Why do Americans disagree so fiercely about guns? New paper with @marcellaalsan.bsky.social and Josh Schwartzstein shows owners & non-owners share a common goal — safety — but disagree sharply on whether guns achieve it 🧵 socialeconomicslab.org/research/working-papers/the-u… [1/19]
The Universal Pursuit of Safety and the Demand for (Lethal, Non-Lethal or No) Guns - Social Economics Lab
socialeconomicslab.orgMar 16, 2026 at 3:15 PM
The Universal Pursuit of Safety and the Demand for (Lethal, Non-Lethal or No) Guns - Social Economics Lab
Personal lethal firearm ownership has for several decades been a hot button political issue in the United States. This article aims to explore the motivations and beliefs underlying sharply different views on the subject through an original large-scale survey of lethal firearm owners (LFAO) and non-owners and experimental information interventions. We start by documenting several facts: First, LFAO and non-owners appear to be driven by a common objective---to be safe. Both groups list protection of family or self as the top rationale for owning or potentially acquiring a lethal firearm (LFA). Second, among non-owners, there are those who are interested in purchasing a lethal firearm (NO-I) and those who are not (NO-UI). NO-I feel the least safe in their daily lives. Third, there are differences in emotional responses to possession of a LFA. LFAO report feeling unsafe and less confident if they did not own the product whereas NO-U report similar feelings if they did own it. Fourth, LFAO are much less concerned about the possibility of personal and social costs associated with lethal firearm possession, a finding heightened across partisan lines. Taken together, these facts motivate three experimental treatments that randomly provide respondents with information on either (1) the personal legal and medical risks of ownership or (2) a non-lethal firearm (NLFA), provided with or without a conservative pundit's endorsement. The first treatment increases concerns about harms associated with lethal firearm ownership among all respondents, but these results are generally short-lived and do not affect policy views. The second treatment, however, increases respondents' willingness to pay for a NLFA and their self-reported preference for firearms that incapacitate but do not kill. Moreover, these treatment effects are more persistent than those of the cost treatment, especially when coupled with an endorsement, and affect the support of policies aimed at encouraging NLFA. Importantly, we do not find that exposure to information on NLFA makes current owners want to give up their (lethal) guns. We interpret these findings through an organizing framework in which every household has a demand for safety but differs in how they use firearms or other tools to produce it, due to different perceptions of the safety possibilities frontier (SPF, views about the least harmful ways to achieve protection benefits) or different preferences and incentives influencing the tradeoff over protective benefits vs. harms. Our results suggest that a substantial share of LFAO perceive the SPF differently than non-owners, and that there is a potential demand for less-lethal tools to be and feel safe.
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