Racist Americans are more likely to have guns and oppose gun control, Manchester researchers revealed today.
The research was conducted by Dr Kerry O’Brien from The University of Manchester and Monash University using data from mostly US white voters.
They also looked at income, education and political ideology and found that the odds of having a gun in the home were as much as half of Americans.
The researchers undertook the study after a large number of gun control debates occurred after mass shootings in the US such as Sandy Hook.
They also found that black people were more likely to get shot than white people and that the risk of getting shot doubles when looking at a homeowner dying from homicide or suicide.
Dr O’Brien said: “Coming from countries with strong gun control policies, and a 30-fold lower rate of gun-related homicides, we found the arguments for opposing gun control counterintuitive and somewhat illogical.
“For example, US whites oppose gun control to a far greater extent than do blacks, but whites are actually more likely to kill themselves with their guns, than be killed by someone else.
“Why would you keep them? So we decided to examine what social and psychological factors predict gun ownership and opposition to gun control.”
Americans who supports Conservatism, anti-government sentiment, party identification, and came from a southern state, were also associated with opposition to gun control, but the association between racism and the gun-related outcomes remained after accounting for these factors and other participant characteristics
This is the first study of its kind with the US government cutting funding for gun-related research more than a decade ago.
Study co-author Dr Dermot Lynott, from Lancaster University, said: “We were initially surprised that no one had studied this issue before; however, the US government cut research funding for gun-related research over decade and a half ago, so research in this area has been somewhat suppressed.”
Dr O’Brien added: “The study is a first step, but there needs to be more investment in empirical research around how racial bias may influence people’s policy decisions, particularly those policies that impact on the health and wellbeing of US citizens.”
Image courtesy of Sean via Flickr, with thanks.
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