Abstract
Mass shootings like those occurring in Parkland, Florida (2018), and El Paso, Texas (2019), have fueled a growing debate about the role of guns in U.S. society and how best to prevent acts of gun violence from occurring. Although much attention has been given to race, age, and mental health in these debates, the role of gender has received relatively scarce attention. Research has well established that availability of firearms disproportionately affects women and that firearms play a critical role in interpersonal violence (IPV; Miller et al. 2002). Yet, there is much we still do not know about gun ownership and gun violence as it relates to gender. This special issue helps to correct this oversight. Since its founding, Violence & Gender has remained the only peer-reviewed journal to specifically focus on the role of gender in acts of violence. There is increasing recognition, in the United States and internationally, that there is great benefit to gender-informed policy. To make such policy with regard to gun violence prevention, we need quality research to better comprehend the role of gender in gun violence. This special issue consolidates some of the latest research into one place, not only drawing scholarly attention to the role of gender but also making it easier for policymakers and researchers to see connections across fields of study.
Compared with other highly developed nations, the United States has, by far, the highest rates of firearm violence (Grinshteyn and Hemenway 2019). A total of 19 mass shootings—incidents where 4 or more people were killed excluding the shooter—claimed the lives of 112 and wounded 45 in 2018. The United States has averaged 19 mass shootings per year and 10 deaths per shooting over the past decade (Everytown for Gun Safety 2019). Yet, mass shootings only represent ∼1% of the firearm deaths that occur in the United States each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 39,773 people died from firearm-related injuries in 2017. As a point of comparison, motor vehicle crashes claimed the lives of 38,659 that same year (Gramlich 2019). The number of firearm-related injuries in the United States is also much greater than those in other nations; >67,000 people in the United States are injured by firearms each year (Fowler et al. 2015). These figures have led many to describe U.S. gun violence as a public health crisis.
Our seemingly constant exposure to gun violence news coverage has desensitized us to gun violence. At one point any mass shooting was major news. Today, it might take a series of such shootings in a short time period to capture our attention. Students, teachers, and parents have become accustomed to active shooter drills and ever-present security in schools. Research has found that our exposure to gun violence has decreased our ability to empathize with others, contributing to cyberbullying and relational aggression (Prot et al. 2017). These forms of aggression disproportionally involve females as victims and perpetrators. To date, though, we do not fully understand the role of gender in gun violence desensitization. We need to be a more educated society when it comes to gun ownership and gun violence; the physical, economic, psychological, and social impacts of gun violence on our society are profound.
The term gun violence, however, can be misrepresentative and misused. We often think of incidents where one person intentionally shoots another without considering the other forms that gun violence may take. About 60% of gun deaths are suicides, 37% are homicides, and the rest, ∼3%, are attributed to accidents or other circumstances (Gramlich 2019). Suicides, unfortunately, are all too often left out of the conversation about gun violence and gun violence prevention. Circumstances where no one is injured or killed are similarly overlooked in gun violence discussions. An estimated 4.5 million women in the United States report having been threatened by an intimate partner with a firearm (Sorenson and Schut 2018). Many, if not most, cases of gun violence are not reported in the evening news, leaving U.S. residents with a skewed understanding of what gun violence is and who is affected.
These misconceptions hinder our ability, as a nation, to develop effective gun violence prevention efforts. Calls for legislative action and firearm restrictions commonly follow high-profile mass shootings, as the #NeverAgain movement exemplifies. These calls to action typically focus on the circumstances and weapons used in the extreme cases, not the bulk of gun violence more generally. Resulting debate about gun violence prevention too frequently devolves into political maneuvering, artificially dividing the United States into gun owners and nonowners, Democrats and Republicans. Doing so distracts us from research evidence and ignores the many within-group differences in how people feel about (and are affected by) guns and gun violence. This special issue focuses on gender as one such dimension.
Public outcries surrounding gun violence are emotional for many reasons, including high rates of gun ownership. An estimated 30% of U.S. adults own a firearm and another 11% live in a home where someone else owns a gun. Nearly half report growing up in a household with guns (Parker et al. 2017). Most gun owners are nonviolent and will never commit a firearm-involved crime. Indeed, hunting and shooting sports are the second and third most common reasons individuals own guns (personal safety is the topmost reason). Gun violence affects both gun owners and nonowners. About 44% of U.S. adults report personally knowing someone who has been shot (Parker et al. 2017). Gun owners, as a whole, feel strongly about their firearms and many view gun ownership as a key aspect of their freedom and personal identity.
With such an emotionally charged topic, relying on research evidence as a guide for policy is critical. High-quality gun violence research has been conducted in fields as diverse as psychology, criminology, media studies, criminal justice, sociology, and public health. It is unfortunate that there is currently no scholarly journal explicitly devoted to firearms or firearm violence. The research literature on the subject is scattered across many journals. Synthesizing what we currently know is cumbersome for researchers and policymakers alike. In 2019, I was invited to help address this problem by serving as guest editor of a special issue on guns and gun violence for Violence & Gender. I began studying guns and gun violence when I discovered that surprisingly little research had been published on the topic given its profound impact on our society. The dearth of research was, in part, due to a lack of Federal funding for gun research. A dispute between the CDC and the National Rifle Association in the 1990s led to the Dickey Amendment, a brief note in the Federal spending bill that largely prohibited the CDC from funding gun research. Other Federal agencies likewise limited or cut funding for the topic for two decades. Today, that practice is slowly changing and researchers are finding other funding outlets as well.
As the body of gun research grows, I feel it is important that the role of gender not be overlooked. Research findings also need to be easily accessible. Violence & Gender is uniquely suited to bring gender into the current gun violence prevention discourse. Our Call for Papers was met with a startling number of submissions from many fields of study. This special issue in Violence & Gender, the first of two that will be published in 2020, is devoted to the topic of gun violence in its broadest sense. The articles in this first issue span themes including gun ownership, beliefs about gun control and gun ownership, and the use of firearms in IPV. More importantly, these articles transcend discipline and challenge readers to think about the issue from diverse perspectives. It is my hope that this special issue will inspire and contribute to an evidence-based discussion of firearms, gun violence, and gun violence prevention. Specifically, these articles contribute to our understanding of gender as it relates to gun violence, creating the groundwork necessary for gender-informed policy.