Poor, white men more likely to ‘cling’ to guns, study finds

They’ve got guns, and they’re the most likely segment of the population to say that violence against the United States government is sometimes justified, according to a study conducted by a pair of Baylor University sociologists.

They’re economically disadvantaged white men.

Researchers Carson Mencken and Paul Froese published their study “Gun Culture in Action,” in November’s edition of the journal “Social Problems,” in which they sought to establish a “gun empowerment” scale to analyze the meaning of gun ownership for the 1,572 survey respondents.

“White, male gun owners who have lost, or fear losing, their economic footing tend to feel morally and emotionally attached to their guns,” a Baylor news release reads.

But one of the authors took that finding a step further.

“Gun control for these owners has come to represent an attack on their masculinity, independence and moral identity,” Froese said in the release. “The gun becomes their central, sacred object.”

The sociologists found a significant relationship between being white, economically disadvantaged and a high score on their “gun empowerment” scale.

Gun owners, represented by 577 survey respondents who identified as such, were questioned further on what types of guns they owned and why, their attitudes on specific gun policies and on possible scenarios that would justify violence against the government. High “gun empowerment” was also found to be “significantly related to insurrectionism, or whether a gun owner believes that it is justifiable to take up arms against the government.”

Also from the study: “Nonwhites, females, older and better educated gun owners are likely to see gun availability as being responsible ‘a great deal’ for gun violence. White men, on the other hand, do not blame the gun.”

But the economic frustrations of rural white Americans are nothing new in politics.

As a candidate in his first run at the U.S. presidency in 2008, Barack Obama said about rural Pennsylvania voters, “it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Obama brought the sentiment back, if not the same terminology, in a 2015 interview on NPR News, to describe supporters of then-candidate Donald Trump in the early stages of the 2016 Election cycle.

“Particularly blue-collar men have had a lot of trouble in this new economy, where they are no longer getting the same bargain that they got when they were going to a factory and able to support their families on a single paycheck,” Obama told NPR.

“Our findings support Obama’s idea that guns provide an emotional and moral source of meaning especially for white Americans experiencing economic distress,” the study says.

Those who feel the strongest about gun rights are not just people who come out and vote for candidates who support their position on gun control, though, according to the authors of the study. They are helping to shape a new gun culture in the U.S.

“It is not just money from gun manufacturers shaping gun legislation,” the researchers concluded. “It is the cultural solidarity and commitment of a subgroup of Americans who root their identity, morality and patriotism in gun ownership. This is gun culture in action.”

This story was originally published November 29, 2017 at 11:43 AM with the headline "Poor, white men more likely to ‘cling’ to guns, study finds."