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Kiran Pandey

Professor Mazzant

ENGL 137H

12 November 2017

A Good Guy with a Gun: The Resurgence of Gun Rights in America

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. The gun debate, like most issues in contemporary

American politics, is a complete and utter mess. Today, the United States is more polarized on

guns than ever before, with a 54-percentage-point gap currently between Republicans and

Democrats on support for protecting gun ownership over controlling it, wider than for almost any

other social issue. The partisan divides on abortion and same-sex marriage don’t even come

close (Enten). However, statistics show that the electorate was not always this polarized.

Since 1993, the Pew Research Center has been documenting the attitudes of Americans

toward the gun debate by asking them this question: “What do you think is more important – to

protect the rights of Americans to own guns, OR to control gun ownership?” Traditionally, their

data has revealed a much greater support for gun control than for gun rights, which has held true

as recently as 2008: 58% of Americans supported gun control while 38% supported gun rights.

But in recent years, that 20-percentage-point gap has narrowed to practically zero. For the first

time in the poll’s history, a majority of people (52%) supported gun rights in 2014, and the most

recent data from 2017 shows only a 4-percentage-point gap between the two groups, with 51% of

Americans supporting gun control and 47% supporting gun rights (“Public Views”). This shift

offers an insight as to why the debate has become so polarized: in the past ten years, American

support for gun rights has markedly increased. Like much of the gun debate, the reason for this

change is obfuscated by contrasting data and unclear motivations. Yet two factors may shine
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some light on the origins of this ideological shift: a renewed need for American safety and the

entrance of the millennial generation into the political realm.

Guns and Safety

To understand this change, it is necessary to observe how Americans perceive guns.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Americans increasingly view guns in the context of

protection and safety. In 1999, the most common reason for gun ownership was hunting; today, it

is protection (Kohut). In 2012, 48% of people believed that gun ownership does more to protect

people from becoming victims of crime as opposed to putting people’s safety at risk, yet only

four years later, 58% of people believed the same thing (“Growing Public Support”;

“Opinions”). This idea of safety has extended to the home as well. When asked if having a gun in

the house makes it a safer place to be or a more dangerous place to be, 63% thought it was safer

and 30% thought it was more dangerous in 2014 as opposed to the 47% who thought it was safer

and the 43% who thought it was more dangerous in 2006 (“Guns”). But why would Americans

feel this increased need for safety when crime rates have been maintaining twenty-year lows?

Since the year 2000, a disconnect has existed between the public perception of the crime

rate and the actual crime rate. More than 60% of Americans consistently say that there is more

crime in the U.S. than there was a year ago, in spite of crime statistics generally showing the

opposite. It is not certain why Americans perceive the crime rate as increasing; many blame it on

the media and fearmongering political rhetoric (Kohut). In recent years, the renewed prevalence

of mass shootings in America also likely contributes to this need for greater security. The exact

amount of mass shootings is under contention, depending on how one defines the term “mass

shooting,” so it is hard to discern an increased frequency in mass shootings. However, all can
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agree on how deadly a mass shooting is, and within roughly the past ten years, America has

witnessed the five deadliest shootings in modern history (Willingham and Ahmed). This offers

an underlying cause as to why many Americans perceive an increase in crime from one year to

the next.

In the wake of such senseless slaughter, many Americans support stricter gun laws, but

this is not representative of the entirety of public reaction (Bradner and Agiesta). Following the

shootings in Orlando, San Bernardino, and Las Vegas, shares in gun stocks and firearms sales

surged (Cheng). In addition to this, many groups encourage people to take up arms in self-

defense, such as the Pink Pistols, a national gun club for gays and lesbians, after the massacre at

a gay nightclub in Orlando. Immediately after the shooting, Pink Pistols membership

skyrocketed from 1,500 to 3,500 people, settling at 4,500 members at the end of the following

week (Chance). Public health expert David Studdert explores the mentality that drives people to

guns in the aftermath of horror, explaining that “the world seems to suddenly be a more violent

and disturbing place than people thought.” He offers fear as an important motivator, compelling

people to take up arms themselves. This impetus is perhaps best articulated by Wayne LaPierre

of the National Rifle Association: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy

with a gun” (Nedelman).

Paradoxically, mass shootings also tend to result in either no changes in gun laws or a

loosening of gun laws. A 2016 Harvard study found that “a mass shooting increases the number

of enacted laws that loosen gun restrictions by 75% in states with Republican-controlled

legislatures,” but there is “no significant effect of mass shootings on laws when there is a

Democrat-controlled legislature” (Luca). Since the Sandy Hook shooting, this loosening of

restrictions has taken place in state legislatures across America: about two dozen states have
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expanded the right to carry guns into previously uncertain places, and many states have adopted

Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which allows for the use of deadly self-defense before

attempting to retreat (Siegel and Frum). These mark just a few instances of lax gun legislation,

with others including Tennessee’s allowance of residents keeping loaded weapons in their car

without a concealed carry permit, Wisconsin’s removal of a 48-hour waiting period for handgun

purchases, and Nevada’s authorization of gun owners to kill people that they caught trying to

steal their vehicles—all within the last five years (Frum). This desire for increased guns in the

population echoes that same mentality of protection and safety, for Americans view these

weapons not just as arbiters of death, but also as safeguards against future mass shootings.

The Millennial Generation

When observing such a massive change in American attitudes over the course of a

decade, it is imperative to note the new voices that have joined the throng. In the last ten years,

the last of the millennial generation, defined by the Pew Research Center as those born from

1981 to 1998, has entered the political world (“The Generations Defined”). Generally, people

perceive the millennial generation as a monolith of social liberalism, and in many cases, such as

same-sex marriage, marijuana legalization, and immigration, this stereotype holds true.

However, the gun debate marks a clear outlier from this liberal streak. Pew Research Center data

shows that the 18-29 age group has seen the same shift toward increased support for gun rights

as the rest of the population (“Public Views”). In addition to this, further data reveals that

millennials typically share opinions on gun control with older generations. The only gun control

issue that millennials tend to show greater support for is that of a federal database of gun sales,

whereas their views align with their elders on amounts of support for laws barring the mentally
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ill from buying guns and for background checks for gun shows. On the issue of an assault

weapons ban, millennials actually show less support when compared to earlier generations; only

49% of those aged 18-29 support such a ban, as opposed to 55% of those aged 30-49, 61% of

those aged 50-64, and 63% of those aged 65+, debunking the myth that millennials are more

liberal on guns (“Large Majorities”).

Gallup Poll Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport tries to make sense of this phenomenon,

commentating that “millennials are…less interested in gun control than those who are older, so

the data suggests it’s unlike a number of other attitudes say like, gay marriage where young

people are much more liberal. We did not see that in our data on guns” (Witkin). But why would

millennials hold such traditional views on the importance of gun ownership? Like older

generations, many millennials still grow up in a gun culture, for 42% of American homes still

have guns (“Guns”). In addition to this, the sport of shooting has found a new popularity as one

of the fastest growing sports in high schools. Many community teams exist, most notably those

through the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation, which has programs in 42 states and has

seen participation grow from about 6,000 in 2011 to about 13,000 in 2015 (Shastry). Because of

this early exposure to guns, many millennials maintain a positive view of gun ownership held by

earlier generations.

Millennials also came of age amidst one of the greatest victories for gun rights in U.S.

history: the rulings of the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 and

McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010. These cases comprise the most significant interpretation

of the Second Amendment in modern American history. With the former case, the Supreme

Court stated for the first time that the Constitution guarantees an individual right to bear arms,

outside of the context of militia service, and with the latter case, the justices expanded this ruling
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to citizens of all fifty states (Brooks). Gun rights groups and advocates lauded this decision, with

Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association calling it “a great moment in American

history” (Mears). These judicial victories came at the culmination of a decades-long shift in

judicial and scholarly thought that the Second Amendment was not a collective right, only to be

applied in instances of serving the community, but the right of individuals (Doherty).

In addition to these judicial victories, millennials also witnessed the intense backlash to

President Obama’s gun policies, especially among factions of Republicans and gun owners. Prior

to Obama’s presidency, Republicans had been moderately divided over the question of gun rights

versus gun control. In 2008, 59% of Republicans thought it was more important to protect gun

rights as opposed to the 38% that thought it more important to control gun ownership. Today,

that gap has increased significantly, with an overwhelming 79% of Republicans supporting gun

rights over 18% supporting gun control (“Public Views”). Simply put, a large amount of the

American people does not trust Obama on the issue of gun control. They perceive his tone as

condescending and dislike his use of executive actions to continually bypass Congress,

attributing this to a core misunderstanding of the gun rights argument on Obama’s part

(Setmayer). This perception extends to many major Republicans—such as Senator Ted Cruz,

Senator Marco Rubio, and former Governor of Florida Jeb Bush—and is perhaps best articulated

in a recent speech delivered by President Trump to the NRA Leadership Forum: “The eight-year

assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end. No longer will federal

agencies be coming after law-abiding gun owners. No longer will the government be trying to

undermine your rights and your freedoms as Americans” (Bradner; Trump).

Ironically, many have dubbed Obama the greatest gun salesman in recent America

memory. Under his administration, gun sales skyrocketed. Before Obama’s presidency, gun sales
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had been steady at a rate of roughly 750,000 guns sold per month. That number leaped to 1.1

million guns sold per month when Obama was elected and later to 2 million guns sold per month

in the January after Obama’s reelection and the Sandy Hook shooting (Aisch and Keller).

Furthermore, according to FBI statistics, the number of NICS Firearm Background Checks per

year rapidly increased during Obama’s presidency, culminating in 2016, Obama’s last year, with

27,538,673 background checks, the highest number on record (“NICS Firearm”). Although

Obama adamantly claimed that he never called for an attack on Second Amendment rights, his

rhetoric on gun control clearly caused many Americans to fear for their right to bear arms.

In the past decade, politics has clearly favored the side of gun rights, between the judicial

victories of the Supreme Court and the heated backlash to executive attempts at gun control. All

of this composed the political landscape that millennials first entered, and perhaps, by which they

were influenced. When examining the testimonies of high school students on the gun debate in

America, many feature a common thread: a hint of uncertainty. Even those who put forth a

stance admit that the issue is not black and white and that they don’t have all the facts (Rense). It

is therefore likely that many of these young Americans, uncertain of their own position and

surrounded by a world once again championing gun ownership as an individual right, opted on

the side of gun rights, helping to sway public opinion on this controversial issue.

Conclusion

Guns are and always have been a notoriously decisive issue, but by looking at their

associations with safety and the views of the millennial generation, Americans can begin to

ascertain the motivations behind the shift in support for gun rights over the last decade. Because

of this shift, today’s America has significant portions of the population backing up each side of
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the gun debate, and it is clear now more than ever that the gun question has no easy answers; it

never has, and it never will. However, such polarization partitions the two sides in such a way

that they often cannot engage in civil and meaningful discourse, threatening a future for our

country that is firmly and forever divided. As the gun debate continues to evolve, each side must

perennially recognize the legitimacy of the other, achieving this common understanding by

focusing on the core motives of fear and protection, and work toward a society free from

meaningless gun violence that is the shared vision of all America.

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