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Who bought a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States?: Associations with QAnon beliefs, right-wing political attitudes, intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior, suicidality, and mental health and substance use problems
There was a large spike in gun purchases and gun violence during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We used an online U.S. national survey (N = 1036) to examine the characteristics of people who purchased a gun between March 2020 and October 2021 (n = 103) and compared the...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10464976/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37643192 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290770 |
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author | Hicks, Brian M. Vitro, Catherine Johnson, Elizabeth Sherman, Carter Heitzeg, Mary M. Durbin, C. Emily Verona, Edelyn |
author_facet | Hicks, Brian M. Vitro, Catherine Johnson, Elizabeth Sherman, Carter Heitzeg, Mary M. Durbin, C. Emily Verona, Edelyn |
author_sort | Hicks, Brian M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | There was a large spike in gun purchases and gun violence during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We used an online U.S. national survey (N = 1036) to examine the characteristics of people who purchased a gun between March 2020 and October 2021 (n = 103) and compared them to non-gun owners (n = 763) and people who own a gun but did not purchase a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 170). Compared to non-gun owners, pandemic gun buyers were younger and more likely to be male, White race, and to affiliate with the Republican party. Compared to non-gun owners and pre-pandemic gun owners, pandemic gun buyers exhibited extreme elevations on a constellation of political (QAnon beliefs, pro-gun attitudes, Christian Nationalism, approval of former President Donald Trump, anti-vax beliefs, COVID-19 skepticism; mean Cohen’s d = 1.15), behavioral (intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior; mean d = 1.38), mental health (suicidality, depression, anxiety, substance use; mean d = 1.21), and personality (desire for power, belief in a dangerous world, low agreeableness, low conscientiousness; mean d = 0.95) characteristics. In contrast, pre-pandemic gun owners only endorsed more pro-gun attitudes (d = 0.67), lower approval of President Joe Biden (d = -0.41) and were more likely to be male and affiliate with the Republican party relative to non-gun owners. Pandemic gun buyers represent an extreme group in terms of political and psychological characteristics including several risk-factors for violence and self-harm. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10464976 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-104649762023-08-30 Who bought a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States?: Associations with QAnon beliefs, right-wing political attitudes, intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior, suicidality, and mental health and substance use problems Hicks, Brian M. Vitro, Catherine Johnson, Elizabeth Sherman, Carter Heitzeg, Mary M. Durbin, C. Emily Verona, Edelyn PLoS One Research Article There was a large spike in gun purchases and gun violence during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We used an online U.S. national survey (N = 1036) to examine the characteristics of people who purchased a gun between March 2020 and October 2021 (n = 103) and compared them to non-gun owners (n = 763) and people who own a gun but did not purchase a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 170). Compared to non-gun owners, pandemic gun buyers were younger and more likely to be male, White race, and to affiliate with the Republican party. Compared to non-gun owners and pre-pandemic gun owners, pandemic gun buyers exhibited extreme elevations on a constellation of political (QAnon beliefs, pro-gun attitudes, Christian Nationalism, approval of former President Donald Trump, anti-vax beliefs, COVID-19 skepticism; mean Cohen’s d = 1.15), behavioral (intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior; mean d = 1.38), mental health (suicidality, depression, anxiety, substance use; mean d = 1.21), and personality (desire for power, belief in a dangerous world, low agreeableness, low conscientiousness; mean d = 0.95) characteristics. In contrast, pre-pandemic gun owners only endorsed more pro-gun attitudes (d = 0.67), lower approval of President Joe Biden (d = -0.41) and were more likely to be male and affiliate with the Republican party relative to non-gun owners. Pandemic gun buyers represent an extreme group in terms of political and psychological characteristics including several risk-factors for violence and self-harm. Public Library of Science 2023-08-29 /pmc/articles/PMC10464976/ /pubmed/37643192 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290770 Text en © 2023 Hicks et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Hicks, Brian M. Vitro, Catherine Johnson, Elizabeth Sherman, Carter Heitzeg, Mary M. Durbin, C. Emily Verona, Edelyn Who bought a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States?: Associations with QAnon beliefs, right-wing political attitudes, intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior, suicidality, and mental health and substance use problems |
title | Who bought a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States?: Associations with QAnon beliefs, right-wing political attitudes, intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior, suicidality, and mental health and substance use problems |
title_full | Who bought a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States?: Associations with QAnon beliefs, right-wing political attitudes, intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior, suicidality, and mental health and substance use problems |
title_fullStr | Who bought a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States?: Associations with QAnon beliefs, right-wing political attitudes, intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior, suicidality, and mental health and substance use problems |
title_full_unstemmed | Who bought a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States?: Associations with QAnon beliefs, right-wing political attitudes, intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior, suicidality, and mental health and substance use problems |
title_short | Who bought a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States?: Associations with QAnon beliefs, right-wing political attitudes, intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior, suicidality, and mental health and substance use problems |
title_sort | who bought a gun during the covid-19 pandemic in the united states?: associations with qanon beliefs, right-wing political attitudes, intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior, suicidality, and mental health and substance use problems |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10464976/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37643192 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290770 |
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