Does One’s personal Experiences with Guns Impact Their Views on Gun Control?

After the Parkland shooting the students who survived created a political movement to implement stricter gun control. Clearly the experience of these students, who had to live through something that nobody should have to live through, made them feel a call to action‍, but I wanted to know if that sentiment was universal and whether or not people’s views on guns were impacted by their personal experience. To get a better understanding of how people’s experiences shaped their views on guns I conducted a survey that asked about their personal experiences with guns and their corresponding views. This would give me statistical data about experiences and corresponding views. But to really understand the personal aspect of the debate I talked to a colleague who has seen the impact of gun violence first hand. The data and the information I collected found that while people’s personal experiences may not change their views in terms of guns, it does make them more likely to double down in their current beliefs about guns.

(https://mobile.surveymonkey.com/web/surveys/173762485/analyze?from=summary)

When I conducted the survey, I asked 10 questions related to personal experiences with guns and corresponding views. These questions included “Do you know someone who has been a victim of gun violence”, “Have you or someone you lived with ever owned a gun” to gauge their personal experiences with guns and then “Which of these policies do you support” to see how their views change (survey). The policies I asked about included centrist options like Universal Background Checks and more extreme options like a constitutional amendment banning guns and arming teachers. 40 people responded and what I found was that there was little to no difference in people’s support of the centrist solution of universal background checks (~71% among people who knew someone who was a victim of gun violence versus ~71% of people overall) (Survey). What I did find was that people who knew people who were victims of gun violence tended to double-down on political affiliation amongst people who self-identified as liberal or conservative. 67% of people who self identified as liberal who knew someone who was a victim of gun violence supported an assault weapons ban, as opposed to 45% overall support (survey). The same could be said about self described conservatives who knew someone who was a victim of gun violence, 60% of whom supported arming teachers compared to a 27.5% rate of support overall (Survey). This really stood out to me because it showed that instead of changing people’s views, knowing someone who was a victim of gun violence doubled down in their current beliefs about guns and the beliefs that corresponded to their political affiliation. I was fascinated by this until I talked to someone who knew the impact of gun violence, where the interview gave me insight into why people doubled down on their views on guns.

Wanting a better understanding on a personal level, I interviewed a fellow San Francisco State student whose school was locked down because of an active shooter on her brother’s campus. When I asked her about her initial reaction, she said “that was before I knew about Columbine, before I had any knowledge about school shooters so I initially wasn’t worried, but when I found out that it was on my brother’s campus I was more worried for him. But then I remember like a day later we went back to school and they had us do a mass assembly and that’s when they showed us a bunch of documentaries on Columbine and that was kinda scarring, that was kind of like ‘woah’…everyone was crying because we didn’t know it could get to that point.” She then told me a really personal story about how her friend committed suicide using a gun “[I remember] he was super charismatic, really outgoing, really friendly. I remember it was the last day of winter break, I brought everyone cookies and he wasn’t at school so I was like ‘damn I can’t give him his cookies’ and a week later I was going out on a scavenger hunt with my friends and then I got a text from my friend and he was like ‘go check Facebook, it’s really bad’ and someone posted like ‘rest in peace’ and I was like ‘woah, there’s no way’. Then they did a news story and that’s how I found out that he was in a bathroom by himself and he used a gun…I was in a car waiting for my friends and I just started bawling my eyes out.” Understandably, I noticed that she began to get more emotional telling this story, showing me that it really affected her. This gave me insight into her personal experiences with guns and when I asked about how this impacted her views, she said that the assembly and the lockdown made her more aware but that after her friend shot himself “it reinforced my views that guns are bad. (Gun control is) not even a debate to me anymore. It’s like global warming, if you don’t believe in it, one you’re wrong it’s not an opinion, two you’re only gonna side more with your side. You’re never gonna look on the other side and think ‘that makes sense’, you’re only gonna focus on your defense.” This quote not only explains perfectly the phenomenon I saw in my survey about people who knew the impacts of gun violence only becoming more likely to double down in their current beliefs, but also gives a face and a story to those people and their experiences. And while everyone who has been a victim or knows a victim’s story is different, the reinforcement of current beliefs on the issue of guns remains consistent.

As to why this is, I think that people’s life experiences shape them and when something traumatic happens people think of ‘what ifs’. If they are liberal, they’ll think “what if he didn’t have a gun” whereas if they are conservative they think “what if I had been able to stop them”. So instead of trying to understand the opposing view, people will just think “I’ve lived it, so my opinion is more valid than the opposition”.

Overall the survey showed me that people tended to stick to their own political views when it came to gun control, and the interview explained why people were that way.

Works Cited:

https://mobile.surveymonkey.com/web/surveys/173762485/analyze?from=summary (Pictures of the results will be posted on my Blog post).