Impact of Photos of Dead Children and “Good Guy with a Gun” on Gun Control Opinions

• In Event: Media Effects on Public Opinion

Abstract

Some public figures suggest displaying the bodies of gunshot victims to the American public will increase support for gun regulation. Yet people may respond differently to such images depending on their political biases. Furthermore, Americans regularly receive a plethora of imagery from Hollywood and messages from pro-gun lobby suggesting gun access is how a “good guy with a gun” regularly stop bad guys with guns, which may influence the American public’s understanding of the utility and value of guns in society.
Considering the potentially deep emotional injury a release of such a photograph could have in real life if such claims were tested in public, I here assess whether the injustice of breaking such a taboo may strengthen public support for stronger regulation of guns. Although I recognize that exposing people to such images may be upsetting, presenting them to adults who consent to participating in a survey and receive a warning may be a beneficent way to discover whether such exposure is associated with greater support for gun regulation, which in turn could potentially reduce the number of real deaths if the change in attitude leads to changes in policies.
In each experiment, I expose 3340 Americans to either a photo of a child gunshot victim with a description of how her classmate had shot her, a photo of a “good guy with a gun” chasing away an armed criminal from a store accompanied by a text describing when this reall happened, both stimuli, or a control condition of no stimulus.
In Study 1, those exposed to the image of the gunshot victim are more likely to support most gun control regulations, whether I control for all relevant potential confounders or not. Those exposed to the image of a good guy with a gun are only more likely to oppose the government requiring all guns to have trigger locks.
In Study 2, I build structural equation models to test various mediating variables. I found that how much they agreed that more guns would lead to less crime mediated around 50% of the impact of exposure to the image of an image of a dead gunshot victim were only significantly more likely to think to agree with various gun control measures like banning assault rifles and imposing higher penalties on illegal guns. Those exposed to the image of the good guy with a gun were significantly more likely to think to support for gun regulation measures due to them agreeing that having more guns in society would decrease crime. In contrast, a distrustful belief that government wishes to seize all the guns of American civilians mediated the association of the image of the good guy with the gun and opposition various gun regulation measures. This suggests some may fear that depriving Americans of their weapons which could potentially deprive them of their ability to be a “good guy with a gun”. I assess to what extent a belief that support for allowing institutional authorities like school teachers to carry guns mediates the impact of these images on attitudes toward guns. I found support for allowing school teachers to do so mediated how much exposure the image of a dead gunshot victim was associated with significantly lower support for various gun regulations. In sum, the extent to which the exposure to the child gunshot victim increases support for institutional authorities should be able to carry guns undercuts the extent to which that exposure increase support for gun regulations via other mechanisms. In contrast to the photo of the dead child, a participant’s support allowing teachers to carry a gun, those who view the image of the good guy with the gun were only significantly less likely to support for trigger locks. Hence, the belief that guns are valuable tool for individuals to protect themselves and others was not specific to professionals like teachers who would be closest to vulnerable students. This did not mediate the extent to which the image of a good with a gun increased opposition to gun control as much as a general fear that the government wanted to seize guns of Americans and the belief that civilians in general more guns circulating in society would make society safer.
Together the results show how exposure to an image of a young gunshot victim was associated were more likely to agree with that the government should more strictly regulate guns. In contrast, the impact of the exposure to the photo of the “good guy with a gun” was far weaker in influencing Americans attitudes toward gun regulation. Future studies will need to establish whether the sort of effects I found sustain themselves over time with more longitudinal data and qualitatively assess how people of different backgrounds respond to such photos.

Author

• Jacob Richard Thomas, Princeton University