The Factors that Influence the Public Opinion on Gun Control - Research Paper Example

Introduction In a country like America it has been reported that even on matters that are considered to be controversial as gun control, that there is support for common sense gun measures with a small fraction of the population being reported to have an intense feeling on the issue (Fiorina et al. 2005, 101-102). There have been very few studies that have been directed towards on the feelings Americans have concerning gun control and to ascertain whether Americans are real polarized on this topic depending on their political affiliations and other dimensions. There has been emergence of two schools of thoughts attempting to give an explanation on public opinion with regards to gun control. One of the theories that is attributed to Kahan and Braman (2003a) suggests that cultural orientations plays a vital role in the prediction of the opinion held on gun control. The argument put forward is that people who adhere to egalitarian or solidaristic orientations will be in favor of having gun control in place while those with hierarchical or individualistic orientation are against gun control. The cultural orientation, it has been argued, is much more important in the prediction of gun opinion in comparison to demographic factors including race and gender that have been thought to have a correlation with gun opinion. This research paper aims at establishing the factors that influence the public opinion on gun control. The three variables that will be tested are the race, political affiliation and Gun ownership influence on gun control stand According to the analysis by Wolpert and Gimpel’s (1998), self interest will have a strong on gun control preferences. The research conducted by knowledge networks in 2010 is in agreement with the analysis. The findings was that up to 30% more gun owners than those not in possession of guns were in opposition of gun bans and guns not being allowed to be carried in public places by those who had them. The difference between those that own guns and those who do not was found to be relatively small with regards when it comes to issues to do with registration and background checking where it was found that only 13% of those in possession of guns opposed the measures in comparison to 5% for those who did not have guns even though the difference was found to be statistically significant. Self-interest was found to be the only opinion driver on the issue of gun laws. Over 40% of those with the guns or revolvers at their home agreed that there should be bans on semi-automatic weapons and also handguns are not to be allowed being carried in public places ; and close to 90% of those in possession with guns were in favor of the registration requirements and the need of having a background check on those who are to be allowed to possess guns. This was a clear indication that gun owners were willing to have some restrictions that comes with gun ownership but they were not in agreement that there should be an outright ban on handguns possession, a conclusion that is in agreement with the observation that was made by Wolpert and Gimpel’s (1998) that self-interest was a motivation for opinions with regards to handgun possession. Party identity and gun law Party identification is believed to be very important when it comes to the stands an individual is likely to have on constitutional issues (Haider-Markel and Joslyn 2001). The knowledge networks study of 2010 is in agreement with this when some finding are looked at. In the study it was found that 91% of the strong republicans were in opposition to handguns being banned in comparison to 66% of the strong democrats who had the same opinion. Those who consider themselves to be moderately attached to their party are also seen to have statistically significant difference where in all measures with the exception on the issue of handgun bans, those with moderate leaning towards Democratic Party and those who have leaning towards Republican Party show statistical difference in their opinion on the issues. There is a statistically significant difference among the Republicans when those who are moderate are compared to those who are strong Republicans with the moderates showing higher opposition to bans on carrying handguns in public places and the registration checks as well as the issue of background checks. Among the moderately republican group 63% were found to be in opposition of guns being carried in public places in comparison to 58% for those who are strong Republicans something that is quite unclear. In addition, in the study, as much as there obviously significant difference in the opinions of those in the extreme end of the party affiliations on the four issues concerning guns, there was also statistically significant difference between those who had moderate or even weak attachment to their political party ideologies with regards to the issue of handgun bans as well as carrying of guns in public places. Race Just like in the case of religion, race has been found to play a different role than the expectation in terms of informing gun opinion. The finding that has been reported by some scholars has been that there is high likelihood that Blacks would support gun control (Kleck, 1996), the conclusion of others has been that race contribute little in influencing attitude (Smith 1999; McClain 1983). In the knowledge networks study of in 2010 race is looked in two ways; first there was comparison of whites and the non-Whites and the second case involved comparison of Blacks with non-Blacks. In the first case featuring whites versus non-Whites, it was found that race played little role in differentiation of opinion with regards to registration requirements and on background checks with well over 90% in the two groups are for having some restrictions. However, the results from this study revealed that Whites and non-Whites were divided on the rest of the gun control measures. With regards to bans on assault/semi-automatic weapons there was 1 14% difference in the two groups where 42% were opposed to the idea in comparison to 28% in the non-whites. Similarly with regards to the issue of carrying of handguns in public a 13% difference was registered in the two groups with whites having the upper figure. In the analysis involving Blacks versus non-Blacks very little difference was registered. No difference was registered between Blacks and non-Blacks with regards to the issues of ban of handguns, registration requirements and background checks. But with regards the issues of assault/semi-automatic weapons and bans on carrying handguns in public there was distinct difference between the opinions given by the Blacks and the non-Blacks. Starkest differences was registered between the two groups on their opinions on bans for carrying handguns in public where 32% of the Blacks were in opposition of the issue in comparison to 44% of the non-Blacks who had the same opinion. Hypothesis 1. Gun owners are less likely to support the requirement of gun permits being issued by police 2. Blacks are likely to favor issuance of permits for gun ownership 3. Those with democratic party affiliation are likely to be in support of gun permit requirement as opposed to the Republican affiliated Methodology In this study there was use of General Social Survey (GSS) of 2012 in testing on attitudes towards gun laws. The acquisition of the GSS sample survey was through probabilistic sampling where households in the US are given equal chance of being selected. In sampling, a multi-stage approach was used in getting household addresses with proportionate stratified sampling so as to ensure the sample had the same proportion as the geographic area while simple random sampling was a way of ensuring there was random selection of the household. Variables Dependant variables: the dependant variable of the study was gun law. The respondents were asked ‘would you favor or oppose a law which would require a person to obtain a police permit before he or she could buy a gun? The coding of the answers which were given were coded as: 1 for yes; 2 for no and 0 for missing which included the responses Don’t know, No answer, and Not applicable. Independent Variables: The first independent variable was ‘Gun owner’ with the variable being recorded as ‘owngun’. The coding for the responses given were : 1 for yes; 2 for no and all other responses were coded as 0 for missing and this included : Refused, Don’t know, No answer, Not applicable. The second independent variable was Race where the respondents were to give their race and it was abbreviated in SPSS as ‘Hhrace’. The coding for the responses given were : 1 for White; 2 for Black , 3 for other for Hispanic and mixed, and 0 for missing which included : Refused, , No answer, Not applicable. The third independent variable was political party which was abbreviated in SPSS as partyid. The coding for the responses given were :0 for Strong democrat; 1Not strong democrat; 2 for independent near democrat; 3 Independent; 4 Independent near Republican; 5 Not strong Republican ; 6 Strong Republican ; 7 Other party and 8 for which included : Refused, , No answer, Not applicable. Statistics The tests conducted in this research involved the use of SPSS 20.0 program. For the first and second variables , own gun and race, cross-tabulation and Chi-square test were found to be appropriated which for the third independent variable, party identity an independent t-test was conducted. Descriptive statistics The SPSS results indicated that for the dependant variable 47.8 of the respondents were in favor of gun permits being issued as can be observed in Table 1. For the first independent variable ‘gun owner’ its 22.3% who indicated that they owned a gun (Table 2). For the second independent variable 73% indicated that they were white which is a clear indication that the majority of those sampled belonged to this group (Table 3). The third independent variable political identity showed that there were slightly a higher number of those who leaned towards democratic wing with 18% indicating that they were strong democrats compared to 9.7 who indicated that they were strong Republicans (Table 4). Table 1 FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Yes 944 47.8 73.6 73.6 No 339 17.2 26.4 100.0 Total 1283 64.9 100.0 Missing Missing 693 35.1 Total 1976 100.0 Table 2 HAVE GUN IN HOME Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid YES 440 22.3 34.3 34.3 NO 841 42.6 65.7 100.0 Total 1281 64.8 100.0 Missing Missing 693 35.1 System 2 .1 Total 695 35.2 Total 1976 100.0 Table 3 RACE OF HOUSEHOLD Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid WHITE 1443 73.0 73.3 73.3 BLACK 288 14.6 14.6 87.9 Other 238 12.0 12.1 100.0 Total 1969 99.6 100.0 Missing Missing 5 .3 System 2 .1 Total 7 .4 Total 1976 100.0 Table 4 POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid STRONG DEMOCRAT 356 18.0 18.2 18.2 NOT STR DEMOCRAT 343 17.4 17.5 35.7 IND,NEAR DEM 235 11.9 12.0 47.7 INDEPENDENT 373 18.9 19.0 66.7 IND,NEAR REP 157 7.9 8.0 74.7 NOT STR REPUBLICAN 250 12.7 12.8 87.4 STRONG REPUBLICAN 192 9.7 9.8 97.2 OTHER PARTY 54 2.7 2.8 100.0 Total 1960 99.2 100.0 Missing Missing 14 .7 System 2 .1 Total 16 .8 Total 1976 100.0 Hypothesis tests Gun owners: from the results in Table 5 it can be seen that 71.5% of those who do not have guns are in favor of the gun law compared to 28.5% of those who have guns at home and are in support of the gun laws. This result is a pointer that there is a relationship between gun ownership and opinion on gun laws. From the chi-square results in table 6 it can be seen that there is a significant relationship between gun ownership and gun laws;  (P=0.000). This result is in favor of the first hypothesis. Table 5 FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS * HAVE GUN IN HOME Crosstabulation HAVE GUN IN HOME Total YES NO FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS Yes Count 266 667 933 Expected Count 325.1 607.9 933.0 % within FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS 28.5% 71.5% 100.0% % within HAVE GUN IN HOME 60.7% 81.4% 74.2% % of Total 21.2% 53.1% 74.2% No Count 172 152 324 Expected Count 112.9 211.1 324.0 % within FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS 53.1% 46.9% 100.0% % within HAVE GUN IN HOME 39.3% 18.6% 25.8% % of Total 13.7% 12.1% 25.8% Total Count 438 819 1257 Expected Count 438.0 819.0 1257.0 % within FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS 34.8% 65.2% 100.0% % within HAVE GUN IN HOME 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% % of Total 34.8% 65.2% 100.0% Table 6 Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (1-sided) Pearson Chi-Square 63.979a 1 .000 Continuity Correctionb 62.901 1 .000 Likelihood Ratio 62.007 1 .000 Fisher's Exact Test .000 .000 Linear-by-Linear Association 63.928 1 .000 N of Valid Cases 1257 a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 112.90. b. Computed only for a 2x2 table Race: From the cross tabulation results it can be seen that 82.2 % of the backs favor the need to have permits issued for gun possession compared to 71.1% of the whites (Table 5).This results is a pointer that there is a relationship between race and opinion of gun laws. The Chi-square result in table 6 clearly shows that the relationship between race and their opinion on gun laws is statistically significant  (P=0.003). This is in favor of the second hypothesis. Table 7 FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS * RACE OF HOUSEHOLD Crosstabulation RACE OF HOUSEHOLD Total WHITE BLACK Other FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS Yes Count 670 152 120 942 Expected Count 693.3 136.1 112.6 942.0 % within FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS 71.1% 16.1% 12.7% 100.0% % within RACE OF HOUSEHOLD 71.1% 82.2% 78.4% 73.6% % of Total 52.3% 11.9% 9.4% 73.6% No Count 272 33 33 338 Expected Count 248.7 48.9 40.4 338.0 % within FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS 80.5% 9.8% 9.8% 100.0% % within RACE OF HOUSEHOLD 28.9% 17.8% 21.6% 26.4% % of Total 21.2% 2.6% 2.6% 26.4% Total Count 942 185 153 1280 Expected Count 942.0 185.0 153.0 1280.0 % within FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS 73.6% 14.5% 12.0% 100.0% % within RACE OF HOUSEHOLD 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% % of Total 73.6% 14.5% 12.0% 100.0% Table 9 Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square 11.785a 2 .003 Likelihood Ratio 12.412 2 .002 Linear-by-Linear Association 7.938 1 .005 N of Valid Cases 1280 a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 40.40. Political identity: In order to find out the relationship between political affiliation and opinion on gun law an independent sample t-test was used. It can be seen from Table 10 that those who were in agreement with the gun law had a lower mean value of 2.52 compared to those who were opposed to the gun law and had a higher mean value of 3.40. This is an indication that those who are in favor of the gun law are more of democrats while those who are in opposition of the gun law are more of Republicans. Table 11 indicated the difference in political affiliation scores for those in favor and those against the gun law is statistically significant; t(1271)= -6.745 (p=0.000). This is in agreement with the third hypothesis. Table 10 Group Statistics FAVOR OR OPPOSE GUN PERMITS N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION Yes 934 2.52 2.057 .067 No 339 3.40 2.043 .111 Table 11 Independent Samples Test Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION Equal variances assumed .012 .912 -6.745 1271 .000 -.878 .130 -1.134 -.623 Equal variances not assumed -6.766 602.833 .000 -.878 .130 -1.133 -.623 Conclusion From the results all the three hypotheses were supported. The research indicated that gun laws are supported by non gun owners; which is similar to what was seen in literature. Also in the study it is seen that democrats are in support of gun law and Blacks are also more in support of the gun law compared to their White counter parts just as seen in the literature. References Fiorina, Morris, Samuel J. Abrams and Jeremy C. Pope. 2005. Culture War: The Myth of a Polarized America. (New York: Pearson Longman). Haider-Markel, D.P., and Joslyn, M.R. 2001. “Gun Policy, Opinion, Tragedy and Blame Attribution.” Journal of Politics 63: 520-543. Kahan, D.M. and Braman, D. 2003a. “More Statistics, Less Persuasion: A Cultural Theory of Gun-Risk Perceptions.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151: 1291-1327. Kleck, G. 1996. “Crime, Culture Conflict and the Sources of Support for Gun Control.” American Behavioral Scientist 39: 387-404. McClain, P.D. 1983. “Determinants of Black and White Attitudes toward Gun Regulation.” Journal of Criminal Justice 11: 77-81. Smith, T.W. 1999. 1998 National Gun Policy Survey of the National Opinion Research Center; Research Findings. Chicago: University of Chicago, National Opinion Research Center. Wolpert, R.M. and Gimpel, J. 1998. “Self-Interest, Symbolic Politics, and Public Attitudes toward Gun Control.” Political Behavior 20(3): 241-262. Read More

Over 40% of those with the guns or revolvers at their home agreed that there should be bans on semi-automatic weapons and also handguns are not to be allowed being carried in public places ; and close to 90% of those in possession with guns were in favor of the registration requirements and the need of having a background check on those who are to be allowed to possess guns. This was a clear indication that gun owners were willing to have some restrictions that comes with gun ownership but they were not in agreement that there should be an outright ban on handguns possession, a conclusion that is in agreement with the observation that was made by Wolpert and Gimpel’s (1998) that self-interest was a motivation for opinions with regards to handgun possession.

Party identity and gun law Party identification is believed to be very important when it comes to the stands an individual is likely to have on constitutional issues (Haider-Markel and Joslyn 2001). The knowledge networks study of 2010 is in agreement with this when some finding are looked at. In the study it was found that 91% of the strong republicans were in opposition to handguns being banned in comparison to 66% of the strong democrats who had the same opinion. Those who consider themselves to be moderately attached to their party are also seen to have statistically significant difference where in all measures with the exception on the issue of handgun bans, those with moderate leaning towards Democratic Party and those who have leaning towards Republican Party show statistical difference in their opinion on the issues.

There is a statistically significant difference among the Republicans when those who are moderate are compared to those who are strong Republicans with the moderates showing higher opposition to bans on carrying handguns in public places and the registration checks as well as the issue of background checks. Among the moderately republican group 63% were found to be in opposition of guns being carried in public places in comparison to 58% for those who are strong Republicans something that is quite unclear.

In addition, in the study, as much as there obviously significant difference in the opinions of those in the extreme end of the party affiliations on the four issues concerning guns, there was also statistically significant difference between those who had moderate or even weak attachment to their political party ideologies with regards to the issue of handgun bans as well as carrying of guns in public places. Race Just like in the case of religion, race has been found to play a different role than the expectation in terms of informing gun opinion.

The finding that has been reported by some scholars has been that there is high likelihood that Blacks would support gun control (Kleck, 1996), the conclusion of others has been that race contribute little in influencing attitude (Smith 1999; McClain 1983). In the knowledge networks study of in 2010 race is looked in two ways; first there was comparison of whites and the non-Whites and the second case involved comparison of Blacks with non-Blacks. In the first case featuring whites versus non-Whites, it was found that race played little role in differentiation of opinion with regards to registration requirements and on background checks with well over 90% in the two groups are for having some restrictions.

However, the results from this study revealed that Whites and non-Whites were divided on the rest of the gun control measures. With regards to bans on assault/semi-automatic weapons there was 1 14% difference in the two groups where 42% were opposed to the idea in comparison to 28% in the non-whites. Similarly with regards to the issue of carrying of handguns in public a 13% difference was registered in the two groups with whites having the upper figure. In the analysis involving Blacks versus non-Blacks very little difference was registered.

No difference was registered between Blacks and non-Blacks with regards to the issues of ban of handguns, registration requirements and background checks.

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