Gun Owners don't hate President Obama

When President Obama was elected and then re-elected, gun owners were likely among those who voted for him.

No, not kidding.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) makes no attempt to conceal its dislike of President Obama. The NRA and its members are strong advocates of gun ownership and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (i.e., the right to bear and legally use firearms, such as for self-defense). The President likely initially incurred gun owners’ ire with his 2008 comment about how rural voters “cling to guns or religion” (Gabriel 2012). The botched 2010 gun walking operation – also known as Fast & Furious – directed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) didn’t help either (Jonsson 2011). The NRA continues to make fanatic statements about the President such as those found in its "Defeat Obama Fact Sheet". The “Fact Sheet” heading includes a sinister-looking photo of the President frowning. These facts include, “Obama will launch a regulatory war to shut down hunting and shooting” (fact #9) and “Obama will try to give the United Nations authority over your firearms” (fact #4). This anti-President Obama push is not limited to the Internet. At home I’ve been on the receiving end of membership drive phone calls from the NRA. The caller’s tone of voice had a marked urgency, essentially communicating the message, ‘Join now or all is lost! Your freedom will be taken from you!’ Yikes. To invoke famed comedian George Carlin, "Spooky language!" 

So what with all the vitriol and calls to action floating around, wouldn’t gun owners have wanted to steer clear of the President’s name on the ballot come Election Day? Not necessarily.

Study Methodology and Sample

In March-April of 2012, seven months before the President's re-election, 605 U.S. residents – participants registered with the Utica, NY-based StudyResponse Project – were randomly sampled to take part in an online survey about social media and the Second Amendment debate. Some of the findings from that survey – specifically voting behavior – are discussed in this blog post. Respondents were asked about whom they voted for in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, and who they were planning to vote for in the upcoming 2012 election. Granted, at the time the survey was administered the Republican nominee was not yet determined. (Rick Santorum and Ron Paul were still in the running.) However, some evidence on the lifetime stability of political ideology (Sears & Funk 1999) suggests that individuals that have decided who they will vote for are unlikely to change their minds.

            The 605 participants were spread out over a variety of states, including both strict- and not-strict gun law states.i These included Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The mean age was nearly 42 years old, with respondents ranging in age from 21 to 85 years old.

The sample was split between 52 percent males and 48 percent females. Eighty percent of respondents indicated that they were Caucasian. Additionally, six percent were African American, five percent were Hispanic, nine percent were Native American, and five percent were Asian/Pacific Islander. The race/ethnicity categories are not mutually exclusive. For instance, small percentages of respondents indicated that they were both Caucasian and African American, or both Caucasian and Hispanic. In terms of education, nine percent of respondents had only a high school education; 25 percent had some college or an associates degree; 40 percent were college graduates; and 25 percent had post-graduate study including having obtained a terminal degree (4.7%). Respondents listed a variety of occupations.

Gun Ownership and Voting

            More than half of the sample (56%) either currently owned a gun, had owned one in the past, or lived with a partner or spouse who owned a firearm but did not personally own a gun. Just under 42 percent of respondents said they did not presently own a firearm nor would they ever own one. Nearly 17 percent of respondents were currently or previously active in a pro-Second Amendment capacity such as being a member of the NRA or a local hunting or sportsmen’s club.

Table 1: Gun Ownership and Presidential Election Votingii

	Current or past firearm ownership, or live in a gun-owning household?
	No	Yes
Who voted for in 2008 Presidential election
-Obama	72.7% (n=133)	72.9% (n=167)
-McCain	27.3% (n=50)	27.1% (n=62)
Who will vote for in 2012 Presidential election
-Obama	39.1% (n=99)	37.5% (n=128)
-Romney or other earlier Republican	14.6% (n=37)	12.6% (n=43)
-Not sure	46.2% (n=117)	49.9% (n=170)

Table 1 above examines gun ownership/residing in a gun-owning household, by 2008 and intended 2012 voting. In 2008, nearly 73 percent of ‘pro’ gun individuals voted for President Obama rather than Republican candidate John McCain. The result was not significantly different from the voting preferences of non-‘pro’ gun individuals, 73 percent of whom also voted for Obama. As for the then-upcoming election, nearly 38 percent of current/past firearm owners (and those who cohabitate with gun owners) indicated that they would vote for President Obama in the 2012 election. This percentage is not far off from those who did not/would not own a firearm, who also indicated that they would vote for Obama (39%). This suggests that voting preference is not primarily driven by one’s personal connection to firearms.

Table 2: Stability of ‘Pro’-Gun Respondents’ Voting, 2008 to 2012iii

	Who voted for in 2008
	Obama	McCain
Who will vote for in 2012
- Obama	68.3% (n=114)	4.8% (n=3)
-Not Obama	31.7% (n=53)	95.2% (n=59)

Chi square: 72.79, df=1, p=.00

As seen above in Table 2, 68 percent of ‘pro’-gun respondents who voted for President Obama in 2008 planned to vote for him again in 2012; and 95 percent of ‘pro’-gun individuals who voted for Senator McCain in 2008 indicated that they would not vote for President Obama in the 2012 election. In other words, respondents’ voting preferences remained stable, and more than two-thirds of ‘pro’-gun individuals liked and continue to like President Obama.

Why should gun owners approve of President Obama? As suggested by some of their open-ended comments describing the President’s position on the Second Amendment, ‘pro’-gun respondents offered a variety of remarks, a number of which were positive or neutral in tone: “a good president”; “a great president”; “fair and partial”; “clever”; “fairly neutral… he has other far more pressing priorities”; “he agrees with the right to bear arms”; “he believes people have the right to bear arms, but that there should be tighter controls on the process of buying firearms”; “flexible”; “friendly”; “he supports it”; and “he is in favor of gun ownership, but with some restrictions.” As one respondent wrote, it’s “hard to say in an election year. He has generally ignored gun legislation during his first term; if/when he enters a second term and has nothing to lose he might be more open to gun control bills. He’s certainly the least anti-gun Democratic president in recent memory.”

‘Pro’-gun respondents also wrote a number of anti-Obama comments with regards to his Second Amendment stance: “against but pretending to be weakly for”; “he is anti-Second Amendment”; “he’s against it”; “he doesn’t want regular citizens to own guns”; and “he gives it lip service to maintain some votes in pro-gun states but he would abolish the amendment if he could.”

Conclusion

            So what’s the bottom line? Data from this study show that gun owners appear to favor President Obama as much as non-gun owners do. The NRA was perhaps wasting its effort by trying to scare members into voting for Mitt Romney. As one respondent (and gun owner) wrote, there are more important things to worry about.

References

Defeat obama fact sheet: Ten things every gun owner must know about barack obama. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gunbanobama.com/media/9506581/pvf_204_obamafactsheet_insert.pdf.  

Gabriel, T.  (2012). Obama and Romney Do Not Change Course Over Outcry on Gun Violence. New York Times, July 23^rd. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/us/politics/obama-and-romney-dont-heed-new-call-for-gun-laws.html?_r=0.

Jonsson, P. (2011). How Mexican killers got US guns from 'Fast and Furious' operation. The Christian Science Monitor, July 26^th.  Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0726/How-Mexican-killers-got-US-guns-from-Fast-and-Furious-operation

Sears, D. O., & Funk, C. L. (1999). Evidence of the long term persistence of adults' political predispositions. The Journal of Politics, 61(1), 1-28.

i Initially, the sampling plan was for one hundred (100) participants each to be randomly sampled by StudyResponse from three (3) stricter gun-law states (i.e., New York, New Jersey, and California); and from three (3) non-strict gun-law states (i.e., Florida, Colorado, and Virginia), for a total sample size of approximately 600 individuals. Target states to sample were selected by the Investigator based on ratings from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which scores states on various factors like gun dealer regulations, limits on bulk purchases, crime gun ID, reporting of lost or stolen guns, universal background checks, permit required to purchase, assault weapon bans, closed gun show loopholes, and large capacity magazine restrictions. Higher scores = stricter state gun laws. New Jersey scores a 72 out of 100, NY a 62 out of 100, and California an 80 out of 100. By comparison, Virginia scores a 16 out of 100, Colorado scores a 15, and Florida scores a 5.

ii Notes about Table 1: The total sample size for the 2008 data is n=412 respondents.  The 2008 data were filtered for those individuals who voted for either Obama or McCain in 2008. Non-voters in 2008 were excluded (n=173), as were 12 individuals who voted for a candidate other than Obama or McCain. Also, 11 individuals who did not answer the survey question about their current or past gun ownership were filtered out.  The total sample size for the 2012 data is 594. The 11 individuals who did not answer the survey question about their current or past firearm ownership were excluded from the analyses of the 2012 data. The chi square statistics for both years were non-statistically significant, indicating no difference in voting behavior by gun ownership status.

iii Notes about Table 2: The sample size for this analysis is n=229. The data were filtered for individuals with current or past gun ownership, or who live in a gun-owning household; as well as or those individuals who voted for either Obama or McCain in 2008.  Non-voters in 2008 were excluded (n=173), as were 12 individuals who voted for a candidate other than Obama or McCain in 2008.