While research has long documented the many ways that people’s health is affected by their communities, a new study finds that community conditions also drive gun ownership, potentially perpetuating community violence.
Basically, instead of looking at individual reasons behind personal gun ownership, the study went farther, looking at community factors that drive gun ownership. “We focused on young African American men’s perceptions of their cities, their explanations of violence, and their perceived contribution to the level of violence,” said Howard Henderson, professor of justice administration and director of the Center for Justice Research Texas Southern University, who coauthored the new study funded by the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research and published in the Delaware Journal of Public Health.
The study was conducted by teams of researchers, from Texas Southern University, Delaware State University, Coppin State University and Jackson State University, with support from a grant secured by the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which also had a co-author on the article.
The study was based on interviews of young Black men living in four high-violence cities about their reasons for gun ownership. Researchers chose four cities -- Houston; Baltimore; Jackson, Mississippi; and Wilmington, Delaware – to interview nearly 400 African American young men, between the ages of 15 and 24, and found that the young men’s negative perceptions of cities influenced decision to possess guns.
The young men described their communities in grim terms: as “murder town” or as a war zone, treacherous, crazy or chaotic; as places with few opportunities, absent parents, no role models, and social-media beefs turned violent.
The conclusion: perception of place matters in understanding community violence.
“The young men surveyed said they possessed guns because it was necessary to do so to survive in their environment,” according to the study, Understanding the Perception of Place and Its Impact on Community Violence.
All of the young men interviewed knew where they could easily obtain a gun and two-thirds of the men in the four cities acknowledged that they currently owned a gun. Many were introduced to guns at an early age (i.e., before age 15, some as young as 10), typically by friends or family, but few had received any training.
But few respondents acknowledged their contribution to violence because they said they had not killed anyone; some said they owned guns for protection, not to hurt others.
“In crafting and implementing interventions, our findings underscore the importance of seeking out and responding to the experiences of those most likely to be the victims and perpetrators of community violence,” explains Dorothy Dillard, director of the Center for Neighborhood Revitalization and Research at Delaware State University, who led the study. “As with any other public health issue, not only does place matter, but perception of place also matters.”
Photo from City of Baltimore's Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan.
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