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Support For Gun Permit By Political Affiliation, Religious Affiliation, Owning Gun at
Home, Confidence in Military, and Vote Choice in 2008
______________________________________________________________________________
Chun Jiang
Norwich University
Class of 2017
NU BOX 1239
158 Harmon Drive
Northfield, Vermont, 05663-1001
cjiang@stu.norwich.edu
(908)-838-5126
Abstract
The second amendment was created as part of the Bill of Rights, in a time period where
very few firearms were owned by citizens. Today in the modern society these guns can be
massively produced on an assembly line with very little control over the distribution process, this
creates a security and safety dilemma for the general public. What are people’s opinions on gun
control? Why are the motivations which drive people to purchase and own a firearm in their
home? The purpose of this research is to find the public opinion on gun permit requirement as
the most basic requirement for people to own a gun. The research will use the General Social
Survey 2012 to answer the questions: Why do people support or oppose the requirement of gun
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permits? What are the factors which affect the decision? Does the background of the individual
have any factors to play in their support or opposition to gun permit as a requirement? The result
is that I found the majority of population in the United States regardless of affiliation supports
gun control with minimum of gun permit in order to own a gun.
Introduction
The second amendment of the Bill of Rights is the right to bear arms, was created without
a specific, or any at all in this case, method of control for guns. The reason why is that guns were
not widely distributed during the time and it was only common for the wealthy or hunters to own
a gun according to the article by Michael A. Bellesiles. The journal article provides information
that during the time guns were considered a luxury for the line infantry, in many cases supplied
by the state government for the militias. Compared to today’s society where the federal
government supplies the militia, now known as National Guard. The National Guard today does
not need the state government provide funding to support a standing militia.
Lately gun right has been a big issue in the popular media for the past 5 years with the
mass shootings taking place in public schools and other areas. What are the people’s opinion on
the continuation of the free market of firearms and loose regulations on firearm control? Should
firearm policy be set at a national standard that can be either loose or be strict so that it requires a
permit in order for the people to own a firearm? The measureable factors I chose to find the
correlation between people’s opinions on the subject of gun permit requirement are political
affiliation, religious affiliation, 2008 election results, gun ownership, and the level of confidence
in the military. These factors are the most common factors which decide upon one’s support or
opposition for gun ownership.
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Recently there have been many issues concerning gun problems whether it is police
related or crime related. For example, one of the more recent would be the Sandy Hook shooting
which sparked outrage amongst Americans on the topic of gun control. The incident sparked
many arguments on gun control while the United States is divided between supporting a strict
gun control and no gun control at all. The article by Matt Flegenheimer of The New York Times
states the specific details of the shooting. During the shooting by the twenty years old Adam
Lanza, he killed his mother, 20 first graders and six adults at the school and later himself. The
shooting was devastating news for the entire country, which leads to my research. What are the
people’s opinion on the minimum requirement of a gun permit in order to own a gun before the
shooting in 2012 and the factors which affect that decision?
There are many hot topic issues in the political field in Washington D.C. such as gay
marriage, national debt, budget cut, defense budget cuts and much more. This topic itself is one
of the more important issues in the Legislative Branch as well as in the general public because of
the public response to the multiple shootings in the past year. The topic is a hot potato in the
political field where many politicians are not sure whether the right to own guns should be
banned. What are the people’s opinions in this topic, in the case that the second amendment
remains untouched what people believe should be implemented to control gun if there should be
any control at all. It is important for politicians to realize the public opinion of gun control in
order for the politicians to make a decision, also for the politicians to realize the method of
control over firearm through gun permit requirement.
Literature Review
The research question is on the general topic of support for gun ownership by individuals
and different levels of support for gun rights. Not everyone would support gun rights with a
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simple yes or no; some may have a certain extent that they will support the second amendment.
In this perspective the theory the author is attempting to prove is the justification of individual
rights to bear arms is mainly based on fundamental right and personal interest. The author
emphasizes that different levels of support exists. For example, Lafollette states that some
individuals only support gun regulation on certain subclasses of guns or regulation by the
government to a certain degree. One example the author provides is that an individual may
support individual ownership of pistols but at the same time the individual would also support
the regulation of automatic rifles that are capable of firing a magazine.
The research design is to test the different reasons behind government’s reasoning behind
through listing out the main reasons; Justifying private ownership of guns, harm, danger and risk,
ethics, and other main reasons behind the research. The author puts in many implications that he
does not support gun rights. Evidence is on page 273 where he states that “gun control supporters
offer empirical evidence of a positive correlation between murder rates and the availability of
guns...guns are the easiest way to kill others or one” (LaFollete 273). The big picture the author
provided for the research is that the more guns there are available, the less regulation there are
the more injuries and fatalities due to guns there will be.
Democrats would use this article to argue that guns is a derivative right. A derivative
right is similar to fundamental right except it can be regulated without good evidence. The article
provides that gun ownership is a personal enjoyment at the cost of harm, danger and risk. From
the article it can be said that Democrats and Independent parties would not support gun rights
because of the amount of harm it would cause.
Many people believe there should be a method of control over these firearms to prevent
further casualties, according to literature in this field, that firearms should not be directly
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accessible in the hands of young children or psychotic maniacs. In light of recent events such as
the Sandy Elementary School shooting it drives fear into people that guns should be permanently
banned. Both the Republicans and Democrats have come to a decision not to amend the second
amendment but some ways to prevent the illegal sale of firearms and safety measures. Some of
the popular ideas for gun control are psychological tests to test the mental stability of gun owners;
another popular method is the gun permit requirement in order to qualify an individual to be
eligible to own a gun.
The second journal article The Case of Gun Ownership and Attitude Towards Gun
Control is by Katarzyna Celinska from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Her research was
based on the 1972-1988 General Social Survey; through her research of the topic she covers the
widespread gun ownership in the United States and positive attitude towards gun control that
presents the division between cultures of individualism and collectivism. She found that these
cultural values did explain some gun ownership and predict attitudes toward gun permits; being
more individualistic needs than collectivistic increased the odds of opposing gun permit.
The entire article’s dependent variable assesses two outcomes, the gun ownership and attitude
toward gun control. The outcome of the article is that individualists who believe in gun
ownership and lack of gun control tend to have a much higher income, education and resident in
generally the southern mountainous region. From this result I concluded that they do not need
gun permit or much control over firearm because these respondents live in an area where there
are very few people therefore lack the need for gun control.
The variables which Celinska used to test the models of attitude towards gun permits
were compared with income, being a hunter, political views, marital status, and religious views.
The article also proved the point that of all regions those who reside in mountainous regions
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were more likely to oppose gun permit requirement as it is not necessary for gun control. This is
a problem for a nation of large size spanning across multiple terrains and residential areas. Thus
their occupation tends to link them to professions of hunters or related professions. The threat of
gun control threatens their occupation significantly; it would make it much harder for them to
obtain a gun.
The article does address some of the imperfections of the research, one being that the gun
ownership survey could only cover those of the legal gun owners. In addition, the author points
out that there is a significant difference between individual gun owners and household gun
owners. The selection of questions to describe individualism and collectivism was limited. Lastly,
the data do not allow for constructing indices of other types of individualism. These
imperfections were all pointed out in the conclusion section of the article.
Despite the imperfections I believe it points out that the reason why there will be a large
majority of Americans who will favor gun permit and control is because they live in an urban or
suburban area where there is a large crowed population that is open to the threat of mass
shootings. Compared to those who reside in urban and suburban areas there are gun owners who
live in the country side or in the mountains where there is absolutely no reason for gun control to
exist as their main purpose is hunting. In addition, in those areas a large population does not exist
for mass shootings to even take place making gun control unnecessary. One factor this article did
not account for would be the recent mass shootings making gun control a more significant issue
than it did when the article was published.
The third journal article I would like to review is the Collective Security and the Demand
for Legal Handguns by David McDowall from State University of New York at Buffalo. This
article was inspired by the crime rate of Chicago, there are many high violent crime rates, civil
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disorders and police strength with affects people attitude towards handguns. The purpose this
article attempts to address is the notable rate of rise in the demand for handguns, alarms, locks
and others in the two past decades.
While there are many people who favor gun permit and strict gun control there are the
wealthy individuals who oppose this rule because it would limit their personal needs. Collective
advantages are big when it comes to strict gun control; individuals are vulnerable to exploitation
because they are not prepared to provide themselves enough security. In simple words, not
everyone have the economic capability to provide for themselves security measures to protect
themselves.
The author reasons that the reason why there is an increase in demand for handguns and
the gun permit requirement at the same time is because of the decreasing level of confidence in
the police force doing its job well. Publicity and media attention of crimes in a neighborhood
will increase the level of attention paid to crime and self-defense in the neighborhood. Riots and
other large-scale violent crimes can also increase the market demand for guns because it implies
that lack of immediate police response to crimes. With the advance in technology McDowell and
Loftin argues that handguns are easily manufactured in massive quantities by machines therefore
satisfying the increasing market demand. This creates the growing supply and demand complex
within the firearms market.
However, the two authors argue that it was not like this during the old days of post-
Revolutionary War because guns were not easily accessible during that time. According to the
points made by the author guns were only supplied and owned by the wealthy merchants,
businesses and government, for the means of self-defense on the frontiers. Another reason why
the founding fathers did not put down any methods of gun control is because it was meant for the
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militia as it was significantly under-armed compared to the well-equipped British line infantry
and skirmishers. From this the authors hinted that there should be strict gun control as the time is
very much different from what it was 200 years ago.
Last article I will review is the article Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun
Culture by Michael A. Bellesiles. The article discusses the origins of the second amendment
leading up to today’s massive spread of firearms across the continental United States. Much like
McDowell and Loftin, Michael Bellesiles states that in the days of Revolutionary War the United
States did not have a large quantity of firearms available, it was purely for those professions of
hunters, explorers and more. Other than those professions it was owned by wealthy families for
entertainment and leisure as a luxury item.
The Revolutionary War was won by the large sums of guns captured by the Continental
Army and militias from the British forces, few firearms were actually supplied by the French
reinforcements. Guns were not affordable in large quantities until they were affordable in the
United States. During this period the sights were also very inaccurate therefore rendering the gun
almost harmless compared to the lethal damage modern weapons can do. Therefore it was not
necessary to implement gun control, because of these reasons the attitude of gun control was
different in that time compared to today.
Westward expansion also justified the private ownership of guns; it was also during the
Westward Expansion that guns were able to be massively produced in a large quantity. Until the
United States entered the World Wars it did not industrialize weapon production, during the
international wars the United States factories made weapons manufacturing an assembly system
where they could produce one hundred times the amount in a hour than a single merchant can
make in a day. In summary, gun control attitude have changed over time where the majority of
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people today demand a strict gun control, especially in urban and suburban areas compared to the
rural mountainous areas.
Hypothesis
Now that I have provided the background information on the topic of gun permit I will
provide my four hypothesizes regarding the connection of the support for gun permit to political
party affiliation, presidential election 2008, gun ownership and level of confidence in the
military. The following are five hypothesis I have come up with to assess the variables I have
chosen.
Hypothesis 1: The Democrats and Independents are more likely to support gun permit
than the Republicans.
Null Hypothesis: There is no relationship between political parties and support for gun
permit
In my belief, that gun permit is a national issue and it is definitely part of a political party
platform. Parties like the Democrats and Independents are big supporters of gun regulation and
elimination and therefore they are very likely to be the respondents of the survey who supported
gun permits. The Republican Party high emphasizes the freedom to own guns under the second
amendment, because of this reason I believe they would not support the gun permit requirement
in order to own guns.
Hypothesis 2: Affiliations with the Christian Church, such as Protestant, Catholic,
Orthodox and Christians are more likely than other affiliations like Jewish, none, and others to
support gun permits.
Null Hypothesis: There is no relationship between religious affiliation and support for
gun permit.
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I believe religious affiliation have a factor to play in the respondent’s support for gun
permits similar to how political party plays a factor in the process. I believe that those
respondents who are affiliated with the church under Christianity will support gun permit
because it is moral ethics. At the same time, those who are affiliated with other religions will
support the requirement of gun permit in order to own a firearm.
Hypothesis 3: Those with a greater confidence in the military will support the need for a
gun permit to own guns.
Null Hypothesis: There is no relationship between confidence in military and support for
gun permit.
Those with previous military service tend to align themselves with the Republican Party
because the Republican Party supports the idea of a large standing military force. Many veterans
turn out to be affiliated with the Republican Party. Therefore I believe that those with a higher
confidence level in the military would be less likely support the need for gun permit in order to
own guns. Those without a high level or any confidence in the military at all would support the
requirement of a gun permit in order to own a firearm.
Hypothesis 4: Those who voted for President Barack Obama in the 2008 election are
more likely to support gun permits than those who voted for John McCain.
Null Hypothesis: There is no relationship between the candidate which respondents voted
for in 2008 and their support for gun permit.
Democrats tend to support the reduction of firearm in society, one of the ways they do so
is by requiring the gun owners to provide a valid ID in order to purchase firearm.
Hypothesis 5: Those who own guns at home are less likely to support the requirement of
license to own firearm those who do not own gun in home.
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Null Hypothesis: There is no relationship between those who own gun at home and those
who do not play a factor affecting their support for gun permit requirement.
What better way to measure if the gun owners themselves believe there should be a
requirement for a gun permit in order to own a firearm? This allows me to determine what the
gun owners believe the policy for gun ownership should be; everyone should be allowed to
purchase a gun or should there be a permit that an individual should have in order to own a gun.
In order to finish the research I found it necessary to recode some of the variables to simplify the
tables and large proportions of data presented in the end. I recoded the dependent variable into
only two responses with only favor or oppse gun permit by eliminating don’t know or no answer
as missing variables.
For the first variable I have recoded into three variables to simplify the table. I combined
the variables Strong Democrat, Not Strong Democrat, Independent near Democrat into one
variable, Democrat. I then recoded Independent near Republican, Not Strong Republican, and
Strong Republican into one category under Republican. I combined Other Party with
Independent into one variable under Independent. There was not a strong affect in the results
from this recoding.
Second variable I recoded the variables rather differently, I combined Buddhism,
Hinduism, Other Eastern Religion, Muslim/Islam, Native-American, Other Religion, and Inter-
/non-denominational into Other Religion because they did not have as much affiliation as the
other variables. I left Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, None, Orthodox, and Christian as they are.
Lastly I eliminated the Don’t Know and No Answer variables as missing variables.
Third variable, the confidence in the military I did not recode it as much as other
variables. I recoded inapplicable as missing variable. In addition I removed the Don’t Know and
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No Answer as missing variable as well, leaving only A Great Deal, Only Some, and Hardly Any
as the last 3 variable standing. This recoding did not have any effect on the variable or the results
therefore I believe it is successful.
Fourth variable I made it simpler by removing inapplicable, Other Candidate, Didn’t
Vote, Don’t Know and No Answer as their numbers were insignificant compared to those who
voted for either Obama or McCain.
The fifth and last variable I recoded by eliminating Inapplicable, and Don’t Know
variable into missing variables. I combined the answer No and Refused together because there
were 64 who refused to answer the question and 2011 answered no therefore I believe it was safe
to assume that they do not own guns.
Findings
In order to find the relationship between the support for gun permit and political party
affiliation, I used the crosstabs procedure in the PASW Statistics 18. The crosstabs procedure is
used to evaluate the variation between the two variables. The Chi-Square test is used to test
whether or not I am able to reject the null hypothesis. If the value is less than 0.05 then I am able
to reject the null hypothesis.
Table 1 About
In order to find the relationship between the support for gun permit and political party
affiliation, I used the crosstabs procedure in the PASW Statistics 18. The data suggests there is
no correlation between the support for gun permit requirement and those who are affiliated with
either the Republican or Democratic Party. In fact, the large majority from both sides support the
requirement of a gun permit in order to own a firearm. The Democrats (80.8%) and Independents
(73.9%) support the idea of gun permit requirement. In a similar sense the Republicans also
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support gun permit at a large majority but at a significantly lower percentage at 61.1%. The
Democrats made up the large majority of the polls with 595 respondents, at 300 respondents the
Republicans came in second, the Independents had the second least at 245, and lastly the other
parties had the least amount of people affiliated with it at only 36 respondents. It is a well-
represented survey that shows the percentage of different political affiliations spread across the
population. The findings of the chi-square test reject the null hypothesis with a value of 0.000.
Cramer’s V found the value of 0.183; it suggests a weak relationship between the dependent and
independent variables. The data overall provides that there is not a strong relationship between
the two variables. The data does support the hypothesis that the Democrats and Independents are
more likely to support gun permit than the Republicans.
Table 2 About
The table suggests that regardless of religious affiliation the large majority of the
respondents supported the gun permit requirement. Jewish and Orthodox had a 100% support for
gun permit. Protestants, Catholics, and Other religious affiliations came in similar numbers
(73.7%, 76.8% and 73.5% respectively). Christians and those who are not affiliated with any
religious groups answered that there should not be a gun permit requirement (65.8% and 69.7%).
The Chi-Square test failed to reject the null hypothesis with a 0.064. The Cramer’s V is at 0.097
which means that there is a very weak relationship between the two variables. Overall, the
respondents who support gun permit take the majority of all religions at 73.6% average. There
are strong feelings from respondents that people should be required to have a gun permit in order
to purchase guns regardless of religious affiliation.
Table 3 About
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The table once again suggests that there is no correlation in the relationship between the
level of confidence in the military and their belief in gun permit requirement. Those who feel a
great deal that the military is important around average at a 71.8%, of those with hardly any
confidence in the military 70.5% of them answered that there should be a gun permit requirement
in order to own firearms. Finally, those with only some confidence in the military came in top at
93.9% supporting the requirement of gun permit. Overall there were 645 respondents who
answered the question, 379 answered a great deal, 222 answered only some and only 44
respondents who answered hardly any. Overall, 72.4% of all those who responded to this
question believe that there should be a gun permit requirement. The survey is well-represented
because it does show the general public’s view of the U.S. military.
Table 4 About
As the hypothesis 4 predicted, those who voted for Barack Obama were more likely to
support the gun permit requirement than those who voted for John McCain. Of those who voted
for Obama in 2008, 82.5% responded in favor of a gun permit requirement. In contrast, only 59.5%
responded in favor of a gun permit requirement for those who voted for John McCain. There is a
moderate level of association between the two nominal variables at 0.252. The Chi-Square test
value of p rejects the null hypothesis therefore there is a strong relationship between the two
variables. Overall 796 respondents answered the question; 502 voted for Barack Obama making
the large majority and only 294 responded that they voted for John McCain. Once again the table
suggest that regardless of the candidate the respondents voted for in 2008 there will be a majority
(50.01% and more) support in favor of implementing gun permit requirement.
Table 5 About
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Those who own guns at home had a significantly lower percentage favoring the gun
permit requirement while those who claim that they do not own a gun in their home had a much
higher percentage. The response received from the respondents with a gun at home was at 60.7%
in favor of gun permit requirement, approximately 20% lower than those without. On the other
hand, those who responded that they do not own a gun at home responded at a stunning 80.4% in
favor of gun permits. In general, 438 responded that they own a gun at home, and 842 responded
that they do not own a gun at home. The finding rejects the null hypothesis at 0.000 and the
Cramer’s V turned out to be -0.212 which suggests that there is no relationship between the two
nominal variables. The overall data suggests that there is not a strong relationship between those
who own guns at home and their support for gun permit as a requirement in order to be eligible
to own guns. Despite the large difference between two groups in the percentage of people
favoring gun permit there still exists a large majority of people who
Conclusion
Using information gathered in the 2012 General Social Survey and the PASW Statistics
18 program I was able to find the correlation in the relationships. I found that all the large
majority of Americans in general support the requirement of gun permit in order to own a
firearm. Regardless of affiliation to any kind, majority of those who answered responded in favor
of gun permit requirement for people to own firearms. I rejected all but one of the null
hypothesizes for the relationship between the nominal variables. I believed that there would be
some difference between the variables and correlation between responding in favor or in
opposition of gun permits. The result was not because of any of the variables I recoded because
regardless of any variable the majority of the response came back in favor of gun permits. With
such large majority of support for gun permit I believe it is impossible for me to make a mistake
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to prove it false. I think it was not possible to conclude with any degree that there wasn’t any
significance between any of the variables. There are number of other factors that play part of
how people perceived the question when they were asked. With such high majority of certainly
over those who believe there should not be a gun permit requirement. Although the question was
straight forward and simple it lacked specific details such as the type of gun or all guns in
general. It could be entirely possible that those who own guns know more regarding firearm
safety than those who do not. There are many more factors but by interpreting the variables in
the five tables above I have come to a conclusion that regardless of affiliation of any kind the
majority of approximately 75% support the idea of gun permit requirement in order for an
individual to be qualified to own a gun. By knowing this, the politicians in Washington D.C.
know the requirement of gun permit should be implemented for safe measure for both people
who own guns and those who do not.
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References
Bellesiles, Michael A. 2000. Arming America: The origins of a national gun culture. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf,
Celinska, Katarzyna. 2007. “Individualism and Collectivism in America.” The Case of Gun
Ownership and Attitudes Towards Gun Control. 50(2): pp. 229-247. Rutgers University.
Flegenheimer, Matt. 2013. “Final Report on Sandy Hook Killings Sheds New Light on Gunman’s
Isolation.” Alison Leigh Cowan, Marc Santora. New York Times.
Lafollette, Hugh. 2000. “Ethics.” Gun Control. 100(2): pp. 263-281. University of Chicago
Press.
McDowall, David, and Colin Loftin. "Collective security and the demand for legal
handguns." American Journal of Sociology (1983): 1146-1161.
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Table 1. Support for Gun Permits by Political Party
Democrat Independent Republican Other Parties Totals
Favor 80.8% 73.9% 62.2% 69.4% 73.4%
(481) (181) (150) (25) (837)
Oppose 19.2% 26.1% 37.8% 30.6% 26.6%
(114) (64) (150) (11) (339)
Totals 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
(595) (245) (300) (36) (1176)
______________________________________________________________________________
Source: 2012 General Social Survey
Chi-Square = 42.587 p = 0.000 V = 0.183
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Table 2. Support for Gun Rights by Religious Affiliation
Protestant Catholic Jewish None Orthodox Christian Other Totals
Favor 73.7% 76.8% 100% 69.7% 100% 65.8% 73.5% 73.6%
(448) (232) (15) (163) (2) (48) (25) (933)
Oppose 26.3% 23.2% 0% 30.3% 0% 34.2% 26.5% 26.4%
(160) (70) (0) (71) (0) (25) (9) (335)
Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
(608) (302) (15) (234) (2) (73) (34) (1268)
Source: 2012 General Social Survey
Chi-Square = 11.891 p = 0.064 V = 0.097
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Table 3. Support for Gun Rights by Confidence in Army
A Great Deal Only Some Hardly Any Total
Favor 71.8% 93.9% 70.5% 72.4%
(272) (164) (31) (467)
Oppose 28.2% 26.1% 29.5% 27.6%
(107) (58) (13) (178)
Total 100% 100% 100% 100%
(379) (222) (44) (645)
Source: 2012 General Social Survey
Chi-Square = 0.401 p = 0.000 V = 0.025
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Table 4. Support for Gun Rights by Owning Guns in Home
Yes No Total
Favor 60.7% 80.4% 73.7%
(266) (165) (943)
Oppose 39.3% 19.6% 26.3%
(172) (165) (337)
Total 100% 100% 100%
(438) (842) (1280)
Source: 2012 General Social Survey
Chi-Square = 57.492 p = 0.000 V = -0.212
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Table 5. Support for Gun Rights by Which Candidate Respondent Voted for
Barack Obama John McCain Total
Favor 82.5% 59.5% 73.0%
(414) (175) (589)
Oppose 17.5% 40.5% 26.0%
(88) (119) (207)
Total 100% 100% 100%
(502) (294) (796)
Source: 2012 General Social Survey
Chi-Square = 50.735 p = 0.000 V = 0.252
