Many Americans who recently bought guns open to political violence, survey finds

Large numbers of Americans who have bought guns over the past four years or who regularly carry their loaded weapons in public are willing to engage in political violence, even to the extent of shooting a perceived opponent, a new mega-survey has found.

The study of almost 13,000 Americans, drawn from across the country and weighted for demographics, provides alarming evidence of the openness of certain types of gun owners to the idea – and possibly the practice – of violence as a political act.

The risk of violent behavior rose dramatically, the researchers found, with certain subsets of gun owners.

In particular, Americans who have bought their weapons since the disruptions of Covid in 2020 and those who often or always carry guns in public expressed high levels of susceptibility to political violence. A similar, though less marked, trend was visible among owners of assault-style rifles of the sort used frequently in mass shootings.

The study, Firearm Ownership and Support for Political Violence in the United States, was conducted by the violence prevention research program at the University of California, Davis. Its findings will ring alarm bells at an already exceptionally tense time for the country.

With seven months to go to the presidential rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the US is not only in the early stages of what promises to be a fiery election, but the prevalence of gun ownership as well as mass gun rampages are also running at all-time highs. A country awash with weapons and facing a fraught political clash, which both sides are portraying as an existential fight for the future of America, poses extreme challenges for law enforcement.

Since Trump announced his candidacy in November 2022, he has taken his inflammatory rhetoric to a new level. He has recast his supporters who have been jailed for the violent attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 as “hostages” and promised to pardon many of them.

At the same time, gun purchases have soared since the start of the pandemic. Last year the US endured a record number of mass shootings.

The authors of the study draw conclusions from their findings that will give federal and state officials pause. It is plausible, they say, that recent gun purchasers may be “arming up for anticipated civil conflict. Our findings strongly suggest that large numbers of armed individuals who are at least potentially willing to engage in political violence are in public places across the US every day.”

Participants in the UC Davis survey were asked whether they believed that violence was justified in the pursuit of a range of specific political objectives. About 39% of gun owners said yes, compared with 30% of non-owners.

That differential is moderate. But the gap becomes far more serious when the same question is put to subsets of gun owners.

Some 42% of owners of assault-type rifles said political violence could be justified, rising to 44% of recent gun purchasers, and a staggering 56% of those who always or nearly always carry loaded guns in public.

The extent to which those subgroups said they were prepared to go in actually carrying out political violence was even more stark. The survey takers were asked to imagine they were in a situation in which political violence was perceived as justified.

In that scenario, 16.5% of gun owners who carried loaded firearms in public in the 12 months before the survey was conducted said they would go as far as to shoot someone. The proportion was also high among Americans who had bought weapons since 2020 (8.9%) and owners of assault-style rifles (7.9%), compared with those who do not possess guns at all (3.3%).

“Recent purchasers and always- or nearly-always-carriers were more willing to kill to advance political objectives,” the researchers conclude.

The political mindset of the gun-owning subgroups is also skewed to more extreme positions lending themselves to political violence. Asked whether they believed that the US would erupt in civil war within the next few years, 29% of public gun carriers said yes, with the same answer given by 22% of recent purchasers and 20% of assault-type rifle owners, compared with only 13% of non-owners.

The study, published by Jama Network Open on Tuesday, was based on a survey carried out in May and June 2022. It is part of a series of peer-reviewed articles and papers from the violence prevention research program that has explored views on political violence in the US including by party affiliation and political ideology and among Republicans who support Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement.

The research team, led by Garen Wintemute, a professor of emergency medicine at UC Davis, approaches political violence as a public health problem. They hope that their findings will act as a guide to preventive measures as federal and state officials brace themselves for what lies ahead.

The scientists draw comfort from their finding that most Americans, whether or not they own firearms, bluntly reject political violence as an acceptable option. They say that result should give hope, as it suggests that violence prevention measures could be effective among gun owners and non-owners alike who “publicly repudiate political violence” and could “help identify, dissuade, deter, and incapacitate likely perpetrators”.

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