Firearm Ownership and Support for Political Violence in the United States

• DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.3623
• Publication Date: 2024-04-09T15:00:54Z
• Authors: Garen J. Wintemute; Andrew Crawford; Sonia L. Robinson; Elizabeth A. Tomsich; Paul M. Reeping; Julia P. Schleimer; Veronica A. Pear
• Keywords: Adult; Male; Ownership; Black People; Middle Aged; Violence; United States; 03 medical and health sciences; Cross-Sectional Studies; 0302 clinical medicine; Ethnicity; Humans; Female; Original Investigation

Importance Little is known about support for and willingness to engage in political violence the United States. Such would likely involve firearms. Objective To evaluate whether firearm owners’ nonowners’ differs among owners varies by type of firearms owned, recency purchase, frequency carrying a loaded public. Design, Setting, Participants This cross-sectional nationally representative survey study was conducted from May 13 June 2, 2022, US adult members Ipsos KnowledgePanel, including an oversample owners. Exposure Firearm ownership vs nonownership. Main Outcomes Measures outcomes concern (1) violence, general advance specific objectives; (2) personal severity target population; (3) perceived likelihood use violence. are expressed as weighted proportions adjusted prevalence differences, with P values false-discovery rate reported q values. Results The analytic sample comprised 12 851 respondents: 5820 (45.3%) owners, 6132 (47.7%) nonowners without at home, 899 (7.0%) home. After weighting, 51.0% (95% CI, 49.9%-52.1%) were female, 8.5% 7.5%-9.5%) Hispanic, 9.1% 8.1%-10.2%) non-Hispanic Black, 62.6% 61.5%-63.8%) White; mean (SD) age 48.5 (18.0) years. Owners more than home consider usually or always justified least 1 17 objectives (owners: 38.8%; 95% 37.3%-40.4%; nonowners: 29.8%; 28.5%-31.2%; difference, 6.5 percentage points; 4.5-9.3 < .001) but not willing Recent purchasers, who nearly carry public, lesser extent, assault-type rifles supportive other subgroups Conclusions Relevance In this States, differences between small moderate when present. Differences greater subsets nonowners. These findings can guide risk-based prevention efforts.