Gun Ownership And Racist Attitudes Are Linked, Study Finds
Source: Huffington Post
Are you a white gun owner? You're more likely to be a racist than if you weren't packing heat.
That's what researchers found in a study published by the journal Plos One, which linked racial prejudice to firearm ownership in America.
A research team led by Dr. Kerry OBrien, a professor of behavioral studies at Australia's Monash University, examined attitudes about gun control and race using data from the American National Election Study, a survey conducted before and after presidential elections.
The researchers found that "for each 1 point increase in symbolic racism there was a 50% increase in the odds of having a gun at home," as well as "a 28% increase in support for permits to carry concealed handguns."
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/05/gun-ownership-racism_n_4220727.html
Botany
(70,613 posts)CarrieLynne
(497 posts)UpInArms
(51,285 posts)he's gonna need something to fall back on financially.
Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)lunasun
(21,646 posts)Te Radical White is the big stockpiler sector imo
Wonder how many more had to have one more or two after 2008 because well you know.....
America 2013 - Love it or Leave it !
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,645 posts)Response to onehandle (Original post)
hack89 This message was self-deleted by its author.
FreakinDJ
(17,644 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Ava Gadro
(36 posts)Aristus
(66,478 posts)what wants ta gits alla the white wimmin they can!..."
Redneck nightmare...
Deep13
(39,154 posts)...I find the racism to be extremely obvious, but thinly coded. Most of those folks claim they are not racists and may even believe it. Yet, they construct "normal" as white, Christian, straight, rural or at least suburban, uneducated, and male. Yes, some of their best friends are black or Latino/a. Yes, they don't care if you're black, white, yellow, or purple with pink dots. None of that stops poor people from being lazy parasites, the president from being a Muslim, socialist, foreigner, liberal women from being "skanks," gays from being every sin in the calendar, city dwellers as lawless, and Muslims from being all terrorists. Plus, the justification for having guns beyond strictly sporting varieties is fear of a constructed "other."
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)I enjoy recreational shooting but I seem to be the only one of my friends and acquaintances that didn't turn into a paranoid gun nut after president Obama was elected; much to their annoyance. Yes, the "normal" bar has been raised to mean white & rural and with a faux "rugged individualism". Most of them were born and raised in large metro areas if not inner city, became "white flight" suburbanites but eventually moved to the country and now even those among them who were born from immigrant parents act like they're Daniel Boone and John Wayne rolled into one.
hollowdweller
(4,229 posts)OK so I grew up in a gun loving family, both target shooting, collecting and hunting. Still enjoy.
So when I was a kid my dad would take me on Sunday out to this gunsmith's place to go shooting.
He had a range set up by his shop and was pals with my grandad and I'd get to shoot and hang out with all the old guys talking guns.
This was early 70's so not much going on with gun control then, but one day the subject came up.
Just for the record my dad is a total liberal and very non prejudiced.
Anyway so we are setting there and it's me, a kid of about 12, my dad maybe 30 at the time? My grandad and the old gunsmith.
So the old gunsmith says:
"We need our guns for protection. What would happen right now if a carload of big black bucks pulled up and wanted to fight?????? A kid, one young guy and 2 old men. We'd be helpless"
So on the way home my first question to my dad is "What is a black buck"?? He explained it was a racist term referring to black men.
We both laughed that the old gunsmith was concerned about blacks attacking him since basically no black people probably lived within 50 miles of where he lived. But there it is.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)Because of some of the recent mass shootings, I had a discussion with a cousin, whose husband was a hunter, about why they needed multiple guns in the home. She said they needed them for protection, and that she was going to learn to shoot one. She is 65 years old now, so she's lived this long without using a gun for self-protection. They live in a nice neighborhood, in a nice home, and in a town that has a racial demographic of almost 94% white. But they think they need guns for protection?
I will always wonder if Sandy Hook changed her mind at all. I doubt it.
It takes a very long time to change people who have been raised to think conservatively.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Arm the minorities.
It was the Black Panthers that lead to the round of gun control in the 60s. Arming the hell out of "those people" would still be quite effective.
MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)My sense is that as the white, aging, male, evangelical population discerns they are no longer in control and that their place in our society will soon be as members of a minority, they cling for things that give them protection.
If they cannot outwardly discriminate against blacks, Jews, Hispanics, queers, handicapped people, they become angry. They cling to their weapons which are (a) surrogate big dicks and (b) perceived as offering them protection
Once these old dicks die off this tendency will diminish.............
AAO
(3,300 posts)for fear that teh BLACK may have bigger dicks than they do. Pussies!
One_Life_To_Give
(6,036 posts)Gun ownership is also linked with low population density along with a lack of diversity. In this case it's likely more than just racism causes people to own firearms.
demosincebirth
(12,544 posts)mpcamb
(2,878 posts)I'm glad someone did the research and posted the numbers and publicly made the claim.
I worked in medicine for a lot of years and know there are scads of pointless studies.
While it carries no surprises it's not a bad thing to have on the shelf.
demosincebirth
(12,544 posts)saying that all gun owners are stupid. Many here on DU are pretty smart and sensible
mpcamb
(2,878 posts)It's like "Study Shows Water Remains Moist".
I read a lot of studies that proved their drug worked better than placebo, and in the end who cares? Does it work better than what we're currently using is closer to a valid question.
Still, I'd hope that this study can be pointed to as research connecting two disparate issues- guns and racism. If it can, maybe it's not money down the toilet.
Having said that I can't help recalling all the pointless "research" medical centers did at the behest of drug companies to make some lame-ass product look 1% better than the competition in a lame-ass study with questionable statistics.
BillyRibs
(787 posts)I noticed this but never put 2+2 together. Now a lot of this makes more sense. I know folks like this and they are carful as to how they express racist attitudes. IE.. "when they can't buy anything with their snap cards and they(reads black folks) have looted all the stores. they will flood out of the city and into the country side, to rob, steal, and plunder. that's why I keep guns." this is a direct quote from someone I know. Wow, thank you for posting this.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)happyslug
(14,779 posts)Now, setting up a study to find something is normal. Thus a good study could be had by first proposing that if you tend to be pro gun you tend to be more racist, but the author of the study has to take precautions that the prejudices they bring into the study does not affect the study. The best way is to acknowledge such prejudiced when the study is considered.
I bring this up for the report clearly shows greater violence and racism and connection between the two as you deal with people as you go South. To a degree that is true, but it also shows that the study did have some pre study prejudice before the study was even started.
On top of this prejudice creeps in the nature of the question asked for example one of the question in this report:
"For example, in the symbolic racism section, participants were asked, "How well does the word violent describe most blacks? on a scale of 1 to 5."
That question implies that the terms "Blacks" also mean "violent", the only restriction is how violent are blacks? By the very nature of that question you are asking people to say they are prejudice. It is a very bad question for it implies what you expect the answer to be.
Another question has the same problem:
Participants were also shown statements from the Symbolic Racism Scale, such as "Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for Blacks to work they way out of the lower class?" and asked to what extent they agreed.
If you agree with that statement are you prejudice or just acknowledging facts? i.e Even the most racists would agree Blacks had had a problem prior to the 1960s, but many do not think so today, does that make such a person a racist? It is better the the first question, but not by much.
On top of the problem with the questions, you have the problem of Southern Rural History, Souther Rural History, is both racist AND violent. In the days of Slavery they were interconnected but also independent. The whole south was noted to be violent. In fact prior to the 1960s the Major cities of the US had lower then national average murder rates do to how high was the Southern Rural Murder Rate was. Some of this was racist, some of it was just violent.
Other studies have shown Southern Males tend to be more naturally violent then Northern males. The Experiment required a person to walk down a hallway with various sensors on. They were told that they had to go to another room for the actual study, but in the hallway they were bumped. What the body went through at that point was the experiment. Southern Males shows a grated tendency to go to a fight mood, in place of the Northern Students tendency to go to a laugh it off mood. This follows other studies that showed a greater tendency to acts of violence among Southern Whites. This tendency was noted in the Colonial period.
Now, some of that greater tendency to violence is tied in with what was expected of white southerns during the days of Slavery and Segregation (The Southern Sheriff "patrols", where every white male had to participate in every month, tended to be where white males meet and watched for run away slaves. They were permitted to do act of violence against Slaves (or any other person of "Color" including killing them. How much this tradition survives in the rural South today is debatable, but it still survives. Note it is acts of violence NOT only against people of Color but each other and other whites.
Thus the Rural South is both Racist and Violent. The real issue is how much are these two things connected today? I can make the argument that they is little or no connection, but both survive among the same people.
Now, that such violence would make the connection of gun ownership and racism in the South is easy to see, for in the South they use to be connected (and may still be connected to a degree). On the other hand, how does this affect the over all study, for it also includes NORTHERN MALES who own guns. The Southern Traditions could make a clear connection, and that connection would make the whole report show a connection between Racism and Gun Ownership in the US as a whole, even if areas outside the South have no such connections. i.e the prejudice of the South makes a report that does NOT separate the Southern and Northern Traditions invalid, for such a report would show a connection do to the clear massive connection in the Southern Tradition, even if elsewhere they is no connection.
Worse, internal immigration would have to be taken into consideration, The Auto Industry, imported People from the South to work in the then new auto factories around Detroit starting in the 1920s. The Older Northern Steel and Coal Industry also recruited from the South starting in the 1920s. Thus huge areas around Pittsburgh and Detroit have a much more Southern Attitude then they did in the 1800s.
Just comments that this report has problems and when we read it accept its problems and do not try to make more of this study then it really shows.
Skittles
(153,216 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Novel style
(15 posts)20%? 80%? 50%?
Adam-Bomb
(90 posts)So I'm a dirty, stinking racist since I am white guy who owns firearms? Really?
And some of you folks believe this crap?
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)to counter the argument.
Adam-Bomb
(90 posts)Sure, and I put as much faith in "studies" as I do in my ability to levitate.
The OP WAS a study, complete with loaded questions that guaranteed
a desired response.
Broad brush accusations like this are untrue and annoying as hell.
Don't like firearms? Fine, I have no problems with that.
But to believe that ALL white gun owners harbor racist tendencies indicates
a belief in stereotypes, something I thought was frowned upon here at DU.
Are SOME white firearms owners racist? I guarantee it.
Are some BLACK firearms owners racist? I guarantee it. The law of averages
insure it.
I *could* make a lot of baseless broad brush accusations, too. But I know better
than to lump folks together based upon the actions and/or tendencies of a few.
Give it a break, folks. It's the kind of belief I associate with ignorant people.
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)You claim it had "loaded questions." Did you actually research the study? I'm guessing not since you don't believe in studies so your "conclusion" is based on a knee-jerk reaction which is certainly more scientific than a study.
We have a gungeon on DU where I'm sure you'd be welcomed. Not a whole lot of people in there believe in science either. But they just lerve lerve lerve their penis extenders, er, guns.
Adam-Bomb
(90 posts)I can read and I know crap when I see it. Those folks were making a
"statement" to fit their agenda just as surely as I'm sitting here.
I wonder if they would care to make some more "studies" only this time
target male Black gun owners, or women-of-all-races gun owners, and see
what the results are. Care to wager on the outcome of THOSE studies?
Would the reason THEY own firearms be more racist, or less? Or would
the reasons they own firearms be as varied as all the other millions of
other gun-owning folks out there?
I am aware of the "gungeon" here at DU, and I am aware of the biases
and the childish name-calling that passes for discussion among some
folks here, too.
You don't even know me and yet you call me an idiot and declare
firearms are "penis extenders"? Really? That's VERY scientific. Bra-VO.
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)And I'll use whatever terms I choose. Today, penis extenders, tomorrow, perhaps gun-humpers. Stay tuned.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)...are also "teabaggers," who's very existence coincides with the election of a "black president."
question everything
(47,544 posts)mwrguy
(3,245 posts)It's possible to have one without the other, but not probable.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)Are they also more racist, according to the study? Just wondering.
Arkana
(24,347 posts)and the sky remains blue.