SAN FRANCISCO, July 22 (Xinhua) -- A new study found that gun violence prevention groups in the United States advocate for the right to bear arms and for some gun purchase and ownership conditions, which they argue will curb gun-related injuries and deaths.
The finding contrasts with some depictions of gun violence prevention groups as "anti-gun."
Led by Oregon State University (OSU) researchers and published in the recent issue of the Journal of Macromarketing, the study is one of the first to look at gun violence prevention groups (GVPGs), many of which have formed in recent years after events such as the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and the 2011 shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords near Tucson, Arizona.
"When people talk about the 'gun debate,' it typically revolves around gun rights supporters and anti-gun people with no one in the middle," said Aimee Huff, an assistant professor in OSU's College of Business. "We found these groups are in the middle. They strike a balance between individual rights and responsibilities to reduce death and injury."
The study is based on two years of analysis of nine gun violence prevention groups, some of which are focused nationally and others regionally or locally.
Trying to unpack the messaging of these groups, whom the researchers describe in the paper using pseudonyms to protect their identities, the research team interviewed leaders of the groups, attended their rallies and training sessions, talked to state legislators about them, monitored their social media pages and analyzed media coverage focused on them.
They found that the groups position themselves as supporters of the U.S. Constitution Second Amendment, which is often considered the legal basis for private gun ownership in the country, direct their messages to the middle-ground majority and communicate the everyday toll of gun violence using non-polarizing language, asserting that these groups are having some success in their efforts.
Citing policy changes that have led to an increase in the number of states requiring universal background checks from 12 in 2012 to 18 in 2016 as one of the examples of success, and the percentage of Gallup poll respondents who want the nation's laws or policies on guns to be more strict has risen from 25 percent in 2012 to 38 percent in 2016, the researchers said: "It is neither possible nor necessary to precisely identify the impact of GVPGs in these changes, but we assert it is reasonable to assume that they play an important role."
