Culture of fear

Question

Hi!

How can culture of fear be connected with the excessive gun violence in the U.S?

Answer 1

According to more than thirty years of public health research, gun ownership correlates to increased risk of gun violence. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0373-z). Even in the face of indisputable facts, Americans choose to own guns. In fact, gun ownership has increased to 265 million firearms by 2015. Psychologists and sociologists have struggled to find out why Americans choose to own firearms. More recent research has suggested that people own guns because of a culture rooted in fear. Since 1990, studies have shown that people buy guns because of fears about being victimized by violence. Researchers have noted a cognitive dissonance between subjective fear and objective reality. So people own guns because of their perception of potential violence that echoes throughout the televised news casts, social media, and hearsay.