How Popel Use Propaganda For Gun Control

Neighbors Richard Pocket-sized (left), a Republican and longtime NRA member, and Gerardo Marquez, a gun owner and Democrat, both support measures to prevent gun violence. Marina Small for NPR hide explanation

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Marina Pocket-sized for NPR

Neighbors Richard Pocket-sized (left), a Republican and longtime NRA member, and Gerardo Marquez, a gun possessor and Democrat, both back up measures to prevent gun violence.

Marina Modest for NPR

Near one in 3 adults in the U.S. owns a firearm. And many of them feel misunderstood by the millions of Americans who don't. Researchers say this disconnect makes it hard to unify effectually shared support for gun control and gun violence prevention.

For instance, going back to 2018, polls testify a majority of gun owners support raising the legal gun ownership age from 18 to 21. Nearly too support cerise flag laws, which would allow police to have guns from people accounted dangerous by courts. A poll conducted subsequently the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, shows an overwhelming majority of Americans hold.

Merely many gun owners are hesitant to speak out publicly about their support for stronger gun control policies, in part because they feel out of step with gun control advocates whom they view as wanting to have away all guns. "They feel they're being blamed," explains Michael Siegel of Tufts Academy, who co-authored a written report published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine based on a survey of about 2,000 gun owners.

The study plant that about seventy% of gun owners reported their reluctance to engage in gun violence prevention was, in role, due to feelings of alienation or beingness seen as role of the trouble for owning a firearm. "They perceive gun control advocates as blaming them for the gun violence problem, not understanding gun ownership, and not understanding much about guns," the paper concludes.

Gun owners who support more limits on guns feel stuck in the middle. On the ane hand, they feel misunderstood past stricter gun control advocates, only many are also out of step with the gun lobby, including the National Rifle Association, which pushes back against stricter controls.

"We have this image of gun owners, as, you know, walking effectually the streets conveying assault weapons and opposing gun laws," Siegel says, but this represents a pocket-sized minority, even within the organized gun lobby.

Fewer than 20% of gun owners are members of the NRA, and Siegel'south study institute only x% of gun owners say guns are an important office of their identity.

Common-sense measures

Long-time NRA member Richard Small lives on a ranch in Charlotte, Texas, where he says he and his grandson shoot at steel targets for fun. He says he was horrified and shaken past the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, which killed 19 students and two teachers. He supports the passage of what he calls mutual-sense measures, including more licensing requirements for gun owners, strengthening groundwork checks and reddish flag laws. In the wake of the Uvalde tragedy, he has a proposition for swain gun owners: "Come across and encounter me halfway."

He'd like to encounter a motility. "I'm hoping that gun owners, sensible people, are going to rise up and say, 'You lot know what, enough is enough.'" Small says there'south an urgency "to ho-hum down the epidemic of massacres."

Small says he no longer identifies with what he says is propaganda put forward by the NRA and members of the group whom he views as having farthermost positions. "They've almost become so defensive and paranoid that the regime wants to seize their weapons," which he believes to be rhetoric intended to scare gun owners. "They're walking effectually with these ARs, you know, flamboyantly, downtown protesting," Small says. "This has gotten out of hand, y'all know, information technology'south so crazy."

The loudest voices become the most attention, Minor says. And in the wake of Uvalde, he has go more vocal near his back up for stricter gun control. He made headlines when he handed over an assault-style burglarize he owns to local constabulary just after the schoolhouse shooting, realizing he didn't want to own such a lethal weapon, and he didn't want it to stop up in the wrong easily, which he says could happen if he sold it at a gun show.

He thought he'd exist criticized by some in his community, since so many shoot and hunt for fun, but that hasn't happened. "I'1000 like, wow," Pocket-size says. When his married woman posted on social media about his media appearances, the hundreds of responses were overwhelmingly positive. "Information technology hasn't been the hate mail that I thought I was going to get," he says.

Small likes to take one-on-ane conversations with fellow gun owners, and he'due south come to believe that perhaps people with moderate views, like him, could represent a silent majority.

"It's then obvious that we demand to practise something," says Small'southward neighbour and friend, Gerardo Marquez. They live on neighboring ranches, and both are retired school administrators. Marquez was a high school primary for many years and says he's sickened by the shootings carried out by eighteen-year-olds. "When are we going to wake up?" he asks.

Marquez collects guns and hunts doves and turkeys for fun, nonetheless he's open up to a buy-back plan to offload an assault-fashion weapon he owns, and, like Pocket-sized, he supports a range of measures to prevent gun violence.

Siegel says his research suggests a majority of gun owners share these views. "They support bones laws that aim to continue guns out of the hands of people who are high-chance for violence."

Part of the solution

Siegel says gun owners really need to be role of the solution. And to do that, he says Americans who don't ain guns need to respect the fact that gun owners accept a legitimate reason, and right, to own firearms. "We don't accept to concord with it, but we have to respect it," Siegel says.

Showing gun owners that their point of view is respected, may help drag — or describe out — the voices of those who back up gun control, just like Small and Marquez. "I think that when gun owners are willing to come up out and express their support for these laws, that's when things will really start to change," Siegel says.

A poll from Ipsos, conducted but after the Uvalde shooting, finds two-thirds of Americans believe there should be at least moderate regulations or restrictions on gun ownership. And though there'southward certainly a partisan difference, 53% of Republicans agree with moderate to stiff regulations.

"We found that even among Republicans, we saw a majority, 78% said that they would exist more likely to back up a candidate who supports passing background checks and red flag laws for all new gun purchases," says Chris Jackson of Ipsos.

He says what this suggests is that "it'south not really a political loser for Republicans to be like, I back up people's correct to ain a firearm, just it should be express, it should be responsible."

Researchers say if polls go along to bear witness that about Americans, including many gun owners, back up new control measures, it would be harder for politicians to say they're representing the interests of their people by voting against them.

How Popel Use Propaganda For Gun Control,

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/06/06/1103252636/many-gun-owners-are-hesitant-to-express-support-for-stricter-gun-control-measure

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