Christian Nationalism and Opposition to Gun Control

[_Maksutov]

Abstract
Despite increasingly frequent mass shootings and a growing dissatisfaction with current gun laws, American opposition
to federal gun legislation remains strong. The authors show that opposition to stricter gun control is closely linked
to Christian nationalism, a religious cultural framework that mandates a symbiotic relationship between Christianity
and civil society. Using data from a national population-based survey, the authors show that Christian nationalism is an
exceptionally strong predictor of opposition to the federal government’s enacting stricter gun laws. Of all the variables
considered, only general political orientation has more predictive power than Christian nationalism. The authors
propose that the gun control debate is complicated by deeply held moral and religious schemas that discussions focused
solely on rational public safety calculations do not sufficiently address. For the substantial proportion of American
society who are Christian nationalists, gun rights are God given and sacred. Consequently, attempts to reform existing
gun laws must attend to the deeper cultural and religious identities that undergird Americans’ beliefs about gun control.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10. ... 3118790189