Identity and the Racialization of Gun Regulation Policy Preferences

• In Event: Prejudice and Intolerance: New Models and Measures

Abstract

In this study we examine how ethnoracial identities influence attitudes about gun regulations. Drawing on the racial resentment and identity politics literature, we argue that there are uniquely southern attitudes and orientations that situate American and ethnoracial identity and the racialized politics of violence at the center of southerners’ preferences about gun policy matters. Using data from a 2016 national survey of white, black, and Latino U.S. residents with a comparable southern sample, we test for the effects of American and ethnoracial identity, feelings toward the Black Lives Matter movement, and feelings toward the police on individual attitudes supporting or opposing background checks and banning assault weapons. In some cases, we identify a meaningful southern regional divide in support for gun regulation policies. Overall, we find evidence that the racialized politics of violence are meaningful predictors of support for gun control policies for Latinos and for white Americans

Author

• Todd G. Shields, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville