Citation

Hill TD, Wen M, Ellison CG, Wu G, Dowd-Arrow B, Su D. Prev. Med. Rep. 2021; 24: e101634.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101634

PMID

34976686

PMCID

PMC8684007

Abstract

In this paper, we document the social patterning of recent gun purchases to advance a contemporary social epidemiology of the pandemic arms race. We employ cross-sectional survey data from the 2020 Health, Ethnicity and Pandemic Study, which included a national sample of 2,709 community-dwelling adults living in the United States. We use binary logistic regression to model recent pandemic gun purchases as a function of age, sex, race/ethnicity, nativity status, region of residence, marital status, number of children, education, household income, pandemic job change, religious service attendance, pandemic religion change, and political party. Overall, 6% of the sample reported purchasing a new gun during the pandemic. Multivariate regression results suggest that pandemic gun purchasers tend to be male, younger, US-born, less educated, recently unemployed, experiencing changes in their religious beliefs, Republicans, and residents of southern states. To our knowledge, we are among the first to formally document a new population of pandemic gun owners that is characterized by youth, US-nativity, and religious volatility. Our analyses underscore the need for public health initiatives designed to enhance gun-related safety during pandemics, including, for example, addressing underlying motivations for recent gun purchases and improving access to training programs.

Language: en

Keywords

Pandemic; Gun ownership; Social epidemiology