Arizona state university.
Geoff: Gun violence has killed
more than 24,000 people in
the U.S. This year, including
over 1000 people under the age
of 18.
Laura barron-lopez looks at a
report that researchers say is
the first of its kind to explore
young Americans' attitudes on
guns.
Laura: The study surveyed more
than 4100 people between the
ages of 14 and 30.
Among the key findings, four out
of five say gun violence is a
problem in the U.S., and a
majority support stricter gun
laws.
On average, youth know at least
one person who's been injured or
killed by a gun and more than
40% of those surveyed have at
least somewhat easy access to a
gun.
The report first provided to the
"Newshour" was published jointly
by everytown for gun safety, the
southern poverty law center, and
American university's
polarization and extremism
research and innovation lab.
That lab is directed by Cynthia
Miller Idriss, who joins me now
to talk about the study.
Cynthia, thanks for being back
on the "Newshour."
What prompted your team to study
these issues and what surprised
you the most about the findings?
>> Well, we've been studying
these issues related to
extremism for several years,
extremist violence, terrorist
violence.
And one of the things you see in
the global data is that the U.S.
Has a disproportionate share of
violent deaths by terrorism and
extremism.
More than about half the
incidents and about half the
lethality in the global data,
and that's probably connected to
guns, we thought, so why do we
have so many firearms?
How does that relate to
extremist violence?
Was our original set of
interests in this.
And so, we really wanted to see
how do you address these two
issues together?
What can we find out by
assessing some of the data and
surveying young people?
What most surprised me was how
many young people already have
access to a firearm, very easy
access or somewhat easy access
to a firearm.
Those numbers are strikingly
high, some 40%, as you just
noted.
And then another 17% said that
they plan to have access to a
firearm pretty soon in the next
few years.
So when they're old enough or
when they have the money to do
it.
So we found that -- I found that
to be very troubling data.
Laura: And the study dives into
youth perceptions of safety as
it relates to guns.
What did you find there?
>> Well, one of the things we
found about young people is that
they feel unsafe.
So, they do not feel safe at
school.
They do not feel safe in public,
essentially outside their
in other public spaces, they
have concerns about their
safety.
And I think and that's also
correlating, we found, with
feelings of anxiety, depression
and PTSD.
25% of them have been in an
active shooter or lockdown.
Not a drill, an actual lockdown.
And so, when we think about a
generation that is hyper
vigilant, essentially about the
possibility of gun violence
erupting sort of at any moment
around them, parents are scared
to send their kids to school.
Kids are scared about going to
school and about other public
spaces where they spend time.
And that's a really sad fact to
assess in their feelings about
firearms and their safety.
Laura: You also found that many
young people see gun culture as
part of their identity.
Can you explain that a bit more?
>> Yeah, people, some of the
young people in the study were
very connected to a sense of gun
culture, to feeling like guns
made them stronger or better, or
that they were really connected
to who they are as individuals.
And I think Americans maybe have
become accustomed to that.
But that's pretty unique
compared to other countries, our
neighbors and our allies
overseas who don't have that
same kind of connection between
a sense of who you are,
especially as a young man let's
say, and owning a gun or feeling
like that's essential and
connected to your identity.
So, that's an important part of
of understanding for our
communities as well.
Laura: Now, this study was about
views on guns and gun violence,
but your team also explored
connections between gun culture
and issues like racism and male
supremacy.
People surveyed were asked if
they agreed with statements like
"Women cannot help but be
attracted to those who are
higher in status than they are."
Why track those ideas, and what
correlations did you find about
those views and the ones that
they had on guns?
>> Yeah, that part of the data
was also very troubling and very
revealing, although not as
surprising to me.
So what we found is that youth
who have easier access to guns,
who are more committed to a kind
of gun culture, also have higher
scores on racial resentment and
male supremacist ideas, which
are the kinds of ideas that you
just mentioned.
What that tells us as prevention
experts is that you can't
address these issues on their
own.
You have to address issues of
hostility or misogyny or racism
toward others.
At the same time, as you're
addressing issues of gun
prevention, you can't do this in
isolation from each other.
Laura: And how did participants
views on race in particular
impact their attitudes about
guns?
>> Well, there were two
different things we found.
We found on the one hand,
there's a correlation between
their views about whether they
access to guns, their views
about gun culture, their views
about the second amendment and
having higher scores on racial
resentment.
So, meaning there have they hold
stronger racist views.
But we also found in focus
groups that we did later that
their perceptions of safety are
highly racialized, right.
They have a feeling that the
places that are less safe are
places with more racial
diversity than the ones that
they live in in their
communities.
So, this is a problem for many
of them of over there violence,
rather than thinking it's going
to hit their own community,
particularly for white
respondents.
Laura: Another data point that
stood out to me was that 22% of
those surveyed said they believe
the second amendment gives
individuals the right to
overthrow the government.
The study concludes that
"Society must target supremacist
and antidemocratic ideologies
among this population that you
surveyed that justify and
rationalize the use of violence
and the deployment of guns to
facilitate that violence."
How do you do that?
>> So, one of the things we
found in this data is that young
people, just like older adults,
are easily persuaded by false
information that they encounter
online persuasive, manipulative
rhetoric that they might
encounter about why they need a
gun, who they're keeping
themselves safe from, including,
they think, from the government
in some cases.
And that actually is pretty easy
to address, believe it or not,
when you're when you're dealing
with an issue of somebody being
manipulated by content they
encounter online.
We can pre-bunk that with video
content, with content that they
review in advance and read.
We can teach people to be more
skeptical of the content they
review online.
They encounter to be more
digitally literate.
It just has to be done early and
often.
It's a part of basic
strengthening of democratic
resilience and not just a
catch-up afterward.
Laura: Cynthia Miller Idris of
American university, thank you
so much.
>> Thank you.