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We assessed gun ownership rates in 2013 across the USA and the association between exposure to a social gun culture and gun ownership. We used data from a nationally representative sample of 4000 US adults, from 50 states and District of Columbia, aged >18 years to assess gun ownership and social gun culture performed in October 2013. State-level f...
Citations
... In 2017, The Truth About Guns blog declared that a ''Study Confirms Gun Owners Have Smaller Penises'' (Zimmerman, 2017). This satirical ''study'' reported that states with a higher percentage of gun ownership (Kalesan et al., 2016) tended to exhibit lower rates of online purchases of larger-sized condoms (Roy, 2013). In this article, we formally test, for the first time, whether men who are more dissatisfied with the size of their penises are in fact more likely to personally own guns. ...
In this study, we formally examine the association between penis size dissatisfaction and gun ownership in America. The primary hypothesis, derived from the psychosexual theory of gun ownership, asserts that men who are more dissatisfied with the size of their penises will be more likely to personally own guns. To test this hypothesis, we used data collected from the 2023 Masculinity, Sexual Health, and Politics (MSHAP) survey, a national probability sample of 1,840 men, and regression analyses to model personal gun ownership as a function of penis size dissatisfaction, experiences with penis enlargement, social desirability, masculinity, body mass, mental health, and a range of sociodemographic characteristics. We find that men who are more dissatisfied with the size of their penises are less likely to personally own guns across outcomes, including any gun ownership, military-style rifle ownership, and total number of guns owned. The inverse association between penis size dissatisfaction and gun ownership is linear; however, the association is weakest among men ages 60 and older. With these findings in mind, we failed to observe any differences in personal gun ownership between men who have and have not attempted penis enlargement. To our knowledge, this is the first study to formally examine the association between penis size and personal gun ownership in America. Our findings fail to support the psychosexual theory of gun ownership. Alternative theories are posited for the apparent inverse association between penis size dissatisfaction and personal gun ownership, including higher levels of testosterone and constructionist explanations.
... Firearm acquisition is thought to be driven by a variety of factors, including the desire for self-protection, affinity for hunting, interests in recreational shooting, as well as culture, family traditions, and hobbying (Gallup Corporation, n.d.). A complex relationship also exists between firearm ownership and social/political life in America: firearm ownership has become, to some degree, an indicator of political affiliation and social identity (Dowd-Arrow, Hill, & Burdette, 2019; Kalesan, Villarreal, Keyes, & Galea, 2016;Lacombe, 2019). To improve the understanding of firearm acquisition patterning in the U.S., it is also critical to consider both geographic (Azrael, Cook, & Miller, 2004) and macro-level factors, such as firearm acquisition trends, firearm-related crimes, and relevant socioeconomic metrics (Kleck & Patterson, 1993;Porfiri, Sattanapalle, Nakayama, Macinko, & Sipahi, 2019). ...
Objectives
Firearm-related crimes and self-inflicted harms pose a significant threat to the safety and well-being of Americans. Investigation of firearm prevalence in the United States (U.S.) has therefore been a center of attention. A critical aspect in this endeavor is to explain whether there are identifiable patterns in firearm acquisition.
Methods
We view firearm acquisition patterning as a spatio-temporal dynamical system distributed across U.S. states that co-evolves with crime rates, political ideology, income levels, population, and the legal environment. We leverage transfer entropy and exponential random graph models along with publicly available data, to statistically reveal the formative factors in how each state’s temporal patterning of firearm acquisition influences other states.
Results
Results help to explain how and why U.S. states influence each other in their firearm acquisition. We establish that state-to-state influences, or lack thereof, in firearm acquisition patterning are explained by states’ percent of gun homicide, firearm law strictness, geographic neighborhood, and citizen ideology. Network-based characteristics, namely, mutuality and transitivity, are also important to explain such influence.
Conclusions
Results suggest that state policies or programs that reduce gun homicides will also help suppress that state’s influence on the patterning of firearm acquisition in other states. Furthermore, states with stricter firearm laws are more likely to influence firearm acquisition in other states, but are themselves shielded from the effects of other states’ firearm acquisition patterns. These results inform future research in public health, criminology, and policy making.
... However, American participants reported higher agreement with the item describing gun ownership as part of a lifestyle. Gun lifestyle is definitely a cultural element, part of American heritage and society, with entire communities training, accumulating impressive gun arsenals, and leading a lifestyle revolving around gun ownership and use (e.g., Scodari, 1994;Kalesan et al., 2016). Such a lifestyle is nearly nonexistent in Israeli settings: civilians very rarely are allowed to own more than a single pistol or revolver, and rifles and automatic weapons are not allowed to nonmilitary/security forces personnel. ...
Civilian gun ownership is hotly debated in societies around the world, especially in the United States. This study added to the discussion by comparing samples from two countries representing opposite extremes in terms of civilian gun access policy: the US where the right of civilians to own guns is Constitution-based and Israel where civilian access to guns is extremely limited and strictly supervised. One hundred and two American and 142 Israeli citizens completed a series of online measures of exposure to guns, attitudes, meaning attributed to gun ownership, and gun culture. Significant differences were found on all measures. The Israeli sample reported higher endorsement of civilian gun ownership, and Israelis associated gun ownership and presence in the civilian space with enhanced security. Gun culture was predominantly self-defense in both samples, but the US sample also showed higher prevalence of other cultures, such as hunting and sport. Gender played a major role in the results in both samples, with women reporting lower endorsement of gun ownership by civilians and attributing more risk and chance of violence to the presence of guns in their environment. The results are discussed in the socio-political and cultural context.
... Frontiers in Public Health 07 frontiersin.org self-reported social gun culture has been linked to gun ownership (30), and gun culture, which also varies regionally, may contribute to social norms surrounding the use of firearms for self-protection (31,32). When developing secure firearm storage initiatives for EBHV programs, it may be important to tailor the focus of the messaging by urbanicity or by reason for firearm ownership, addressing both provider pre-existing barriers to counseling on secure storage and parent barriers to secure storage. ...
Background
Firearms used in pediatric firearm deaths are most often obtained from the child’s home, making secure firearm storage initiatives imperative in prevention efforts. Evidence-based home visiting (EBHV) programs are implemented with over 277,000 families annually, providing an opportunity for secure firearm storage counseling. The purpose of this study was to assess EBHV providers’ experiences with firearm screening (“assessment”), secure storage counseling, and their perceptions for related training needs.
Methods
Providers in the U.S. from SafeCare®, an EBHV program often implemented with families experiencing increased risk of child neglect and physical or emotional abuse, were invited to participate in a survey to examine firearm assessment and attitudes toward and experiences with firearm safety counseling. Survey items were primarily Likert scale ratings to indicate level of agreement, with some open-ended follow-up questions. Descriptive statistics (i.e., frequencies and percentages) were used to report item-level agreement. A post hoc analysis was conducted using Spearman correlation to examine the association between assessment and counseling and provider-level factors.
Results
Sixty-three SafeCare providers consented to and completed the survey items. Almost three-quarters (74.6%) agreed/strongly agreed that they assess in-home firearm availability. However, 66.7% agreed/strongly agreed that they have not been adequately trained to discuss firearm safety topics. A substantial proportion (80.6%) indicated they would counsel more if materials and training on this topic were available. Response variability emerged by level of urbanicity. A post hoc analysis found that providers’ self-reported frequency of assessment and counseling were associated with their comfort level discussing firearm safety and whether or not they had worked with families impacted by firearm injury.
Conclusion
SafeCare providers report a need for materials and training on secure firearm storage, and a willingness to provide more counseling with proper training to the families they serve. Findings illuminate the need for secure storage initiatives for EBHV programs, which have broad service reach to a substantial number of at-risk U.S. families annually.
... The United States has a deep and compassionate gun culture (Kalesan et al., 2016). The belief that every individual has the right to bear arms and that owning a gun is a safeguard of democracy is baked into America's values (Hofstadter, 1970). ...
... The United States has a robust culture that is based on gun ownership and the right to own a firearm (Kalesan et al., 2016). Many individuals in the United States believe that gun ownership is vital to the protection of their property and family (Kalesan et al., An Examination of Gun Control Laws and Lethal Violence in the United States | 63 2016). ...
... As a whole, the male gun-owning protector is a myth, despite antidotal examples such as the individual who stopped a potential mass shooting at an Indiana shopping mall. Empirical evidence has shown that this is not an accurate representation of gun violence in the United States (Kalesan et al., 2016;Mencken & Froese, 2019). ...
The United States has a deep and compassionate culture of firearms. Therefore, any restrictions or limitations on access to guns are met with strong opposition. States have enacted different gun control laws aimed at reducing homicide and violence. Past analyses of gun control laws have focused on homicide. However, suicide is also associated with gun violence in the United States. Examining two gun control laws, the current analysis explores if the laws are predictive of decreases in lethal violence, homicide, and suicide. The findings demonstrate that gun control laws are associated with decreased lethal violence and suicide. There was not a significant association between gun control laws and homicide. The analysis illustrates the need to include suicide in examinations of gun violence.
... Firearm-related suicide accounts for approximately half of the suicide deaths in the United States annually [1]. Firearms are common in Americans' lives [2]; about one-third of Americans report owning firearms [3], and an additional 10% report living in a household with a firearm [4], with higher rates in western states [2], among veterans [5], and in rural areas [6]. Moreover, the rate of ownership of new firearms appears to have increased recently among women, Black people, and Hispanic people [7]. ...
Background
“Lock to Live” (L2L) is a novel web-based decision aid for helping people at risk of suicide reduce access to firearms. Researchers have demonstrated that L2L is feasible to use and acceptable to patients, but little is known about how to implement L2L during web-based mental health care and in-person contact with clinicians.
Objective
The goal of this project was to support the implementation and evaluation of L2L during routine primary care and mental health specialty web-based and in-person encounters.
Methods
The L2L implementation and evaluation took place at Kaiser Permanente Washington (KPWA)—a large, regional, nonprofit health care system. Three dimensions from the RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) model —Reach , Adoption , and Implementation —were selected to inform and evaluate the implementation of L2L at KPWA (January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021). Electronic health record (EHR) data were used to purposefully recruit adult patients, including firearm owners and patients reporting suicidality, to participate in semistructured interviews. Interview themes were used to facilitate L2L implementation and inform subsequent semistructured interviews with clinicians responsible for suicide risk mitigation. Audio-recorded interviews were conducted via the web, transcribed, and coded, using a rapid qualitative inquiry approach. A descriptive analysis of EHR data was performed to summarize L2L reach and adoption among patients identified at high risk of suicide.
Results
The initial implementation consisted of updates for clinicians to add a URL and QR code referencing L2L to the safety planning EHR templates. Recommendations about introducing L2L were subsequently derived from the thematic analysis of semistructured interviews with patients (n=36), which included (1) “have an open conversation,” (2) “validate their situation,” (3) “share what to expect,” (4) “make it accessible and memorable,” and (5) “walk through the tool.” Clinicians’ interviews (n=30) showed a strong preference to have L2L included by default in the EHR-based safety planning template (in contrast to adding it manually). During the 2-year observation period, 2739 patients reported prior-month suicide attempt planning or intent and had a documented safety plan during the study period, including 745 (27.2%) who also received L2L. Over four 6-month subperiods of the observation period, L2L adoption rates increased substantially from 2% to 29% among primary care clinicians and from <1% to 48% among mental health clinicians.
Conclusions
Understanding the value of L2L from users’ perspectives was essential for facilitating implementation and increasing patient reach and clinician adoption. Incorporating L2L into the existing system-level, EHR-based safety plan template reduced the effort to use L2L and was likely the most impactful implementation strategy. As rising suicide rates galvanize the urgency of prevention, the findings from this project, including L2L implementation tools and strategies, will support efforts to promote safety for suicide prevention in health care nationwide.
... In addition, rankings of the relative strictness of each state's gun-related laws were taken from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence [16]. Further, state-level gun ownership rates were taken from a report by Kalesan et al. entitled "Gun Ownership and Social Gun Culture [17]." Next, the rate of firearm-related suicide in each state among both the juvenile (less than 18 years-old) and adult statewide populations (18 years-old and older), were obtained from the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 1999 to 2019 [18]. ...
... For example, if a state had a restriction pass in 2013, then it was given a value of 0.29 as it would have a "0" from 1999 to 2012, and a "1" from 2013 until 2019, representing the enactment of the law. Moreover, the Giffords Center Ranking and the gun ownership percentage were the two other exposures used in this study [16,17]. For the Giffords Center rankings, lower numbers indicate more restrictive firearm laws, while higher numbers denote states with more lenient gun laws. ...
... The highest and lowest rates in children were in Alaska (5.42 per 100k) and New Jersey (0.23 per 100k), respectively. Gun ownership rates were highest in Alaska (61.70%) and lowest in Delaware (5.2%) [17]. ...
Background:
Few studies have investigated the relationship between specific gun regulations and gun ownership with the firearm-related suicide rate among juveniles and adults across U.S. states. Therefore, this study seeks to determine if gun ownership rates and gun restrictions are related to the firearm-related suicide rate in both the pediatric and adult populations.
Methods:
Fourteen measures of state gun law restrictions and gun ownership were collected. These included Giffords Center ranking, gun ownership percentages, and 12 specific firearm laws. Unadjusted linear regressions modeled the relationship between each individual variable and the rate of firearm-related suicides for adults and children across states. This was repeated using a multivariable linear regression adjusting for poverty, poor mental health, race, gun ownership, and divorce rates by state. P values of <0.004 were considered significant.
Results:
In the unadjusted linear regression, 9 of 14 firearm-related measures were statistically associated with fewer firearm-related suicides in adults. Similarly, 9 of 14 measures were found to be associated with fewer firearm-related suicides in the pediatric population. In the multivariable regression, 6 of 14 vs. 5 of 14 measures were statistically associated with fewer firearm-related suicides in the adult and pediatric populations, respectively.
Conclusions:
Ultimately, this study found that increased state gun restrictions and lower gun ownership rates were associated with fewer firearm related suicides among juveniles and adults in the US. This paper provides objective data to help lawmakers as they create gun control legislation that can potentially decrease the rate of fire-arm related suicide.
Levels of evidence:
II.
... These meanings reflect political and gendered narratives and identities (Melzer 2012;Mencken and Froese 2019). Attitudes towards guns are staunchly divisive, with all sides of the debate grounded in distinct social, cultural, and political camps ( Joslyn et al. 2017;Kalesan et al. 2016). Hence, attitudes towards guns become emblematic of political identities, and these attitudes are shaped by the gendered meanings tied to gun ownership. ...
Social movements pushed to reconceptualize intimate partner violence (IPV) as a social problem deserving of intervention rather than a private family matter. However, little work has examined which interventions the public is likely to support. How and where do personal politics affect perceptions of and responses to a social problem? To address these questions, 739 participants read a victim’s narrative from a court case and indicated their concern for the victim and support for issuing a protection order, prohibiting the abuser from owning a gun, or the victim owning a gun to protect herself. Concern for the victim and support for issuing a protection order was widespread, regardless of political leaning, with minor variations driven by role-taking and attitudes towards IPV. Similarly, support for the victim receiving a protection order was high, with political ideology and political affiliation having no direct effects. While concern increased support for each intervention, it held less explanatory power for gun-related interventions. Instead, political ideology and affiliation shaped support for disarming the abuser or arming the victim. Support for these interventions seemed to filter through a political lens. Thus, one’s personal politics drive divergent intervention attitudes, even when concern for a social problem is shared.
... Firearm storage practices were commonly influenced by the practices of family and friends. This finding is consistent with what has been referred to as a social gun culture (Kalesan et al. 2016). Future research should explore how social networks can be leveraged to promote safer storage. ...
... Nearly all parents/guardians universally endorsed the importance of firearm safety education for parents and children. However, several studies have found that educational interventions, such as the NRA Eddie Eagle program, do not prevent children from handling firearms (Kalesan et al. 2016;Hardy et al. 1996;Hardy 2002;Himle et al. 2004). While only a minority of participants explicitly cited firearm regulation as important in preventing child injury, child access prevention laws have been shown to protect against both suicide and unintentional injury (Ando et al. 2014). ...
Background
Firearm injury is a leading cause of death among children. Safer firearm storage practices are associated with a reduced risk of childhood suicide and unintentional firearm death. However, these practices are underutilized. The objective of this study was to characterize parental attitudes and beliefs related to firearm storage and identify facilitators and barriers to safer storage practices.
Methods
Semi-structured, qualitative interviews were conducted to identify motivations for using different storage methods among parents who kept firearms in southern Connecticut. The constant comparative method was used to code interview transcripts and derive themes directly from the data.
Results
Twenty participants completed the study. 60% were male, 90% were white, and all were between 32 and 53 years old. 85% of participants stored firearms locked, 60% unloaded, 65% kept ammunition locked or did not keep ammunition in their home, and 45% stored ammunition separate from firearms. The following themes were identified: (1) firearm storage must be compatible with a specific context of use; (2) some parents engage in higher-risk storage because they believe it is adequate to reduce the risk of injury; (3) firearm practices are influenced by one’s social network and lived experience; (4) parents who own firearms may be amenable to changing storage practices; and (5) parents’ conceptualization of firearm injury prevention is multimodal, involving storage, education, and legislation.
Conclusions
Parents who keep firearms value convenience and utility, which may be at odds with safer storage practices; however, some may be amenable to adopting safer practices. Family and peer relationships, education, and legislation represent important facilitators of storage practices. Understanding parental attitudes and beliefs on firearm storage may inform future interventions to improve storage practices.
... The process of "firearm retirement" (i.e., voluntary reductions in access to or use of firearms) may also be an emotional process, and-like driving-should be linked to cognitive and physical function rather than age alone. Firearms are often tied to an individual's identity, culture, family history, and sense of safety and control (Greene et al., 2007;Hirschman, 2003;Kalesan et al., 2016;Pierre, 2019;Simonetti et al., 2020). A current knowledge gap is how to engage older adult firearm owners in making plans for when and how to voluntarily reduce access to or use of firearms. ...
Background and Objectives
Age-associated changes can impair abilities for safe driving and the use of firearms. We sought to examine multiple perspectives on reducing access to firearms, including similarities and differences compared to reducing driving.
Research Design and Methods
Online focus groups and 1-on-1 interviews were conducted (November 2020 to May 2021) in the United States with: older adults who drove and owned firearms; family members of older adult firearm owners/drivers; professionals in aging-related agencies; and firearm retailers/instructors. Recorded sessions were transcribed, coded, and analyzed following a mixed inductive–deductive thematic analysis process.
Results
Among 104 participants (81 in focus groups, 23 in interviews), 50 (48%) were female, and 92 (88%) White. Key similarities: decisions are emotional and challenging; needs change over time; safety concerns are heightened by new impairments; prior experiences prompt future planning; tension between autonomy and reliance on trusted others; and strategies like reframing may ease transitions and avoid confrontations. Key differences: “retirement” was not an acceptable term for firearms; reducing driving may affect daily independence more, but there are few alternatives for the psychological safety conferred by firearms; and there are specific firearm-related legal concerns but more driving-related regulations, policies, and resources.
Discussion and Implications
The similarities and differences in the processes and preferences related to reducing driving or firearm access have implications for the development of resources to support planning and action. Such resources for the public and providers might empower older adults and their families to make voluntary, shared decisions, and reduce injuries and deaths.
