Perceived Gun Access and Gun Carrying Among Male Adolescent Offenders

• Date: 01 April 2020
• Author: Carol Schubert,Dustin Pardini,Spencer Keil,Edward Mulvey,Jordan Beardslee
• Published date: 01 April 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/1541204019865312
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Perceived Gun Access and

Gun Carrying Among Male

Adolescent Offenders

Spencer Keil

1

, Jordan Beardslee

2

, Carol Schubert

1

,

Edward Mulvey

1

, and Dustin Pardini

2

Abstract

Gun violence takes a significant toll on adolescents in the United States, and there is a lack of

longitudinal research on perceptual factors that drive gun carrying. Notably, there is no information

on the relationship between perception of gun accessibility and gun carrying. Using data collected

between 2000 and 2006 in the Pathways to Desistance Study, we examine the effects of perceived

access to guns in a sample of adolescent offenders. A generalized estimating equations approach

tested the effect of perceived gun access along with other known risk factors for gun carrying across

time. Even after adjusting for these other risk factors, perceived gun access was significantly related

to future carrying. Our findings support self-reported gun availability as a significant, population-

based risk factor related to gun carrying in high-risk youth. Further research on how perceived

access mediates the decision to carry guns would be valuable for formulating effective gun policy.

Keywords

gun violence, adolescents, juvenile offenders, gun access

The Need for Adolescent Gun Research

Gun violence is much more prevalent in the United States than in other developed nations (Grinsh-

teyn & Hemenway, 2016), taking substantial, disproportionate tolls on adolescent minority males

and minority communities (Smith & Cooper, 2013). Although there has been a general decline in

overall firearm violence since the 1990s (Planty & Truman, 2013), approximately 38,000 people still

die every year because of gun-related violence, with two more persons injured for every person

killed (Xu, Murphy, Kochanek, Bastian, & Arias, 2018). The toll in young lives lost is substantial,

with gun violence claiming nearly 5,000 lives per year among youth aged 10–24 (Web-Based Injury

Statistics Query and Reporting System, 2018). These impacts have prompted statements from the

1

Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

2

Criminology & Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Spencer Keil, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, 3811 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA

15213, USA.

Email: s.keil@pitt.edu

Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice

2020, Vol. 18(2) 179-195

ªThe Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/1541204019865312

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National Research Council (NRC) and American Psychological Association (APA) for increased

research to examine the broad range of individual and contextual risk factors related to gun violence

(APA, 2013; Institute of Medicine [IOM] & NRC, 2013).

Understanding the factors related to both gun carrying and gun use is necessary in these research

efforts. Studies on risk factors for gun carrying have considered a wide range of possible variables,

including factors related to involvement in violence more broadly (Lizotte, Krohn, Howell, Tobin, &

Howard, 2000; Resnick, Ireland, & Borowsky, 2004; Spano, Pridemore, & Bolland, 2012). While it

is possible that factors related to violence more generally are distinct from those associated with gun

carrying specifically (as well as gun use), inclusion of these factors provides a domain of variables to

consider that have a demonstrated relationship to a highly related behavior. This body of work

generally focuses on systems of individual, social, an d contextual risk factors that interact and

develop over time to explain involvement in gun carrying and use, rather than the role of any one

specific risk factor (Dodge, Greenberg, & Malone, 2008).

It is notable that there is limited work using longitudinal data to identify and examine risks for

gun carrying and use and, importantly, testing how the development of risk factors across time

predicts these behaviors. Longitudinal investigations would be valuable, however, since they would

provide solid estimates of the impact of shifts in a risk factor or behavior and subsequent gun

carrying or use, both across populations and within individuals. As widely noted (APA, 2013; IOM

& NRC, 2013), such approaches could be particularly valuable, potentially providing sound, empiri-

cally based findings to focus prevention efforts and to counteract some prevalent myths currently

driving public discourse on this topic.

Access to Guns by Adolescents

It is important to first note that most adolescents do not carry or use guns. In the most recent Youth Risk

Behavioral Survey, about 5%of high school youths reported carrying in the past month. This behavior

is consistently higher in males than females, with some reasons to believe that processes underpinning

gun carrying among females may be qualitatively different than those seen in males (Kann et al.,

2018). Rates also differ across some ethnicity groups (Blacks, Hispanics) during particular historical

eras. At the peak of homicides among Black adolescents in the early 1990s, the rate of gun carrying

among Black males was about twice that of white males. In more recent years (since approximately

2010), the rates among different ethnicity groups have been roughly equivalent (Webster, Meyers, &

Buggs, 2014). In adolescents involved with the juvenile justice system, regular carrying in the prior

year is reported as high as 38%or 55%(Ash, Kellermann, Fuqus-Whitley, & Johnson, 1996; Sheley &

Wright, 1993). Reducing gun carrying in adolescents at high risk of this behavior is a potentially

valuable component of any strategy for reducing the overall toll from gun violence.

Statutory regulations clearly restrict adolescents’ access to firearms, particularly handguns. U.S.

federal law bars persons under the age of 21 from purchasing or possessing handguns (Gun Control

Act, 1968). However, these statutory restrictions related to legal sales have been ineffective, at least

partially due to the sheer number of handguns currently in circulation in the United States. Regu-

lations on legal gun transactions can only have limited effectiveness when estimates indicate that

there are somewhere near 300 million guns in private ownership in the United States (Wellford,

Pepper, & Petrie, 2005).

Perhaps not surprising, then, many young people (40%of high school males, 70%of male

juvenile offenders) believe they could easily acquire a firearm illegally (Bergstein, Hemenway,

Kennedy, Quaday, & Ander, 1996; Callahan & Rivara, 1992; Callahan, Rivara, & Farrow, 1993;

Reich, Culross, & Behrman, 2002; Sheley & Wright, 1993). The use of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,

and Firearms and Explosives (ATF) tracing data and survey studies of juvenile offenders have

provided valuable insights into how young people acquire guns. Most illegally acquired guns

180 Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 18(2)