Research Links 2024 Election to Shifts in Gun Behaviors
Firearm purchasing patterns can shift in response to specific events, including presidential elections, according to Rutgers Health researchers.
A study by researchers with the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center examined what extent specific groups changed their intentions and behaviors related to firearms directly in response to the 2024 presidential election by assessing a nationally representative sample of 1,530 adults in the two weeks before the election and then again in the first two weeks of 2025.
In the study, published in Injury Epidemiology, the authors found survey participants identifying as Black reported increased intentions to purchase firearms in the coming year as well as an increased desire to carry firearms because of the results of the presidential election.
Additionally, liberal beliefs were associated with greater increases in impulses to carry firearms and to store firearms in a more quickly accessible manner because of the results of the presidential election.
"These findings highlight that communities that feel directly threatened by the policies and actions of the second Trump administration are reporting a greater drive to purchase firearms, carry them outside their home, and store them in a way that allows quick access and that these urges are a direct result of the presidential election," said Michael Anestis, executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at Rutgers and lead author of the study. "It may be that individuals feel that the government will not protect them or - worse yet - represents a direct threat to their safety, so they are trying to prepare themselves for self-defense."
The authors also found survey participants who perceive less of a threat to democracy and who view crime as a more substantial problem in the United States reported a decreased urge to carry firearms because of the results of the presidential election. Such results indicate that individuals who view the Trump administration as invested in community safety felt less of a need to be armed outside the home.
"Ultimately, it seems that groups less typically associated with firearm ownership - Black adults and those with liberal political beliefs, for instance - are feeling unsafe in the current environment and trying to find ways to protect themselves and their loved ones," Anestis said.
"Although those beliefs are rooted in a drive for safety, firearm acquisition, carrying, and unsecure storage are all associated with the risk for suicide and unintentional injury, so I fear that the current environment is actually increasing the risk of harm," he said. "Indeed, recent events in Minneapolis make me nervous that the environment fostered by the federal government is putting the safety of Americans in peril."
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https://www.rutgers.edu/news/researchers-track-how-2024-presidential-election-changed-behaviors-around-firearms
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