Exploring Women Gun Ownership And Gender

How and why individuals choose to become gun owners is a complicated issue. Historically, in America, firearms have been associated with patriotism, citizenship, and freedom. Also, historically, much of the research on gun owners has primarily focused on males. Despite the fact that many women do, indeed, own firearms; women, even today, are still often considered an anomaly when it comes to owning guns and participating in the shooting sports. This research utilized an historical analysis, direct interviews with female gun owners, and participation-observation at National Rifle Association (NRA) sponsored Women on Target events, to explore and examine how and why women become owners; as well as how they negotiate the often masculine world of the shooting sports. The data is analyzed through a gender lens, primarily focusing on doing gender, othering, and boundary maintenance. Findings show that firearms ownership is a complex issue and that stereotypical gender believes strongly influences the interaction and images of men and women shooters alike.

This study examines the relationship between fear of crime and gun ownership through the examination of data collected from an online survey. Previous research indicates that there is a significant difference between males and females fear of crime, and that females are more likely to partake in constrained behaviors, which decrease the likelihood of an individual becoming a victim of crime (De Groof, 2008; Felson & Pare, 2010; Gordon et al., 1980; May, Rader, & Goodrum, 2010; Schaefer, Huebner, & Bynum, 2006; Tomsich, Gover, & Jennings, 2011). Previous research also indicates that there is a reciprocal relationship between fear of crime and gun ownership, making it difficult to establish a causal relationship (Bankston & Thompson, 1989; DeFronzo, 1979; Kleck, 1991; Kleck, 1997). The current study examines hypotheses that differences in socialization of gender stereotypes identified in fear of crime research will similarly predict female protective ownership. Because of issues identified with traditional fear of crime questions in previous research, each respondent was asked a series of questions to determine his or her level of fear. A factor analysis was conducted on these questions to create a new outcome variable to perform a linear regression analysis to identify significant predictors of fear. An ordinary least squares analysis was performed to identify significant predictors of fear of crime and a logistic regression analysis was performed to determine if there is a causal relationship between fear of crime and gun ownership.

Private gun ownership for self-defense remains a major personal and public issue in the United States, driven by concerns about crime, vulnerability and a range of ‘ideological’ factors, including race and gender. As media attention centres upon the extent to which women are taking up firearms, with the gun lobby and firearms manufacturers celebrating the ‘new armed woman’, and guns being promoted as ‘Rape Prevention Kits’, this book explores the changing gendered aspects of gun ownership. Can ownership of firearms by women be considered, as some have claimed, the embodiment of what might be termed ‘pioneer feminism’, as women resist male violence in a dangerous world, or are different stories told by the prominence of women in firearms control campaigns, or the fact that women remain frequent victims of male gun ownership? Analysing representations of the ‘armed woman’ in firearm and gun lobby marketing and advertising campaigns, together with television and popular music forms, Gender and Firearms: My Body, My Choice, My Gun examines the directions taken in the public debate on weaponisation in the United States, considering the role of women in the politics of gun safety and gun control. The book draws on statistical evidence in order to shed light on trends in gun ownership, whilst engaging with feminist scholarship on the relationship between gender, violence, risk and vulnerabilities, thus opening up critical new debates surrounding identity, performance, gender and risk in contemporary societies. As such the book will be of likely interest to sociologists and scholars of sociology, criminology, and cultural and media studies with interests in gender, embodiment, risk, crime and violence.

Author's abstract: This study was aimed to depict patterns of gun ownership in the United States and to outline the reasons for gun ownership and the influential variables associated with people's reasons for owning handguns and long guns. This study used data derived from the 2004 National Firearm Survey to examine how respondents' geographic region of residency, gender, race, age, rural location and education level influenced the likelihood of, and reasons for owning a firearm. The findings from this study suggest that being a male, living in the south and participants' age was significant in determining the likelihood of participants owning a hand gun or long gun for self defense, or hunting, sports or target shooting. Race and living in a rural area was significant in determining the likelihood of owning a gun, however it was insignificant in suggesting reasons for owning a handgun or long gun.

This timely and provocative book looks at contemporary American women and their experiences with guns. Scrupulously balanced, this new paperback edition features a new appendix containing a wealth of primary source documents that help illuminate both the dangers and attractions of guns in our society.

Women, we are told, should not own guns. Women, we are told, are more likely to be injured by their own guns than to fend off an attack themselves. This "fact" is rooted in a fundamental assumption of female weakness and vulnerability. Why should a woman not be every bit as capable as a man of using a firearm in self-defense? And yet the reality is that millions of American women--somewhere between 11,000,000 and 17,000,000--use guns confidently and competently every day. Women are hunting, using firearms in their work as policewomen and in the military, shooting for sport, and arming themselves for personal security in ever-increasing numbers. What motivates women to possess firearms? What is their relationship to their guns? And who exactly are these women? Crucially, can a woman be a gun-owner and a feminist too? Women's growing tendency to arm themselves has in recent years been political fodder for both the right and the left. Female gun owners are frequently painted as "trying to be like men" (the conservative perspective) or "capitulating to patriarchal ideas about power" (the liberal critique). Eschewing the polar extremes in the heated debate over gun ownership and gun control, and linking firearms and feminism in novel fashion, Mary Zeiss Stange and Carol K. Oyster here cut through the rhetoric to paint a precise and unflinching account of America's gun women.

The first complete book on one of the hottest subjects in the media today--gun ownership. Quigley offers women sound advice about everything from whether to buy a gun to choosing the proper weapon to training yourself to use it. Personal stories and crime victims' accounts help her make her case for women arming themselves.

Stange and Oyster (religion and women's studies, Skidmore College and psychology, U. of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, respectively) describe their personal relationships to guns, express appreciation for the beauty and skill of shooting, and excoriate the hyperbole on either side of the debate over guns. While asserting the feminist aspects of gun ownership in slightly more nuanced terms than usual, the volume is perhaps too dependent on anecdote to answer the philosophical, psychological, and political questions it engages. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

About the SeriesThe goal of this new, unique Series is to offer readable, teachable ""thinking frames"" on today's social problems and social issues by leading scholars, all in short 60 page or shorter formats, and available for view on http://routledge.customgateway.com/routledge-social-issues.html.For instructors teaching a wide range of courses in the social sciences, the Routledge Social Issues Collection now offers the best of both worlds: originally written short texts that provide ""overviews"" to important social issues as well as teachable exce.