Who bought a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States?: Associations with QAnon beliefs, right-wing political attitudes, intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior, suicidality, and mental health and substance use problems

Abstract

There was a large spike in gun purchases and gun violence during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

We used an online U.S. national survey (N = 1036) to examine the characteristics of people who purchased a gun between March 2020 and October 2021 (n = 103) and compared them to non-gun owners (n = 763) and people who own a gun but did not purchase a gun during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 170).

[OCS: The sample sizes are inadequate to draw valid statistical inferences.]

Compared to non-gun owners, pandemic gun buyers were younger and more likely to be male, White race, and to affiliate with the Republican party.

[OCS: Notice the overt politicization, which mirrors the narrative of the progressive communist democrats.]

Compared to non-gun owners and pre-pandemic gun owners, pandemic gun buyers exhibited extreme elevations on a constellation of political (QAnon beliefs, pro-gun attitudes, Christian Nationalism, approval of former President Donald Trump, anti-vax beliefs, COVID-19 skepticism; mean Cohen’s d = 1.15), behavioral (intimate partner violence, antisocial behavior; mean d = 1.38), mental health (suicidality, depression, anxiety, substance use; mean d = 1.21), and personality (desire for power, belief in a dangerous world, low agreeableness, low conscientiousness; mean d = 0.95) characteristics. In contrast, pre-pandemic gun owners only endorsed more pro-gun attitudes (d = 0.67), lower approval of President Joe Biden (d = -0.41) and were more likely to be male and affiliate with the Republican party relative to non-gun owners.

[OCS: A statistical hit job! Especially considering the widespread fear of a killer pandemic and increased stress caused by lockdowns, forced long-term intimate contact with family members, disruptions in normal daily activities and exercise, and increased financial pressures. Did the study authors consider age-related impacts or extreme financial pressures on increased suicidal ideation?]

Pandemic gun buyers represent an extreme group in terms of political and psychological characteristics including several risk-factors for violence and self-harm.

[OCS: One wonders if any cohort included members of radical progressive extremists like Antifa or Black Lives Matter, both of which were associated with violent behaviors?]

Introduction

The early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic introduced tremendous uncertainty and stress into people’s lives around the world that included major disruptions to social and economic life, in addition to the health risks associated with contracting a potentially life-threatening infectious disease.

In the United States, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic was also a period of social and political upheaval driven by the impact of heightened divisions among Americans. This upheaval included resistance to public health guidelines and government restrictions to curtail the spread of COVID-19, protests against police brutality that became the largest mass movement in U.S. history, controversies around the 2020 presidential election results (aka the Big Lie conspiracy theory of voter fraud), and the Insurrection of January 6th, 2021 when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to stop Congress from certifying the electoral college votes of the 2020 Presidential election.

[OCS: There is no doubt, even with retrospection, that our public health officials were lying and spreading propaganda. That our election integrity had been compromised. And that communist-in-chief Barack Obama and his cadre of fellow travelers were the proximate cause of increasing racial division in the United States. January 6 was a riot, not an insurrection – believing a small, unarmed, motley group of individuals, embedded federal officers, and Antifa members could take over the government is ludicrous.]

Amidst this turmoil, there was a dramatic increase in domestic gun sales. The estimated 7 million federal background check applications in the early part of the pandemic (March to July 2020) surpassed the rates recorded during other high gun-buying periods in recent history, including the months following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the election of Barack Obama in 2008, and the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012. From March to July 2020, national surveys estimated that 6% of adults bought guns, 34% of whom were new gun owners, for an estimated 6 million first time gun buyers.

[OCS: The “dramatic increase in domestic gun sales” was driven by progressive communist democrats' street-level shock troops, anti-police rhetoric, and their general failure to protect citizens from criminals and domestic terrorists like Antifa and BLM.]

<Original Study DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0290770>

Mental health problems, political extremism found in many who bought firearms during COVID pandemic

Survey raises concern about high risk for suicide and violence toward others

People who bought firearms during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic have much higher rates of recent suicidal thoughts, self-harm behaviors and intimate partner violence, compared with other firearm owners and people who do not own firearms, a new study suggests.

Pandemic gun buyers were also much more likely than the other groups to hold extreme beliefs, ranging from anti-vaccination views to support for QAnon conspiracy theories, according to the new findings published in the journal PLOS One.

The survey was completed by 1,036 adults living in the United States in October 2021. While not nationally representative, recruitment for the survey was designed to approximate the U.S. adult population in terms of the distribution of age, sex, race and Hispanic ethnicity with participants drawn from 47 states and Washington, D.C.

The findings suggest that pandemic firearm buyers have special characteristics that deserve attention to prevent harm to themselves or others, say the researchers, who are from the University of Michigan, the University of South Florida, the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Michigan State University. <Source>