Historical rates of enslavement predict modern rates of American gun ownership

[Nevilledog]

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Shannon Watts
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Aug 21, 2022
@shannonrwatts
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Researchers at the University of Virginia just published a study finding that areas in America with high rates of enslavement in 1860 have high rates of gun ownership today.

phys.org
Historical rates of enslavement predict modern rates of American gun ownership
The higher percentage of enslaved people that a U.S. county counted among its residents in 1860, the more guns its residents have in the present, according to a new analysis by researchers exploring...

Shannon Watts
@shannonrwatts
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“In a post-Civil War South, the belief that guns were necessary for protection was driven by a flood of military weapons, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and elite rhetoric that the government would not protect the interests of white southerners from newly freed Black people.”
3:37 PM · Aug 21, 2022

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-historical-enslavement-modern-american-gun.amp

More than 45% of the world's civilian-owned firearms are in the United States, where just 5 percent of the world's people live. This disparity may have something to do with the way the majority of American gun owners view gun ownership.

"Gun culture is one case where American Exceptionalism really is true," says Nick Buttrick, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of psychology. "We are really radically different even from countries like Canada or Australia, places that have similar cultural roots."

Pew Research Center surveys show two-thirds of Americans who own guns say it's a way to keep themselves safe, while in other countries, people are more likely believe the presence of a gun adds risk and danger to their lives, considering, for example, the far higher rates of homicide and suicide in households with guns. Gun culture scholars have also explored the role of race in American gun attitudes for some time, Buttrick says, and the two may be linked.

In a study published recently in the journal PNAS Nexus, Buttrick and co-author Jessica Mazen, a psychology graduate student at the University of Virginia, describe a shift in sentiment away from the predominant, pre-Civil War idea of guns as tools for hunting and sport.

In the post-Civil War South, the belief that a gun was necessary to protect family, property and a way of life grew prominent among white southerners. This was driven by a flood of surplus military weapons, the rise of armed, white-supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, and elite rhetoric that Reconstruction governments would not protect the interests of white southerners from newly freed and politically-empowered Black people.

*snip*

[orthoclad]

1. That's why I call it the 2WhiteA

[Scrivener7]

2. Interesting, but not a bit surprising.