Introduction
In the United States, gun violence may be compared to an incurable cancer. It has been a problem in American society for a considerable time, and it has adversely infringed on people’s right to life, leaving an indelible mark on the country’s record on human rights. The interplay of party politics causes this problem, as well as interest groups (Kantack & Paschall, 2019).
Whether or not there is a correlation between political membership and the number of people killed by firearms in a given year has been more contentious in recent years. Particular individuals think that states with stricter gun controls, which are often related to policies that lean toward the Democratic Party, have lower rates of gun violence. This contrasts with States that have eased gun laws and advocate more toward the Republican party.
Nevertheless, this connection is intricate and may be influenced by various other elements, including socioeconomic standing, cultural values, and historical tendencies. The purpose of this research is to test the hypothesis that states that have continuously voted Democratic between the years of 2010 and 2020 have lower rates of gun violence in comparison to states that have consistently supported Republicans during the same period. The hypothesis test was done by statistical analysis of data obtained from reliable sources about the rates of gun violence and voting patterns seen throughout the states. The findings of this research have the potential to provide insight into the link between political affiliation and rates of gun violence, as well as to guide future policy debates on the various methods of gun control.
The Politics of Gun Violence
Democrat and Republican positions on firearms control have always been opposed. In 1968, the House passed the Gun Control Act by a vote of 305-118 and the Senate by a vote of 70-17 (Gun Violence in the United States, 2023). Since then, the parties’ stances on whether or not there should be limitations placed on gun ownership have been more divergent (Johnson et al., 2020). Gun regulation has been a steady priority for Democrats, while firearms ownership has been a constant priority for Republicans.
Therefore, it is considerably more difficult for both sides to agree because of the current hostile political atmosphere in the United States. The New York Times reported that in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, 14 states under Republican control have approved rules allowing people to carry weapons without a license. This comes as Democrats push for stricter gun regulation. (Baker et al., 2023). Further, The Washington Post revealed that in the past few years, the Republican Party published many gun-related images and videos in newspapers, billboards, and social media (Itkowitz, 2022). The article indicated that Republicans appealed to supporters who advocate gun control.
The strength of gun laws at the state level is also primarily determined by local legislators, even though the federal government may create national gun laws. A state legislature more often controlled by one party is more likely to enact that party’s desired gun control measures (Liu et al., 2019). Americans who resided in counties that supported a Democratic presidential candidate between 2000 and 2016 had a more significant decline in mortality rates than citizens who supported a Republican presidential candidate (Widening Gap, 2022). Similarly, states under Democratic rule from 2012 to 2022 showed that Republican states had higher rates of gun violence than Democratic states (See Image 1). In this regard, it was discovered that since 2012, most states had primarily voted Republican in the legislature.
Only four states—Minnesota, Maine, Virginia, and Kentucky—have fairly balanced their votes between the two parties. This data may be used to calculate the average yearly murder rate and firearm murder rate, per 100,000 inhabitants, for each state in the United States from 2010 through 2020 (Norton, 2022). To compare data across populations more objectively, the rate per 100,000 persons was calculated instead of only comparing the overall killings.
Combined, it became clear that just four Democratic states were among the 20 legislatures with the most significant incidence of firearm murder. Most of the top 20 voters were Republican, either generally or fiercely. Thus, according to Norton’s analysis from 2022, the top five states for gun laws were the District of Columbia (D), Louisiana (R), Missouri (R), South Carolina (R), and Maryland (D). The majority of Republican states in the top 20 had the lowest grades. Only five Democratic legislatures (plus D.C.) were in the top 20 ranking for killing rate across all weapon types; these five legislatures also rated in the top five states for killing by any weapon.
In addition, Mother Jones lists the number of mass shootings between 2010 and 22 and characterizes a mass shooting as any incident in which three or more people died. To adhere to a more conventional classification, nevertheless, the 26 states or federal districts that experienced mass shootings between 2010 and 2012 indicated that just 11 were Democrat-run (Norton, 2022). While California (D) had by far the most mass shootings (12), there were still 29% more mass shootings in Democratic states than in Republican legislatures (28% overall, Norton, 2022). The prevalence of gun ownership has led to ongoing bloodshed, endangering state security in the United States.
There have been several changes in the fatality rate patterns related to gun violence in the U.S. The number of murders in the 25 states that supported Donald Trump in the recent elections of 2020 has surpassed the murder rate in the 25 states that supported Joe Biden in each of the years from 2000 to 2020. From a low of 9% higher per capita red state murders in 2003, this Red State murder disparity has continuously increased over the last 21 years (Murdock & Kessler, 2020). Murders in red states increased from 2004 to 44% more per person in 2019, then decreased to 43% in 2020 (Murdock & Kessler, 2020). Thus, this trend has been consistent for the past decade.
Moreover, when all 21 years were considered, the per capita homicide rate in the Red States was 23% greater than the murder incidence in the Blue States. Biden-voting regions would have had nearly 45,000 homicides between 2000 and 2020 (McCammond, 2023) (See Appendix A). Blue State crime rates in gun violence were as high as Red State murder rates. Even after excluding homicides in the major cities in red states, the total murder rate in states that supported Trump was 12% higher than in states that supported Biden throughout these 21 years, and was more elevated in 18 of the 21 years analyzed. This shows unequivocally that the Republican-favored legislation does not effectively address the gun problem.
Hypothesis
The fundamental goal of the study is to understand the dynamics of the current gun control debate as it is being conducted in the American public arena. The expectations of the study are guided by research on public opinion and political psychology. The study aims to examine what is known as the “folk theory” of political psychology, which holds that Democratic states enjoy lower rates of gun violence than Republican States, as it guides the actions of gun violence after elections.
As a result, the creation of novel hypotheses based on novel theories occurs while expressing assumptions that seem to be accepted as accurate in the public discourse but have not yet undergone scientific testing. There is a definite pattern to how major shootings are responded to. Following the incident, states that support Democrats demand one or more specific policy solutions, including increased background checks. The opposition responds by citing the Second Amendment rights and asserting that the proposed regulations will do nothing to prevent more shootings.
For instance, in the aftermath of the shootings in America following 2020, the shooting on April 15, 2021, in Indianapolis split the nation, as many believed that Indiana’s status as a Republican State may have encouraged the gunman to do such a horrible crime. The language of Republican-elected politicians often mirrors this. For instance, following the 2015 election, Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) explained his vote against additional gun control measures (Kantack & Paschall, 2019). Sadly, the gunman was revealed to be a male with no known political allegiances or motives. Instead, it seemed from the inquiry that the gunman had a history of mental health problems, such as paranoia and antisocial conduct.
According to previous research on framing, arguments that stress certain factors may impact public policy opinions, including attitudes toward gun regulation. This idea seems to drive Democrats and Republicans to craft their views to change public perceptions. Therefore, the anticipation is that those who hear arguments about gun control would have more favorable opinions of specific measures, such as the often-praised idea of “expanded background checks.” On the other hand, people should feel less favorably about laws that would further limit the purchase and ownership of weapons when confronted with arguments against gun control.
These expectations comprise the first and second hypotheses:
- H1: States that voted Democratic from 2010 through 2020 had lower levels of gun violence.
- H2: States that consistently supported Democratic candidates between 2010 and 2020 do not experience lower rates of gun violence.
Data and Methods
People from 25 states were enlisted to participate in a quick online poll regarding political problems starting in January 2021. Five hundred twenty-one people in the first cohort completed the survey between January 10 and February 30. The last person to turn in the survey did so just after 4 P.M. The poll was completed by a second group of 556 additional participants between March 22 and April 16. Respondents were randomly assigned to either the treatment group after consenting to complete the survey.
Treatment group members saw a three-sentence debate for or against stronger gun laws in several states. If the dispute favored stricter gun laws, it implied that they were likely from a Democratic state. Democratic and Republican justifications explicitly cited the most recent high-profile shootings in Orlando and San Bernardino as grounds for the policy change, in line with the current gun control debate.
Additionally, it was a Republican argument if it was against gun regulation. Participants included in the control group did not see any conflict. Then, to understand the experiment’s findings, the correct formulation of the arguments is essential. Democratic arguments refer to individual shootings and provide at least a hazy recommendation for a course of action. Republican arguments, on the other hand, exclude any particular incident and instead depend on a defense of the Second Amendment and a claim that gun control laws are useless. As a result, the arguments are not exact mirror reflections of one another and might seem unbalanced to some extent.
Participants were asked whether Democratic states are expected to have less gun violence than Republican ones after the therapy. Those who stated support were asked to specify how much, moderately, or little they preferred or disapproved of it. All respondents were subsequently questioned about how essential they believed preventing mass shootings and defending gun rights were and how successful they anticipated Republican states enforcing harsher policies would be at doing so.
Three ordinary least squares regressions were calculated to examine the repercussions of debate frames and the relevance of party impact on gun control sentiments. One for each indicator of “positive attitudes” that lends credence to the idea that mass shootings in Republican states are particularly aggressive. Higher values for each indicator point to more gun killings in the Blue states. Each metric indicates a parameter that gun control proponents want to improve in their policy-making efforts. They should be more susceptible to increasing gun restrictions, even if their correlation with one another in the data does not warrant examining them as a single construct.
Results
Each regression’s findings contained an indicator variable for whether or not the participant surveyed the elections in November 2020. The initial hypothesis—that Republican States had higher levels of violence than Democratic States—was supported, nonetheless. Both primary pro-argument coefficients are statistically significant and positive; in fact, both were.
According to the metrics, this apparent ineffectiveness of pro-gun control arguments is most likely a result of ceiling effects or the average level of support for stronger regulations. Therefore, this conclusion provides a mixed bag for those who advocate for stronger gun control. Although sentiments regarding increased background checks are generally good, it is doubtful that these attitudes will improve due to gun control arguments.
It is possible to refute this notion, for example, by showing that not all states that support the Democratic Party have low levels of gun violence. The second hypothesis, according to which no evidence states that voters who voted Democratic from 2010 to 2020 had lower rates of gun violence, is also supported. Individuals who heard an argument against Republicans showed much less support for violent mass shootings in those areas. This effect was noticeable regardless of whether the argument used the Second Amendment’s philosophical values or the pragmatic worries that gun regulation would not work to discourage persistent offenders. Still, the latter argument’s impacts were somewhat more pronounced.
Since the coefficients for each debate on significance were not statistically significant, no one reduced the perceived priority of preventing mass shootings. Evaluation of the second hypothesis provides both positive and negative results for proponents of stricter gun control policies: overall backing for expanded background checks is substantial, but as was the case with the first hypothesis, intelligent argumentation can both reduce it and foster doubt about the efficacy of said policy reform at preventing mass shootings. The first hypothesis is confirmed mainly by research showing that States that voted Democratic from 2010 to 2020 saw lower levels of gun violence.
Partisanship and Responses to the Gun Control Debate
According to the research above, residents in Republican states are more likely than residents of Democratic states to face high levels of gun violence. The increasing number of mass shootings enhances public awareness of gun violence and motivates people to support stricter regulations. For a partisan or neutral subset of our sample, it is thus plausible that pro-Democrat and Republican arguments, or the interplay between them, may raise favorable opinions about extended background checks in a manner that would be challenging to identify using the prior models for this study.
Conclusion
The fact that proponents of stricter gun control laws decide to step up their efforts to stop mass shootings implies that they are confident in their case for legislative changes. As a result, this will work better when the issue of gun violence is more pressing. Most of these supporters are Democrats, and these arguments help explain why Democratic states have less widespread gun violence than Republican areas.
The experimental findings from the investigation provided enough support for this notion. Whether a huge mass shooting tops the national headlines, Democratic arguments enhance support for greater background checks for gun purchases. From the standpoint of proponents of gun restriction, it seems that the most that can be hoped for is that the opposition’s claims will have less influence on the public. As a result, mass shootings have gained attention when a tragic event of national significance occurs.
References
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McCammond, A. (2023). Not an anomaly: 2020’s red states have higher murder rates. Axios. Web.
Murdock, K. & Kessler, J. (2020). The two-decade red state murder problem. Thirdway.org. Web.
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‌Appendix
