Attributions as Anchors: How the Public Explains School Shootings and Why It Matters

Abstract

From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the American public has repeatedly witnessed the carnage and tragic consequences of mass school shootings. Using a national survey of American adults (N = 1,100) conducted between May 30 and June 6, 2018 in the aftermath of the Parkland tragedy, this project explores public opinion on why these events occur. Informed by sociological scholarship on social movements and framing, the analysis shows that the public endorses both gun and non-gun attributional frames for school shootings. What appears to most strongly influence the resonance of both types of attributional frames, by affecting their narrative fidelity, is racial resentment, seeing the world as dangerous, and ideological beliefs. The attributional frames that respondents endorse, in turn, serve as “anchors” for their social action beliefs—or vocabularies of motive—with gun attributions increasing both confidence in and support for the #NeverAgain movement.

Keywords:

• Attributions
• gun control
• framing
• school shootings
• social movements

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Although we label them “cultural” factors, constructs like racial resentment clearly have a social and political dimension. Our choice of terminology here reflects a focus specifically on gun culture (Filindra & Kaplan, 2016, 2017; O’Brien et al., 2013).

2 As is normal in survey research, there was a comparatively large amount of missing data on the income variable (11%). We imputed these missing values using scores on the other variables in the analysis.

3 Question wording for the survey items is provided in the online supplement (Appendix).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heejin Lee

Heejin Lee is a doctoral student in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests focus on developmental and life-course criminology, public opinion and policy, and testing theories of crime. Her publications have appeared in Criminal Justice and Behavior, Victims & Offenders, and the Journal of Criminal Justice Education.

Justin T. Pickett

Justin T. Pickett is an associate professor of criminal justice at the University at Albany, SUNY. His research interests include public opinion, survey research methods, theories of punishment, and police-community relations.

Alexander L. Burton

Alexander L. Burton is a doctoral student in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. His research has focused on correctional officer training, public support for inclusive policies toward offenders, and public attitudes toward preventing school shootings.

Francis T. Cullen

Francis T. Cullen is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and a Senior Research Associate in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. He is a Past President of the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. His current research focuses on the status of criminological knowledge, public opinion on policy issues, and building the Rehabilitation-Redemption Model of offender reform.

Cheryl Lero Jonson

Cheryl Lero Jonson is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Xavier University. She is author of Correctional Theory: Context and Consequences and of Deterrence, Choice, and Crime: Contemporary Perspectives. Her current research interests focus on the impact of prison on recidivism, public opinion and criminal justice policy, and active shooter responses.

Velmer S. Burton, Jr.

Velmer S. Burton, Jr. received his PhD from the University of Cincinnati in Sociology and his EdD in Higher Education Management at the University of Pennsylvania. He is Senior Vice Chancellor for University Strategy and Performance at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where he also holds the rank of Professor of Criminal Justice. His research involves testing theories of crime and offender reentry and has been published in Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and Justice Quarterly.