Gun rights or gun control: Reaching a consensus

About This Project

Gun violence is a growing crisis in the US. Public opinions appear polarized from favoring gun rights to gun control. Despite these diverging opinions, an overwhelming majority of the public including gun owners support universal background checks for gun purchase. In parallel, there is also strong public support for gun rights. Our project will find consensus between the two sides under the framework of moderated civil discussions that may lead to effective strategies to reduce gun violence.

Why should you care?

Gun violence may seem to you that it is something that happens to others. That may not be entirely true. Every year gun violence directly affects more than 110,000 Americans: around 33,000 are killed and 82,000 are injured. You may even know someone in your social circle who has been shot or have family members and friends who have been shot. With your help, we can try to change that.

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What is the context of this research?

This research project will be a community based organization-academic partnership to address gun violence and will be informed by optimism that there are some intersections between those who support gun rights and those who support gun control. This project will use a community-based intervention rooted in civil discourse of various gun issues with conflicting attitudes such as “background checks for firearm and ammunition purchases” and “allowing conceal/ open carry in public places including educational institutions”. Using moderated civil and open discussions as an intervention, the project aims to find commonalities and consensus that will help move participants towards favoring reduction or prevention of gun violence.

What is the significance of this project?

This project builds on the researcher’s previous work on public health consequences of gun violence. Each year, around 33,000 are shot dead while 82,000 are injured non-fatally by guns. We found the existence of a strong social gun culture prevalent in the country that was associated with gun ownership. Policies that are evidence based and that involve community participation are required to reduce the current magnitude of gun violence. This project will help us understand the crossroads between gun rights and gun control attitudes to reach consensus necessary for the prevention of gun violence.

Currently there is very little funding provided by the National Institute of Health and none by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that requires us to move to crowd fund and also raise gun violence awareness.

What are the goals of the project?

The goal of this study is to use a framework of civil discourse to move beyond gun rights versus gun control, taking into consideration social gun culture and the multi-dimensional and intersecting issues of gun rights and gun control and to provide evidence for action that will help prevent and reduce gun violence. We will conduct 8 moderated civil discussions on background check laws and guns in public places by gun violence survivors from Arizonans for Gun Safety, a non-profit organization in Massachusetts and Arizona by debating and presenting all attitudes from strongly diasgree to strongly agree. We will then assess the study participant’s knowledge and attitude regarding gun violence, gun laws and gun rights prior to the discussion, after the discussion and after 3 months.