Democracy at Gunpoint: American Gun Owners and Attitudes Towards Democracy

Abstract In recent years, research on gun ownership has grown substantially but there has been less exploration of variation within gun owners. This study examines the differences in support for democracy between gun owners and non-gun owners, and in doing so makes an important contribution to the political science literature on group behavior and attitudes. We utilize OLS regression to analyze data from the 2020 American National Election Studies and 2016 General Social Survey public opinion surveys and find that there is a stark divide among gun owners on support for measures of democratic norms. Gun owners are more supportive than non-owners on some measures, but on others there was no relationship between owning a firearm and democratic attitudes. We suggest this is because partisanship—specifically support for Donald Trump—pulled gun owners’ attitudes in opposite directions. These results are consistent with previous work on cross-pressured voters and highlight the limits of group influence in a world where citizens have multiple identities. We conclude that gun owners don’t appear meaningfully different from non-owners on measures of democratic support.