive effect of this measure falls in a second tier of effects below gun ownership and political values. For whites, the substantive effect of concern about crime is similar to that of racial resentment. For Latinos, the direction of effect of this variable is also positive but it does not reach statistical significance. These results are consistent with earlier analysis that shows positive correlations between fear of crime measures and support for gun control (Celinska, 2007; Filindra and Kaplan, 2015).
The results of the gun beliefs models presented in Table 2, columns 4–6, show somewhat different effects, possibly because this measure taps normative beliefs about guns and gun owners rather than policy preferences. Among whites and Latinos, neither the fear of crime measures nor the victimization measures are statistically significant or substantively important. This suggests that for these groups, perceptions of crime and even experience with crime has little effect on their beliefs about the normative role of guns. However, among blacks, assault against a family member negatively contributes to gun beliefs and this relationship is statistically significant (b = −0.076; p < 0.05). This suggests that
424 Social Science Quarterly
among blacks who have familial experience with serious crime, this experience makes them perceive of guns more favorably as a means of self-protection. However, the substantive effect of victimization is smaller than the effect of gun ownership and some political values like belief in small government. Interestingly, perceptions of the national crime rate also affect blacks’ beliefs about guns (b = −0.092; p < 0.05). Specifically, blacks who believe that the national crime rate is on the increase are more likely to hold beliefs that guns contribute to self-protection and are good for individuals and society.
Finally, the Gallup item models that model responses to whether gun laws should be made more strict, less strict, or kept as is (Table 2, columns 7–9) are consistent in direction of effect with our policy models and most belief findings. Specifically, our fear of crime measure (afraid to walk in the dark) is not statistically significant in any of the three models and it contributes little since its substantive effects are relatively small. Anxiety about rising crime in the nation is positively correlated with support for gun control as measured by the Gallup item and statistically significant for blacks (b = 1.684; p < 0.01) and Latinos (b = 1.593; p < 0.01) but not whites. In fact, for both minorities, the substantive effect of this macro-level measure of fear of crime is second only to beliefs in small government.
The Gallup model is the only model in which experience with criminal victimization is statistically significant not only for minority groups but for whites as well. Having been personally assaulted or having a family member who has been assaulted is associated with less support for gun control for all three groups. The substantive effect of criminal victimization is comparable to that of gun ownership but less than the coefficient for beliefs in small government. Among blacks, only belief in small government has a larger substantive effect than our criminal victimization measures.
Not surprisingly, gun ownership, whether personal ownership or a gun in the home owned by another family member (the latter being more typical for women), is negatively signed, and statistically significant for all groups in our policy and beliefs models and its effects are substantively large. Only belief in small government has consistently larger maximum effects than gun ownership. This is consistent with previous findings in the literature showing that gun ownership or the presence of a gun in the household is an important predictor of gun policy preferences and gun attitudes. In our Gallup model, both measures of gun ownership are negative, statistically significant, and substantively large for whites, while for Latinos only personal ownership (not ownership by a family member) is statistically significant though both measures are negatively signed. Unlike in all other models, both measures are not statistically significant for blacks and have small substantive effects.
As previous research has shown, political values and ideology play an important role in shaping gun policy preferences and beliefs. It is important to note that these measures have the same direction of effect for all groups but the size of the substantive effects varies across models given differences in variance and response distribution across groups. Belief in small government is not only negative and statistically significant across all models and all groups but it is consistently among the predictors with the largest maximum effects if not the largest one. Egalitarianism is positive and statistically significant in all three policy models. For blacks, the substantive effect of egalitarianism is smaller only compared to belief in small government. Egalitarianism is positive but not statistically significant at conventional levels for any of the gun beliefs models; for whites alone, it reaches significance at the p < 0.10 level. In the Gallup models, the measure is statistically significant and substantively large for both whites and Latinos but not blacks. In these models, egalitarianism is in a second tier of predictors below belief in small government and ideology.
Testing Theories of Gun Policy Preferences 425
As expected based on previous findings, ideological conservatism has a significant negative effect on the gun policy preferences of whites and this effect is on par with egalitarianism but smaller than belief in small government. Partisan identification is also statistically significant among whites with Republicans less supportive of gun control than Democrats, but the substantive effects of partisanship are far smaller than those of other political variables and even old-fashioned racism. The results are similar for Latinos although here the substantive effects of the two measures appear more similar to each other. However, neither ideology nor partisanship has a statistically significant correlation with the gun policy preferences of blacks and their substantive effects are very small. Similar patterns hold for the gun beliefs models although ideology loses its statistical significance in the Latino model. In the Gallup model, ideology continues to be a strong predictor of white gun policy preferences but partisanship loses its statistical significance, while the reverse is the case for Latinos. Neither is statistically significant for blacks.
Discussion
Our results confirm that racial resentment is a significant predictor of whites’ gun policy preferences and related beliefs. This is consistent with earlier findings (Filindra and Kaplan, 2015; O’Brien et al., 2013). However, contrary to O’Brien et al. (2013), we find that old- fashioned racism is a significant predictor of opposition to gun control among whites.8 In other words, focusing on racial resentment alone misses half the story. This finding tracks Tesler’s (2013) contention that in the Obama era, overt forms of racism have reappeared in the white public. Old-fashioned racism may very well have predicted white gun attitudes in earlier eras but we cannot know for sure because of lack of data. However, there is growing historical research on the prevalence of perceptions about black violence and criminality among whites and the role of such beliefs when it comes to issues of gun ownership (Emberton, 2013; Furstenberg, 2003). Also, scholars have established the prevalence of perceptions that black men are violent (Entman and Rojecki, 2000; Gilliam et al., 1996).
Furthermore, our models show that Latinos’ gun policy preferences and related beliefs are indistinguishable from those of whites, influenced by racial resentment and stereotypical beliefs about group violence. This is consistent with Tesler and Sear’s (2010) contention that the structure of white and Latino attitudes may not be far apart. Interestingly, racial resentment plays some role in shaping black attitudes as well but in the opposite direction: blacks who show low levels of ingroup solidarity are more likely to support gun control. However, the theory related to the meaning of racial resentment among blacks is limited and more research and theory development is needed in order to fully explain the meaning of these results. Yet, stereotypes about group violence have no effect on black gun policy attitudes and beliefs.
8We have not been able to replicate exactly O’Brien et al.’s results—though our analyses of the 2008 ANES campaign panel data yield results similar to those reported by O’Brien et al. O’Brien et al. operationalized perceptions of blacks as violent by creating a dummy variable from a single five-point item. When we use the difference of the two five-point items (one for how well violent describes blacks and the other for how well violent describes whites) and treat it as a continuous variable, this relative difference in violence variable predicts support for the “conceal carry” dependent variable at the p < 0.05 level. Many factors help account for the difference between our results and those of O’Brien et al. For example, one important difference is that our dependent variable is an index based upon multiple items with high reliability, whereas O’Brien et al. are forced to model responses to individual items. Another important difference is that O’Brien et al. did not control for many relevant factors, ranging from egalitarianism to concerns about crime (which was due to the constraints of the survey data that O’Brien et al. used for their analyses).
426 Social Science Quarterly
The second set of results that bear further discussion are those related to instrumental concerns about crime. Our results show that fears about personal safety, such as being afraid to walk in the dark at night, are not significant predictors of gun policy preferences and related beliefs for any group. Although surveys show that most people say that they own or would like to own a firearm for safety reasons (Pew Research Center, 2013), in the minds of Americans, the gun control issue is not about personal anxiety about crime or criminal victimization. When concerns about crime influence attitudes they tend to be macro-level fears about the prevalence of crime in the country, not narrowly self-interested considerations—at least as those are measured in our survey. Across all groups and in almost all models, the perception that crime is going up in the country correlates with stronger support for gun control measures. This is consistent with several earlier findings (e.g., Filindra and Kaplan, 2015; Celinska, 2007). The same is not the case for experience with criminal victimization. Although the two measures of victimization in our models are statistically significant only in some cases, and only among blacks and Latinos, experience with crime tends to correlate negatively with support for gun control for all groups. This suggests that for people who have been victimized, easier access to guns represents a sense of safety.
Conclusion
In his book Targeting Guns, Gary Kleck dismissed approaches that privilege outgroup attitudes and especially prejudice in Americans’ gun beliefs and attitudes. Instead, he suggested that these theories imply “a pathology” among gun owners and supporters of gun rights and that such theories stigmatize gun supporters as “psychologically abnormal” (1997:81). In a similar vein, Bruce-Briggs (1976) noted that such theories have no basis in any credible psychological theory.
Contrary to such assertions, modern psychology has shown that outgroup biases are common cognitive phenomena, not aberrant behaviors associated with psychopathology (Tajfel and Turner, 2004). American culture has long nurtured and sustained a variety of outgroup biases that are also encoded in social and political structures. This study confirms that social identities—that is, identified memberships in specific social groups— and the values associated with such memberships provide a much stronger explanation for Americans’ relationship with guns. Our analyses—firmly drawing on such theoretical foundations—show that these powerful social responses go a long way in explaining the gun policy attitudes of various racial groups. Racial prejudice, even though it is no longer a dominant phenomenon among whites, still colors their policy attitudes in many policy domains, including gun control. What is more, racial prejudice has influenced Latino gun policy preferences, suggesting some crucial differences between the country’s two largest minority groups and also trends that could lead to the eventual encompassing of Latinos into the white majority.
REFERENCES
Braman, Donald, and Dan M. Kahan. 2006. “Overcoming the Fear of Guns, the Fear of Gun Control, and the Fear of Cultural Politics: Constructing a Better Gun Debate.” Emory Law Journal 55:569–608.
Brennan, Pauline Gasdow, Alan J. Lizotte, and David McDowall. 1993. “Guns, Southernness, and Gun Control.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 9:289–307.
Bruce-Briggs, Barry. 1976. “The Great American War.” Public Interest 45:37–62.
Testing Theories of Gun Policy Preferences 427
Celinska, Katarzyna. 2007. “Individualism and Collectivism in America: The Case of Gun Ownership and Attitudes Toward Gun Control.” Sociological Perspectives 50:229–47.
Emberton, Carole. 2013. Beyond Redemption: Race, Violence, and the American South After the Civil War. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Entman, Robert, and Andrew Rojecki. 2000. The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Filindra, Alexandra, and Jane Junn. 2012. “Aliens and People of Color: The Multidimensional Relation- ship Between Immigration Policy and Racial Classifications in the U.S.” Pp. 429–55 in Daniel Tichenor and Marc Rosenbloom, eds., Oxford Handbook on International Migration. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Filindra, Alexandra, and Noah J. Kaplan. 2015. “Racial Resentment and Whites’ Gun Policy Preferences in Contemporary America.” Political Behavior 38:255–75.
Furstenberg, Francois. 2003. “Beyond Freedom and Slavery: Autonomy, Virtue, and Resistance in Early American Political Discourse.” Journal of American History 89:1295–1330.
Gilliam, Franklin D., Shanto Iyengar, Adam Simon, and Oliver Wright. 1996. “Crime in Black and White: The Violent, Scary World of Local News.” Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 1:6–23.
Haider-Markel, Donald P., and Mark R. Joslyn. 2001. “Gun Policy, Opinion, Tragedy, and Blame Attribution: The Conditional Influence of Issue Frames.” Journal of Politics 63:520–43.
Henry, P. J., and David O. Sears. 2002. “The Symbolic Racism 2000 Scale.” Political Psychology 23: 253–83.
Junn, Jane, and Elizabeth Matto. 2008. “New Race Politics: The Changing Face of the American Electoral Landscape.” Pp. 1–16 in Jane Junn and Kerry L. Haynie, eds., New Race Politics in America: Understanding Minority and Immigrant Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kahan, Dan M., and Donald Braman. 2003. “More Statistics, Less Persuasion: A Cultural Theory of Gun Risk Perceptions.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151:1291–1327.
Kahan, Dan M., Donald Braman, John Gastil, Paul Slovic, and C. K. Mertz. 2007. “Culture and Identity- Protective Cognition: Explaining the White-Male Effect in Risk Perception.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 4:465–505.
Kinder, Donald, and Tali Mendelberg. 2000. “Individualism Reconsidered: Principles and Prejudice in Con- temporary American Opinion.” Pp. 44–74 in David O. Sears, Jim Sidanius, and Lawrence Bobo, eds., Racialized Politics: The Debate About Racism in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Kleck, Gary. 1996. “Crime, Culture Conflict and the Sources of Support for Gun Control: A Multilevel Application of the General Social Surveys.” American Behavioral Scientist 39:387–404.
———. 1997. Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control. New York: Aldine De Gruyter, Inc.
Kleck, Gary, Marc Gertz, and Jason Bratton. 2009. “Why Do People Support Gun Control? Alternative Explanations of Support for Handgun Bans.” Journal of Criminal Justice 37:496–504.
Knuckey, Jonathan, and Myunghee Kim. 2015. “Racial Resentment, Old-Fashioned Racism, and the Vote Choice of Southern and Nonsouthern Whites in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election∗.” Social Science Quarterly 96:905–22.
McClain, Paula D. 1983. “Determinants of Black and White Attitudes Toward Gun Regulation: A Research Note.” Journal of Criminal Justice 11:77–81.
O’Brien, Kerry, Walter Forrest, Dermot Lynott, and Michael Daly. 2013. “Racism, Gun Ownership and Gun Control: Biased Attitudes in US Whites May Influence Policy Decisions.” PLOSOne.org (Octo- ber 31). Available at 〈http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0077552〉; 〈https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077552〉. Pederson, JoEllen, Thomas L. Hall, Bradley Foster, and Jessie E. Coates. 2015. “Gun Ownership and Attitudes Toward Gun Control in Older Adults: Re-Examining Self Interest Theory.” American Journal of Social Science Research 1:273–81.
Peffley, Mark, and Jon Hurwitz. 2010. Justice in America: The Separate Realities of Blacks and Whites. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
428 Social Science Quarterly
Pew Research Center. 2013. Perspectives on Gun Owners, Non-Owners: Why Own a Gun? Protection is a Top Reason. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.
———. 2015. Gun Rights v. Gun Control (August 13, 2015). Available at 〈http://www.people- press.org/2015/08/13/gun-rights-vs-gun-control/#gunowners〉. Rivers, Douglas, and Delia Bailey. 2009. “Inference from Matched Samples in the 2008 U.S. National Election.” Paper presented at the American Association of Public Opinion Research Joint Statistical Meeting. Available at 〈https://www.amstat.org/sections/srms/proceedings/y2009/Files/303309.pdf〉. Sears, David O., P. J. Henry, and Rick Kosterman. 2000. “Egalitarian Values and Contemporary Racial Politics.” Pp. 75–117 in David O. Sears, Jim Sidanius, and Lawrence Bobo, eds., Racialized Politics: The Debate About Racism in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Sears, David O., Jim Sidanius, and Lawrence Bobo. 2000. Racialized Politics: The Debate About Racism in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Semet, Amy, and Stephen Ansolabehere. 2011. “Profiling and Predicting Opinions on Gun Control: A Com- parative Perspective on the Factors Underlying Opinion in Different Gun Control Measures.” Unpublished manuscript. Available at 〈http://polisci.columbia.edu/files/polisci/u263/Gun%20Paper%2010-1.pdf〉. Tajfel, Henri, and John C. Turner. 2004. “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior.” Pp. 367-90 in John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, eds., Political Psychology. New York: Psychology Press.
Tesler, Michael. 2013. “The Return of Old-Fashioned Racism to White Americans’ Partisan Preferences in the Early Obama Era.” Journal of Politics 75:110–23.
Tesler, Michael, and David O. Sears. 2010. Obama’s Race: The 2008 Election and the Dream of a Post-Racial America. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Unnever, James D., and Francis T. Cullen. 2007. “The Racial Divide in Support for the Death Penalty: Does White Racism Matter?” Social Forces 85:1281–1301.
Wolpert, Robin M., and James G. Gimpel. 1998. “Self-Interest, Symbolic Politics, and Public Attitudes Toward Gun Control.” Political Behavior 20:241–62.
Wozniak, Kevin H. 2015. “Public Opinion About Gun Control Post-Sandy\sHook.” Criminal Justice Policy Review 28(3):255–78.
Supporting Information
Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher’s website:
Table 3: Ordered logit analysis of 2012 NES gun item (with interactions by race) Appendix A: Means for all variables included in the You GOV data analyses Appendix B: Question wording of gun attitudes survey items (all indices are additive)
Copyright of Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
