Key take-away: Beliefs are stronger predictors of gun policy support than demographics alone (like political party, gender, & even gun owner status).
💡This opens new possibilities for more effective public health messaging & stronger coalitional support for evidence-based gun policy rdcu.be/e5BFe
New research with @ryanbk.bsky.social, Phillip Smith, & @kristamehari.bsky.social examines links between views on guns & gun policy generally and support for 6 specific gun policies. Some surprising findings in here!
rdcu.be/e5BFe (🧵 1/2)
I am one of those early career researchers (described at the end of this piece) whose work has been possible because of these projects. I’m grateful for the risk folks took to prioritize such investments. This is a huge loss.💔
Rising number of Americans report owning firearms for protection at public political events
For public safety & for democracy, it is critical that people not only FEEL safe – but ARE safe – when exercising their right to free speech. This is an urgent call for policymakers to respond to gun owners’ safety concerns. Gun-free sensitive spaces could be a place to start. rdcu.be/e3EJD
The problem is, even when motivated by defensive interests, increased gun carrying doesn’t reduce a population’s risk for gun-related harms – it increases it.
These results point to substantial concern among gun owners for personal safety in spaces that are meant for political speech – even while an increasingly large majority of gun owners from all political affiliations denied owning a gun to enact political violence.
(Larger portions of 2025 Republican gun owners also said they owned for at-home protection, protection from police violence, or for hunting compared with Republican gun owners in 2023.)
More 2025 gun owners said they own a gun for protection at demonstrations, rallies or protests. This difference was especially notable among Republican gun owners - 50% said that was a personally important reason.
Key study findings were: On the heels of a violent Presidential election campaign - larger portions of Democrat, Independent, and Republican gun owners rejected gun ownership “to advance an important political objective” in January 2025 vs. 2023. But at the same time…
Did Americans’ reasons for gun ownership differ in 2025 vs 2023?
Yes. In ways that signal an important warning for public safety and for democracy.
Read the full (but brief!) report here:
rdcu.be/e3EJD (or check out this 🧵)
@vuartsci.bsky.social
@jhucgvs.bsky.social
Gun ownership for political protection or armed political expression: a nationally representative analysis of differences in 2025 vs. 2023 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
💯 As a [previously] lifelong fall, winter, and spring quarters person: I endorse this message.
Literally my morning rant today! This “spring semester” branding is fooling nobody.
Every time I talk to someone outside of Minnesota, we always spend time on *really* basic things they have don’t understand about what is happening here.
So let’s do a Q&A. What are your most basic questions about what’s going on in Minnesota?
I wrote this last year. Seems incredibly relevant today in light of the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good:
open.substack.com/pub/johnshja...
The best use of force/firearms policies should severely restrict shooting at moving vehicles (terrorist/ramming attacks notwithstanding), while instructing officers to do everything possible to move out of the path of a moving vehicle.
Congrats Deanna! See you in February!
New Research: Using virtual reality to understand gun owner decision-making doi.org/10.3389/fpub... 🛟🧪
@jhucgvs.bsky.social
@vuartsci.bsky.social
New research out today. We describe the injured people & the situational characteristics involved in shootings by police during mental or behavioral health involved policing responses in the US. …Almost 2500 shootings over a 6-yr period - all carefully reviewed (twice!) by my very hard working team.
Expansion of MBH services & clinician partnerships, protocol development to better identify best-fit responders, prudent use of extreme risk protection orders, & improved training for safer policing responses are needed to prevent future injuries & deaths. @vuartsci.bsky.social @jhucgvs.bsky.social
Corresponder teams or other mental health professionals were onsite for less than 1% of shootings by police during this time period (2015-2020).
These mental/behavioral health (MBH) involved shootings had 1.7x higher odds of being dispatch-initiated than MBH uninvolved shootings. Also 1.5x higher odds of resulting in death.
But, overall, they were initially identified as suicidal or behavioral health crises only about 1/4 of the time.
New research out today. We describe the injured people & the situational characteristics involved in shootings by police during mental or behavioral health involved policing responses in the US. …Almost 2500 shootings over a 6-yr period - all carefully reviewed (twice!) by my very hard working team.
I have a list of things we can do to change this tempo of tragedy
The proposals are based on real data
They have had signals of efficacy
It may feel hopeless today but:
I refuse to give up.
Because - Our babies & our communities deserve better than a rolling litany of horrors.
This would be the largest public lands sell-off in modern U.S. history and it's happening with no hearings, no debate, and no public input.
See what public lands would be available for sale:
www.wilderness.org/articles/med...
⏳ There is just over a week left to apply for our #postdoc in violence prevention research, with apps due June 15. Please send yours in or share the posting with a qualified applicant! cvp.ucdavis.edu/get-involved...
Fwiw, I agree with the point to not sleep on the role of the sheriffs’ departments. They fired shots in more than 1/3 of injurious shootings in rural areas and nearly 1/4 of suburban. Much higher than we see in urban areas. doi.org/10.1016/j.am...
Related, my understanding is GVA had a source expansion/methods update in 2015 but its included sources have been stable since then. Seems we might have seen more of a bump there if reporting reliability were the main issue.
But, media consolidation has been more severe in rural areas, so - I wouldn’t rule it out entirely but - I would suspect that the loss of local reporting in this time period would at least partially offset any relative gains in rural area perceived “newsworthiness” of shootings by police.
