Won’t You Be My Neighbor? The Intersection of Preferences for Race and Guns

• In Event: Area XII. Diversity and Inclusion - Race & Ethnicity

Abstract

Residential segregation remains deeply entrenched, reflecting persistent racial hierarchies favoring White neighbors and neighborhoods. Concurrently, rising firearm prevalence introduces new complexities to residential preferences, potentially reinforcing existing racial boundaries. To examine how racial biases intersect with attitudes toward guns, we conducted a nationally representative survey-experiment pilot (N=1,000, February 2025), employing a novel grid-based tool allowing participants to spatially assign race and firearm ownership attributes to hypothetical neighbors.

Preliminary analyses reveal clear intersectional patterns: participants systematically assigned fewer gun-owning households in predominantly Black neighborhoods, suggesting compounded stigma linking race and firearms. Individual characteristics, such as participants’ own gun ownership, moderated these effects, with gun owners generally showing lower aversion yet still cautious about specific racial-gun combinations. A second nationally representative wave is underway to replicate and extend these findings, with final results available by the time of presentation. These results underscore how firearm ownership attitudes may intensify existing racial stratification in residential contexts, offering important insights for scholars and policymakers addressing segregation, perceived threat, and community cohesion in increasingly armed American communities.

Authors

• Justin Lucas Sola, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Justin Pickett, SUNY Albany