There is a great deal of empirical evidence that owning a firearm increases the risk of dying from suicide. Most suicides are impulsive. Nearly 50% of survivors of suicide attempts report that they took less than 10 minutes between the decision to die and their...
This study of male Canadian (n = 475) and U.S. (n = 425) handgun owners addresses 2 questions: (a) Are there differences in gun-related motivation and behaviour patterns; and (b) does the Model of Defensive Gun Ownership of Stroebe, Leander, and Kruglanski (2017) fit...
Objective According to a recent psychological model of defensive gun ownership, the perceived need to own a gun for self-defense corresponds with two independent construals of threat: specific threats, namely the Perceived Lifetime Risk of Assault (PLRA), and diffuse...
Mass public shootings are typically followed by a spike in gun sales as well as calls for stricter gun control laws. What remains unclear is whether the spike in gun sales is motivated by increased threat perceptions or by concerns about gun control, or whether the...
Americans are the world’s best armed citizens and public polling suggests protection/self-defense is their main reason for gun ownership. However, there is virtually no psychological research on gun ownership. The present article develops the first psychological...
