Handgun Carrying Among Youth in the United States

• Author: Brian B. Boutwell,Michael G. Vaughn,Mary P. Curtis,Christopher P. Salas-Wright,Matt DeLisi
• DOI: 10.1177/1541204016629721
• Published date: 01 January 2017
• Date: 01 January 2017
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Handgun Carrying Among

Youth in the United States:

An Analysis of Subtypes

Michael G. Vaughn

1

, Christopher P. Salas-Wright

2

,

Brian B. Boutwell

1

, Matt DeLisi

3

, and Mary P. Curtis

4

Abstract

Despite a wealth of research finding that adolescents who carry handguns are involved in risky

behaviors, there has been little exploration into the heterogeneity of this behavior. Using a pooled

sample of 12- to 17-year-olds from the National Study on Drug Use and Health who report past-

year handgun carrying (N¼7,872), this study identified four subgroups of handgun carriers: low risk

(n¼3,831; 47.93%), alcohol and marijuana users (n¼1,591; 20.16%), fighters (n¼1,430; 19.40%), and

severe externalizers (n¼1,020, 12.51%). These subgroups differed on demographic, behavioral, and

psychosocial characteristics. Findings are discussed in light of prevention and focused deterrence.

Keywords

youth, handguns, violence, drug abuse, delinquency

One of the leading causes of mortality among youth in the United States is deaths stemming from

firearms (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). Research has shown that the carrying

of handguns increases the likelihood that disputes will escalate into lethal outcomes (Blumstein,

2002; Braga, 2012; DeLisi, Piquero, & Cardwell, 2014; Farrington, Loeber, Stallings, & Homish,

2012; Reich, Culross, & Behrman, 2002). As such, handgun carrying represents both a serious public

health and criminal justice policy concern (Barry, McGinty, Vernick, & Webster, 2015; Braga,

2012; Fowler, Dahlberg, Haileyesus, & Annest, 2015; Kleck, 2005, 2015; Siegel et al., 2014;

Wintemute, 2015a, 2015b). Given the human and economics costs of handgun carrying by adoles-

cents (Wickramasekera, Wright, Elsey, Murray, & Tubeuf, 2015), a deeper awareness of this

phenomenon can inform policy and prevention efforts targeting youth violence.

Adolescents are prohibited from carrying handguns in most states unless under direct supervision by

parents or guardians. Despite these laws,research has revealed that adolescents continue to have relatively

1

School of Social Work, College for Public Health and Social Justice, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA

2

School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

3

Criminal Justice Studies, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

4

Goldfarb School of Nursing, St. Louis, MO, USA

Corresponding Author:

Michael G. Vaughn, School of Social Work, College for Public Health and Social Justice, Saint Louis University, 3550 Lindell

Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63103, USA.

Email: mvaughn9@slu.edu

Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice

2017, Vol. 15(1) 21-37

ªThe Author(s) 2016

Reprints and permission:

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DOI: 10.1177/1541204016629721

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easy access to handguns with delinquent youth more likely to carry handguns than nondelinquent youth

(Brown, 2004). Availability of handguns seems to vary geographically, presumably in communities where

youth perceive the situational need to possess handguns as an instrument for self-protection or planned

aggression (Baskin & Sommers, 2014; Brennan & Moore, 2009; Sevigny & Allen, 2015; Vaughn, Howard,

& Harper-Chang, 2006). Males are substantiallymore likely to carry handguns than females (Pickett et al.,

2005; Vaughn, Perron, Abdon, Olate, & Wu, 2012). Several externalizing spectrum behaviors are associ-

ated with handgun carrying including alcohol, marijuana or other drug use, selling drugs, aggression,

fighting, and gang affiliation and peer misbehavior (Braga, 2012; Doherty & Ensminger, 2014; Durant,

Krowchuk, Kreiter, Sinal, & Woods, 1999; Kulig, Valentine, Griffith, & Ruthazer, 1998; Lizotte, Krohn,

Howell, Tobin, & Howard, 2000; Vaughn et al., 2006, 2012; Wilkinson & Fagan, 2001).

The aforementioned behavioral correlates identifiedin prior research on handgun carrying are con-

sistentwith several general theoreticalexplanations ofexternalizing behaviorthat emphasize deficits in

impulse control. For example, whether we are invoking self-control as in thecase of Gottfredson and

Hirschi (1990),neuropsychological deficitsserving to inhibit executivegovernance (Moffitt, 1993), or

low effortful control as a central feature of a temperament-based theory of crime and criminal justice

(DeLisi & Vaughn, 2014), the (in)ability of youth to adequately regulate their impulses is associated

with a wide swathof problem behaviors includinghandgun carrying. However,research has found that

latentsubgroups can be identifiedalong the externalizingspectrum(e.g., Vaughn, DeLisi,Salas-Wright,

& Maynard,2014) that are somewhat uniquefrom one another and not merely a severity-basedgradient.

Thisresearch suggests thata diverse latent structurecan also be found amongyouth who carry handguns.

Although much has been learned about handgun carrying among adolescents generally, there has

been little analysis on its heterogeneity. In short, it is often assumed that one ‘‘type’’ of adolescent is

involved in handgun carrying. Despite substantial research finding that adolescents carry handguns

for self-protection and that these youth are often residing in dangerous urban environments (Fagan &

Wilkinson, 1998), studies have also found that suburban and rural adolescents also carry handguns

(Connell, Barbieri, & Reingle-Gonzalez, 2015; Kingery, Pruitt, & Heuberger, 1996; Sheley &

Brewer, 1995) suggesting that there may be multiple reasons and types of youth who carry hand-

guns. Specifically, Sheley and Brewer (1995) found that risky or dangerous environments were not

linked to carrying handguns among suburban youth. Cook and Ludwig (2004) found wide variations

in gun carrying with higher rates of carrying tied to local robbery rates. Also, recent research in the

effects of gun laws on handgun carrying, indicating that more restrictive laws are associated with

reduced carrying by adolescents, shows wide variation in state laws (Xuan & Hemenway, 2015).

Moreover, investigations on other high-risk phenomena such as drug selling have also found sub-

stantial heterogeneity as evidenced by the identification of markedly discrete subgroups of adoles-

cents who sell drugs (Shook, Vaughn, & Salas-Wright, 2013). Thus, multiple line of inquiry suggests

there are good reasons to believe that adolescents who carry handguns in the United States are more

varied than what is typically portrayed in the research literature.

Study Aim

Accumulated research on handgun carrying during adolescence has tended to assume adolescents

who carry handguns are a homogenous lot. In addition, extant research has perhaps relied too heavily

on enriched high-risk samples or samples from disadvantaged communities, thereby limiting the

understanding of the entirety of handgun carrying among adolescents more generally. The aim of our

study is to explore and specify the heterogeneity among adolescents who report handgun carrying in

the past year using finite mixture modeling techniques. As previously mentioned, most quantitative

investigations of handgun carrying among adolescents compare handgun carriers to noncarriers and

do not examine or delineate how adolescents who carry handguns vary. We employ data from the

long-running National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), a nationally representative study

22 Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 15(1)