'Arming up for anticipated civil conflict': Study says gun buyers prone to 'political violence'
Americans who have purchased firearms since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic are far more willing to engage in political violence against their fellow citizens, according to a new study.
The Guardian recently reported on a study by the University of California-Davis' violence prevention research program dubbed "Firearm Ownership and Support for Political Violence in the United States." Researchers surveyed roughly 13,000 gun owners who bought their weapons over the last four years, and asked if violence was justified in order to accomplish political objectives. 39% of gun owners — a plurality — said yes, while 30% said no.
UC-Davis researchers warned that American gun owners in the survey could potentially be "arming up for anticipated civil conflict."
"Our findings strongly suggest that large numbers of armed individuals who are at least potentially willing to engage in political violence are in public places across the US every day," the study read.
More specifically, 42% of respondents who own AR-15 style assault weapons were in favor of political violence, along with 44% of more recent gun buyers. Additionally, 56% of gun owners who openly carry their firearms in public told researchers they would be willing to carry out political violence.
"Recent purchasers and always- or nearly-always-carriers were more willing to kill to advance political objectives," the study read.
The study was published Tuesday by Jama Network Open, which is a monthly open access medical journal published by the American Medical Association. Its principal author, Garen Wintemute, is a professor of emergency medicine at UC-Davis, and is approaching the problem of American political violence as a public health issue, according to the Guardian.
READ MORE: Jen Psaki slams Trump over 'embrace of political violence'
While the political violence that erupted on January 6, 2021 was initially widely criticized by former President Donald Trump (though only hours after his supporters initially breached the US Capitol) and Republican lawmakers, many have since done a one-eighty. Trump himself has promised on multiple occasions to pardon January 6 defendants, particularly those incarcerated in Washington, DC jail.
As New York University's Just Security publication recently reported, many of those defendants are incarcerated specifically for attacking police officers. The former president has reportedly been in contact with Micki Witthoeft, who is the mother of deceased January 6 participant Ashli Babbitt. A US Capitol police officer shot Babbitt after she broke past several police lines and attempted to leap through a broken window at several lawmakers huddling in the speaker's lobby just several feet away.
READ MORE: Nearly all J6 defendants Trump wants to pardon assaulted police officers: security experts
