Dataset Information

Happiness is a warm gun? Gun ownership and happiness in the United States (1973-2018).

ABSTRACT: Although there is no empirical evidence linking gun ownership with happiness, speculation is widespread. In this paper, we assess the association between gun ownership and happiness. We use 27 years of national cross-sectional data from the General Social Survey (1973-2018) and logistic regression to model self-rated happiness as a function of gun ownership (n = 37,960). In bivariate and partially adjusted models, we observed that the odds of being very happy were higher for respondents who reported having a gun in their home. This association persisted with adjustments for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, employment status, household income, financial satisfaction, financial change, number of children, religious attendance, political affiliation, urban residence, region of interview, and survey year. In our fully adjusted model, gun ownership was unrelated to happiness. The original association between gun ownership and happiness was entirely confounded by marital status. In other words, gun owners only appeared happier because they are more likely to be married, which increases happiness. In the first study of gun ownership and happiness, we found that people who own guns and people who do not own guns tend to exhibit similar levels of happiness. This general pattern was consistent across nearly three decades of national surveys, a wide range of subgroups, and different measures of happiness. Our analyses are important because they contribute to our understanding of the epidemiology of happiness. They also indirectly challenge theoretical perspectives and cultural narratives about how guns contribute to feelings of safety, power, and pleasure.

SUBMITTER: Hill TD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6957840 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Happiness is a warm gun? Gun ownership and happiness in the United States (1973-2018).

Hill Terrence D TD Dowd-Arrow Benjamin B Davis Andrew P AP Burdette Amy M AM

SSM - population health 20200107

Although there is no empirical evidence linking gun ownership with happiness, speculation is widespread. In this paper, we assess the association between gun ownership and happiness. We use 27 years of national cross-sectional data from the General Social Survey (1973-2018) and logistic regression to model self-rated happiness as a function of gun ownership (n = 37,960). In bivariate and partially adjusted models, we observed that the odds of being very happy were <i>higher</i> for respondents w ...[more]

PMID: 31956693

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Project description:Americans can be divided into two groups: those who own guns and those who do not. Although people who own guns and people who do not own guns are often separated along social, cultural, and political lines, it is unclear whether these divisions might extend to population differences in emotional experience. In this paper, we use national cross-sectional data from the 2014 Chapman University Survey on American Fears (n = 1385) to test whether gun owners are more or less afraid than people who do not own guns. We build on previous work by testing two hypotheses with a broad range of fear-related outcomes, including specific phobias and fears associated with being victimized. The symptom perspective argues that gun ownership is a behavioral expression of fear, that gun owners need guns to protect themselves because they are irrational cowards. Although binary logistic regression models provided minimal support for this idea, there was some evidence to suggest that the odds of gun ownership are higher for people who report being afraid of being victimized by a random/mass shooting. The palliative perspective claims that gun ownership mitigates fear, that owning a powerful weapon is somehow soothing to individuals and their families. Ordinary least squares and negative binomial regression models suggest that people who own guns tend to report lower levels of phobias and victimization fears than people who do not own guns. This general pattern is observed across multiple indicators of fear (e.g., of animals, heights, zombies, and muggings), multiple outcome specifications (continuous and count), and with adjustments for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, household income, marital status, the presence of children, religious identity, religiosity, religious attendance, political orientation, region of residence, and urban residence. Additional longitudinal research is needed to confirm our findings with a wider range of covariates and fear-related outcomes.

Dataset Information

Happiness is a warm gun? Gun ownership and happiness in the United States (1973-2018).

Publications

Happiness is a warm gun? Gun ownership and happiness in the United States (1973-2018).

Similar Datasets

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