Protecting Children With More Guns?: The Effect of School Shootings on Parents' Gun Regulation Attitudes

ABSTRACT Objectives The study examines the impact of parenthood on policy preferences regarding gun regulation in the United States. Moving beyond the conventional practice that limits parenthood to those with children under 18 residing in the same household, the study adopts a broader conception of parenthood by including all children regardless of their age. In particular, the study discusses the impact of priming a school shooting scenario on parent's support for gun regulation policies. Methods The study draws on the Cooperative Election Study (CES) from 2018 and 2022. Through two survey experiments embedded in the CES by YouGov with roughly 1000 respondents each, it estimates the treatment effect of a school shooting scenario on parents' general gun attitudes as well as their views on specific gun‐related policies. Results The findings show that parents exposed to a school shooting scenario exhibit more opposition toward gun regulation. Fathers, in particular, respond more strongly to specific policies such as support for concealed‐carry permits, lowering the minimum age to purchase assault weapons, and the presence of armed officers in schools, whereas mothers' responses follow a similar directional pattern but statistically insignificant shifts in their policy attitudes. Conclusions These results suggest that exposure to school shootings does not uniformly increase support for stricter gun regulations among parents but instead produces a complex and gendered response shaped by identity and threat perception.