Gun ownership and fear.

ABSTRACT: Americans can be divided into two groups: those who own guns and those who do not. Although people who own guns and people who do not own guns are often separated along social, cultural, and political lines, it is unclear whether these divisions might extend to population differences in emotional experience. In this paper, we use national cross-sectional data from the 2014 Chapman University Survey on American Fears (n = 1385) to test whether gun owners are more or less afraid than people who do not own guns. We build on previous work by testing two hypotheses with a broad range of fear-related outcomes, including specific phobias and fears associated with being victimized. The symptom perspective argues that gun ownership is a behavioral expression of fear, that gun owners need gun

SUBMITTER: Dowd-Arrow B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6687226 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature