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Thank you for tuning in to In -depth Conversations
About Guns That Transcend the Typical Gun Divides.
This is Guns Unpacked, a podcast where we interrogate,
engage, and elevate the terms of the gun debate
as we know it. I am your host Jennifer Carlson,
Director of the Bridges Initiative at Arizona
State University, aimed at bringing research
and innovation into the debate on guns in society.
Today we welcome Dr. Gerald Higginbotham, an
assistant professor of public policy and psychology
at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and
Public Policy at the University of Virginia.
He earned his PhD in social psychology from the
University of California Los Angeles and his
BA in psychology with honors and distinction
from Stanford University and his MA in psychology
from UCLA. His work examines how contemporary
cognitive processes reflect and reinforce oppressive
histories, particularly with regard to racism
and collective power. He uses gun policies as
one site in which to unravel these connections.
His work has been funded by the National Science
Foundation and the American Psychological Foundation,
and it has appeared in venues like Journal of
Experimental Psychology, Psychological Reports,
and Current Directions in Psychological Science.
Welcome to Guns Unpacked. Thank you, Jennifer,
for the wonderful introduction. I'm really excited
to be here and engage in this conversation. Long
time coming to finally get a chance to interact
with you as I followed your work. for a while
now. Well, the feeling is very mutual. So I'm
super excited to be in conversation with you,
especially as you are one of the key voices in
psychological scholarship on what you have called,
you use this term US firearm psychology, particularly
as it pertains to the relationship between gun
psychology and race. Just to kind of get us started,
what made you want to start studying guns and
race from a social psychological perspective?
Yeah, no, great question. I reflect on this and
I feel like the answer in some ways is always
evolving. When did I start thinking about guns?
Guns are because they're every seemingly everywhere
in the US. Sometimes they kind of go unnoticed
when you actually had your first kind of encounter.
Speaking to, I'll start with why social psychology
first and then I'll get back to the guns in particular.
I learned about social psychology as an undergraduate.
Student, no idea what research was, but I really
love the social psychological perspectives because
it basically asks as individuals, how are we
impacted by the social context and the social
interactions around us or that we engage in?
And I came to find that that is such an important
and powerful way to think about why guns hold
such a strong place in our psychology and thinking
not just about guns, but what context are shaping
our interactions with firearms? and our understanding
of firearms. I got into this particular line
of research thinking about firearms and the role
of race in graduate school. It was something
that At the time, I felt like it kind of just
fell into it. I had been noticing some disparities
in terms of like whose rights to firearms were
being respected and revered, particularly as
it came to both kind of police killings of legally
armed Black civilians, as well as some kind of
legal challenges to Black Americans using their
legal rights to firearms to protect themselves.
So particularly thinking about stand your ground.
There were a couple of cases of Black women who
had used their guns to protect themselves and
they weren't getting the same type of, felt like
legal protection or at least program arguments
made for their cases and their behalf. Those
kind of insights and just kind of noticing these
things really started me down this path of, you
know, who are gun rights perceived to be for
in the U .S.? That just exploded into where I'm
at now thinking kind of broadly about guns and
other rights and thinking about how do they function
as something that is fundamental for some people,
but may be perceived as like in reality, a privilege
that should be reserved for. members of, you
know, dominant groups in society. There is a
longer story that I can tell, but I imagine that
we'll get to these things later. Yeah, you you
use this term US firearm psychology. And yeah,
we'll basically be spending the entire conversation
today unpacking what that means because it is
so complex. But a lot of pop psychology, and
I'll just call it pop, I don't know if you, as
a psychologist or social psychologist, I don't
know if you like that term, but I'll just use
it. A lot of pop psychology on guns I think tends
to really simplify, individualize people's attitudes
and attachments to guns. And so to get us started
in this conversation, can you just give us like
the really basic overview of how you think about
and define this term US firearm psychology? Yeah,
no, I one I'm trying to be specific as well as
kind of trying to capture that complexity that
you talk about. I think there's multiple different
reasons why people own firearms. And I agree,
I think simplifying it to one or two things is
reductive and can miss I think important nuances.
I'll specifically say why say us I have been
very heavily influenced by cultural psychologists
that are thinking not just about people and individuals
and kind of social context and social situations,
but thinking about people as embedded in culture
over time. And I think one of the key insights
from that kind of line of thinking and field
of research and thought is it's important that
we're specific about what psychologies that we're
describing that are maybe general. that are more
universal, that kind of are maybe less context
or culturally specific, and then which psychologies
are derived from a particular context. And so
the reason why I specify U .S. firearm psychology
is one, I haven't studied outside of the U .S.
in terms of the question that I asked, but two,
just to highlight the unique, I think, connection
Americans have to firearms. I mean, just from
the data alone in terms of the prevalence of
firearms that we have, where it's almost people
living in the U .S. account for nearly 50 % of
all civilian held firearms and globally. So I
think the number is closer to 45%. in terms of
people who experience or have or know family
members who experience gun violence. Like that
is like over 50 % of U .S. adults know someone
or have personally experienced incidents of gun
violence or intended gun violence. And so like
we have a very unique relation to firearms. And
so in kind of defining what is a firearm psychology,
I think it's very important to be specific to
saying U .S. and the psychological part obviously
is fire. firearms are a physical object, but
as you talked about in your research and the
other scholars have also highlighted that so
much about our thinking and connection in the
perceived utility of firearms goes beyond just
the tool of it itself. And it really is, I would
argue, a psychological process that's extremely
important to understand. Yeah. So let's dig into
your work, particularly your piece, When an Irresistible
Prejudice Meets Immovable Politics," which is
just such a great title. You conducted a series
of experiments to examine, and this is a quote,
how white Americans implicitly racialized gun
rights as white. Can you break that down for
listeners? What does that mean? And how does
this advance us beyond more simplified understandings
of the relationship between guns and race? Yeah,
so this was some of the first work that came
out of some of these initial insights where we
were just asking the question, Who are gun rights
for? And that was one of the driving insights
that we were just trying to really get a handle
on that. And I'll say this, I usually start at
the beginning, but there's so much that we still
are learning. What we did learn in this study
is there is this racialization of gun rights
as white. Past research at the time had shown
and demonstrated in other fields, political science,
sociology. that there are these strong links
between kind of how white Americans thought about
black Americans or negative racial attitudes
towards black Americans and their support for
gun rights or their opposition to gun control.
So you could reliably understand how much a white
American supported firearms or gun rights based
on how negatively their level of negative attitudes
towards black Americans. And so that was That
one in itself was surprising and starting to
dig into the literature. But at the time, the
thought that occurred to me and the collaborators
I was working with is, you know, who are these
white Americans with these negative racial attitudes
thinking about when they're, you know, showing
this strong staunch support of gun rights? And
the expectation was that they were not thinking
about Black people's rights to firearms. tested
this and we found support for that idea. So we
used an implicit association test, which is a
behavioral measure, experimental measure that
indirectly tests strengths of associations between
concepts. So in this case, we were interested
in the strength of association between the concepts
of white race, white Americans, black Americans,
I mean, the concepts of gun rights and gun control.
And so what we found was that overall we found
a stronger association amongst white Americans
to associate white Americans with gun rights
and black Americans with gun control. And then
we looked at, you know, what impact does, you
know, understanding white Americans negative
attitudes towards black Americans have on the
strength of association. And what we found was
that white Americans who held more negative attitudes
towards black people held even stronger associations
between white Americans and gun rights and black
Americans and gun control. In subsequent studies,
we wanted to show, you know, what implications
this may have for policy. And we found that particularly
most white Americans, again, who were what we
were finding having this strong association between
gun rights and white Americans and gun control
on black Americans. When we told them that black
Americans were using rights like concealed carry
at a faster rate than white people and very clearly
said that this, you know, did not lead to increases
in crime or violence. Like these were, you know,
legal gun owning. Americans, those white Americans
who held these strong negative attitudes towards
black people, they were less supportive of concealed
carry rights. And I think that that opens up
an additional line of questions more broadly
about rights in the US, but particularly important
one when we think about something as embedded
and I think as consequential as firearms. Yeah,
and I have to say, I really appreciate that was
such a detailed outline of everything you did
in this incredible paper and you know to like
take it to the other extreme and like meme -ify
it of course there is the meme I'm you know I'm
sure you've seen because it's it's kind of like
the very crude summary of what you just described
which is if you want gun control, armed black
men, right? We've seen this meme. And what I
think is really important about your research
is that your research actually suggests a somewhat
different outcome that actually it's not just
gun rights in general, but the specific way that
black people happen to be exercising them, which
is exactly how we actually see the history of
racialized gun law unfolding. For example, like
the Mulford Act of 1967. And so I guess I don't
know if this is a fair question to ask. to be
like, what do you think of a meme? But I am curious,
how does something that's so nuanced and so complex
sort of get translated into the policy realm?
Yeah, in terms of, yeah, I mean, right. Going
back to the meme, actually, when I was working
on this project, and this is maybe before people
were starting to, the canceling was a huge thing.
Actually, I was in Chicago at a comedy show and
Dave Chappelle said the same thing. Actually,
it was one of the opening quotes we start the
paper with. He ended up later saying it in a
Netflix special, but he was a surprise guest
at a comedy show and he was talking about, you
know, if you just want to... get gun control
passed, just arm Black people. But he was in
the show, he asked, you know, he doesn't know
if Black Americans should, you know, have the
responsibility to, you know, be the arbiters
of gaining this gun control through that pathway.
I think when people ask about, you know, what
are the policy implications of this work, the
first thing I say is, like, my recommendation
isn't to just say like, let's use black people
and arming black people as the way to get gun
control passed because I am very clearly aware
and I think history shows us that that puts the
lives of black people in danger in ways that
I think shouldn't be understated. And then also
too, when you think about, you know, the particular
again, thinking about the gun laws that may be
targeted, you know, if it's some of the research
that and some of the questions that we got from
the work, right, are still even though you have
white Americans saying that, yes, we would support
more supportive of gun control in these particular
ways. Right. Are they is there still an expectation
that even if I support this law that may be restricting
the right that black people are seen to be using,
is there still an expectation that it's not going
to impact my rights? So, you know, I think that
that creates some nuance that's. One, I would
argue suggests away from this meme because I
am not a proponent of, you know, employing kind
of black people and black lives to pass something
that I think everyone is in support of, or the
large majority of people are in support of common
sense gun legislation. But I think it opens up
deeper question of, you know, how do we get to
a point where we can see rights as for everyone,
including gun rights, but also to that we can
pursue safety in ways that are actually increasing
the safety for everyone, but not leading to potential
negative outcomes where there's maybe more contact
with police in ways that may be harmful, particularly
if folks are thinking that most Black Americans
are now walking around armed. I think the threat
would just be out of this world and would have,
I think, unforeseen consequences. I mean, I really
appreciate everything you just said. And I want
to actually now go to your 2024 piece on collective
power, race and guns. This piece is just so full
of such crucial history that, you know, really
gets at some of the points that you just made.
And one of the things and honestly, this is like,
I'm asking you this question just because our
listeners need to know this history. So I'm like,
please just say this out loud so that everybody
can hear it. At one point, so I'm going to quote,
you say, guns provided an actual source of collective
safety and power among Black Americans rooted
in an increased sense of in -group solidarity
and ability to resist white intergroup and structural
violence. So you're talking about really this
historical, I mean, really sweeping historical
look at how we think about the racialized politics
of guns. And you specifically used. armed black
resistance during the 1921 burning of Black Wall
Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to illustrate this.
And I thought this was so powerful because there's
been kind of this moment where now the burning
of Black Wall Street is something that I think
many, many more people have heard of as compared
to, say, five years ago. But you still add something
very crucial to sort of the conversation of how
we should be understanding this historical moment.
And so can you just tell us a bit about this
dimension of armed resistance? and why it is
so important in terms of your perspective on
US firearm psychology. I agree. I think this
history is important. And I also acknowledge
that the reason why I know these histories are
because of the great work of historians, people
willing to share stories. In this particular
history, I was able to learn both from going
to visit Tulsa. So this is part of a longer story.
Like bringing up the Tulsa Race Massacre actually
has a lot to do with some other work that I do
along how do we think about history, like psychologically,
and its relation to the present. And part of
it was using how are people locating the Tulsa
Race Massacre in time from a psychological perspective,
again, if we're trying to make people and encourage
people to think about history as relevant to
the present. And so this ties to a longer and
a separate line of research. So after graduating
with a PhD from UCLA and moving to Charlottesville,
where I'm at now, we actually a road trip through
Tulsa with my mom. And we stopped at the museums
and also to spoke with a lot of the black residents
there. They were just like these beautiful, like
this important and nuanced histories kind of
came about in these interactions. Also to want
to give a huge shout out to Annalise Bruner,
who is a writer and historian, who is one of
the great granddaughters of Mary Parrish, who
actually wrote a firsthand account of their experience
in the Tulsa Race Massacre and also detailed
this and is cited in the work that we're referencing.
But the Tulsa Race Massacre happened in 1921.
And although often left out of our typical understandings
of, you know, wars and histories, right? Black
people have been involved in every single war
that's happened on US soil from the American
Revolution. There were World War I veterans who
came back to Tulsa and the Greenwood District,
right, and had guns. When the shooting started,
Black Americans who had firearms at the time
and who were trained like they use their firearms
to hold off the incoming mob of white Americans
who were looting and burning businesses. And
at least for a time, were able to to delay the
mob and allow many more people to escape than
would have if they didn't have firearms and if
they weren't able to resist. And when we look
at kind of the history of that period of Jim
Crow era period, as well as even thinking about
the civil rights movement, guns were a relevant
part. And even in nonviolent groups like this,
there's like the deacons for defense. I mean,
I was talking with some folks who just published
some work on MLK, right? And MLK at one point
was a gun owner. I think it's important to acknowledge
that at some level, there is some, I think, collective
safety that has been found from Black Americans
owning firearms. And there is research that even
supports that. There's some work that showed
that during the Jim Crow era period in states
and years where there were lower levels of Black
gun access or Black Americans had less access
to guns, whether through state policy or racially
disparate enforcement by police, there were more
lynchings. So the less guns that Black Americans
had at this time, the more lynchings that were
reported. in the area or that happened in the
area. And so they're both through these stories
as well as some recent and emerging data show
that they're at a collective level guns have
been used to protect Black Americans from racism.
But I think at the same time, it's important
to acknowledge that that doesn't mean and hasn't
guaranteed safety. It has been used to try at
least to resist and to resist in some instances.
Yeah, and I think that's what's so powerful is
that the way you kind of link up history and
psychology is to sort of locate these moments.
where the relationship between guns and safety
sort of gets forged, and that becomes iterative
across history. It becomes revisited. It becomes
bifurcated in terms of different groups and how
they experience the relationship between guns
and safety. And I think this is where the collective
power thesis that you lay out is really so powerful,
because I think it's very easy to kind of look
at history and be like, as you said at the onset,
guns are everywhere. They're kind of doing the
same thing, but also doing very different things.
How do we sort of how do we have some sense of
like how to like how do we make sense of this?
And so I guess like, you know, now pulling out
of the sort of detailed history and sort of back
to your sort of broader theoretical framework,
can you explain how the collective power thesis
advances our understanding of this relationship
between guns themselves and what you refer to
throughout as not just safety, but people's felt
safety, their experience of safety? I think it's
an important question. There's great work in
social psychology, as social psychology has been
over the years have been exploring this, I think
more specifically that shows and people even
report it, right? One of the primary reasons
that people report now for owning a gun is personal
protection. And that is extremely tied to the
felt safety that people perceive guns to provide.
The point that I think is also important to acknowledge
is that what safety means and what can provide
safety may look different depending on on your
identities. You hold the relationship to, I think,
different cultural institutions and structures
in society and that that in some ways can complicate.
what is considered providing safety. So I'll
go back quickly because I think this is really
important, it's been helpful for me. So in 2020,
Nick Butrick, he wrote kind of this organizing
framework around like different psychological
motives for defensive firearm ownership. He focused
in on kind of these world beliefs that underlie
kind of turning to firearms is kind of this understanding
or belief that the world is dangerous and that
societal institutions won't be able to protect
us or variants in the extent to which they will
be able to protect us from this dangerous world.
That's, I think, a super helpful framework. And
I think that when thinking about what actions
can an institution take to make you feel safe,
I think that inherently is a question of not
just how you individually perceive the world,
but also to kind of different, I think, group
relations to those society and structures. And
so for one, I think, clear example is, you know,
what do we make of different perceptions of police
as an institution that can provide safety for
some groups of Americans? And again, I think
that this as a story about race, but also too
complicated by gender and class, like for whom
does a stronger police presence make feel safe?
And for whom might a stronger police presence
may in some ways make feel safe, but also be
a threat to perceive safety. And that requires
understandings of not just, again, kind of our
present moment, but also to the histories that
have gotten us here. For me, when I'm thinking
about collective power, it's those type of questions
and I think additional nuances that social psychology
is, I think, geared to handle when we keep these
kind of different factors in mind. And again,
it's something that we're still exploring. I
am fortunate to have a budding lab with great
folk. in the lab that I'm able to work with,
as well as collaborators here at UVA and beyond.
And so these are the types of questions that
we're really trying to get into. Yeah, and I
think even looking at now the contemporary period
and thinking about how people relate to the guns
that they own, there's been some really fascinating
research on gun attitudes across different racialized
groups of gun owners. And so. I'm thinking of
the work here led by Julie Ward. She has a study
that shows that white gun owners and black gun
owners actually have very different expectations
in terms of the extent to which their guns will
make them safer. White gun owners, I think, to
use like a pun, are much more likely to see guns
as like the silver bullet of safety. Black gun
owners have a much more measured view. You also
talk about Deirdre Bowen's work that finds that
even among black women who own guns, they tend
to be much more ambivalent about the fact of
their gun ownership. And it seems like this ambivalence,
it alerts us to, I think, a really subtle form
of racial domination. So the privilege of being
able to experience guns as an overall straightforward
good, as opposed to something that's deeply fraught.
I think it's not just an attribute of being a
full citizen, but it also gets at how citizenship
is experienced differentially. So my first question
is like, am I getting that right? Because I think
that's where coming at this with a psychological
perspective is so insightful. because it gets
at not just, you know, like sociologists, I mean,
I don't know, sociologists, we think we do everything.
So whatever. But, you know, I think there's some
social sciences where it's like, you know, we're
looking at the attributes, we're looking at the
tropes, we're looking at the but this really
gets at the experience. Yeah. What do you think
about that? And also, it leads me to the question
of and kind of going back to the like, what's
the policy implication, which is that, you know,
If that's what the issue is, I mean, are we even
looking in the right place if we're looking to
gun policy to solve that? Yeah, I have this often
the same line of thought in question. The example
you gave made me think actually to the opening
of, you know, your book, Citizen Protector, right,
where you have this white male store clerk like
kill someone and the police are like. Good job.
And you can correct me if I'm if I'm getting
this wrong versus. Yeah. Right. You're the reader.
You're in control of that. I don't want to oversimplify
because I do think it's complicated. But then
also, too, then you transition right to the story
of a black man legally owning a firearm, carrying
it openly. And then the police are just like,
that's unusual. And like, stop him and ask all
these different questions. But again, like rights
for who and rights for whom. One way I think
about the question is this work on firearms about
firearms or something deeper in some other work
that I'm doing in the, in the domain of voting.
It feels like there are just these consistencies
around who is. considered as worthy or good enough
to be able to participate in the full benefits
of being a U .S. citizen. And this is not something,
this is drawing from work kind of more broadly
in terms of symbolic racial attitudes and how
support for different policies, even where they're
racial or non -racial, still have these ties
to these deeply seeded kind of pieces of racial
animus that have persisted throughout our history.
And I think this question about firearms is is
no different. And I think this is also to why
there's such a it feels like a gridlock in terms
of, you know, what like, how do we solve this
issue of, I think, a uniquely American firearm
problem? For example, Carol Anderson's book,
The Second, she highlights in black communities
where you see black Americans, you know, supporting
gun control at high rates. Like there still is
this resistance from a policy level to get gun
control laws passed. And, and it just begs the
question about, you know, like in some ways,
like, what are we doing? And I think also to
begs a broader conversation about what are just
the different inputs, both from a psychological
perspective, again, why, why is it that we turn
to guns? Is it because they're available? Is
it because of the many ways that guns have been,
I think, intentionally tied to what makes a moral
US citizen? There's clearly gender dynamics to
it in terms of protection of self, family, and
home, and what does it mean to, again, stereotypes
about masculinity. And all of this, again, is
these psychological values and symbolic values
that we give to a tool that's used to And again,
I know people like this might give me trouble,
but like guns very clearly are a tool used to
shoot something, whether that is an object, an
animal or a person, right? Like that is what
it's used for. And so I think we should be taking
this seriously and asking kind of these deeper
questions about like, why is this so rooted for
us? And that also requires us to dig deeper in
terms of where are some of these divisions? originating
from and how do they shape this simple question
of what do we do about firearm violence as well
as you know who firearms are for. And I realized
with that question that I kind of like pushed
us into the like, and now let's solve every problem
that's out there. And we're like, we kind of
like went very, very high level with that. Yeah.
But it makes sense. Like, I feel like that question
is real. I was looking at some data the other
day where it's I think nearly all US states have
a higher, you know, firearm mortality rate than
any other country than nearly all of the countries
like it like the way that we kind of have become.
maybe accepting of gun violence and also to attach
to the tools that obviously play a role in that
violence. It's like, you know, what do we do
about this? Because our kids should be safe.
Our families should be safe. Obviously, there's
a misalignment in terms of like how we've been
pursuing that. And so I think it's natural to
turn to solutions. In some ways, I think this
research for me has shown that, like, and to
your question, like, are we getting at the root
of the problem? Right now, it's hard to say yes,
because there is still so much lack of, I think,
progress in it. And I guess like pulling it back
to like maybe a little bit more like manageable
terrain of psychology and your field. I'm curious
how I mean, this is obviously I am somewhat biased
and that I think guns and the issue of guns and
the social, you know, dynamics of guns. I mean,
it's an incredibly powerful space to think about
all sorts of axes of inequality, including race.
So, you know, I'm sold, of course. But I'm curious
how your fellow social psychologists have taken
to your work. I'm particularly I'm curious if
you've gotten any surprise reactions. And just
to give you the subtext of my question, I think
we're in a really exciting moment where people
are asking nuanced questions that go beyond the
simplistic ways of thinking about guns in society.
I think that over the last decade, there's been
scholars asking really, really interesting, nuanced,
important agenda setting and discipline -advancing
questions. And so I'm just curious how your experience
has been. Have you gotten encouraged? When you
first were like, hey, I'm going to study this,
were you encouraged? Were you like, oh, this?
I mean, because of course, there's this kind
of sense, at least since the 90s, that gun research
is not going to get you big grants. Of course,
that's not the case for you. You've gotten big
grants. So I'm just curious how your experience
has been pushing this field or subfield within
your field. So I was like, I don't have to be
misperception out there. I've gotten some smaller
grants for the guns work for some other work
on guns. I'm excited about the grants that we
got for firearms. Still out there if anybody
else wants to give a bigger grant. Just want
to be clear, especially folks who are like, why
are we spending money on gun research? I was
like, actually, we're not, y 'all. We should
be, but. there's not anyway let's include that
line yeah right quoted there needs to be more
money towards guns yeah So this is kind of, I
don't know if this will be a curveball question,
but as you were talking about that, I was thinking
about sort of, you know, if you were writing
the history of today 100 years from now, which,
yeah, okay, so that's an easy question. No, no,
do it. No, let's go. But I have like a specific,
you know, specifically thinking about, you know,
the surge in gun purchasing among... all sorts
of groups that are not associated with the stereotypical
American gun owner. So people of color, women,
sexualized minorities, liberals. And one of the
things that I think you get from your retelling
of the history is there's something very persistent,
obviously, about white supremacy, but it's also
dynamic and nimble. And one of the things that
I've, and something you said earlier just kind
of struck me, one of the things that I've heard
in terms of chatter, trying to kind of, Because
you could think, and I think this is what some
people actually on different sides of the debate
sort of saw this surge in purchasing among people
who, quote unquote, are not the traditional gun
owners. I don't really like that term. But yeah,
there's kind of this sense of, oh, this is being,
gun rights are being democratized. This is going
to be this space for exactly sort of all the
things that we're talking about, that rights
are going to be really rights for everybody.
And what I've seen is that, OK, so no, that didn't
happen. But how is that? I mean, in some spaces,
it did. In some spaces, I think there have been
shifts in program culture. So it's more complicated.
But one thing that I've heard, at least in some
corners, is this chatter that people are buying
guns because basically they're being gaslit into
thinking that they're going to be a victim of
a hate crime, thinking that the political system
is going to incite violence against them. And
so actually, it's almost using the like, the
protection and saying, well, you know, you're
just you're just overreacting and thinking that,
you know, racist far right armed groups are going
to come get you. And it just seems like so I
guess maybe it's two questions. One, is that
something that actually is not so historically
new, this like gaslighting of people's sense
of safety and their reasons for wanting to have
guns? And yeah, I guess just like how do you
think you would write the history of today if
you could look back 100 years from now? As we
talked about, right, perceptions of safety are
important. they're personal and they're informed
by, I think, the social and cultural worlds around
us. I would push back against people who are
saying, right, that people's concerns about inequality,
about kind of oppressive violence aren't, and
the likelihood of it happening aren't real. Like,
that feels like historically inconsistent. I
mean, it's not lost to me. I'm sitting here in
Charlottesville and I could, if I could only
tell you about the conversations me and my mom
have had about when I was moving here, when we
went on that road trip together out here. The
question is, and again, thinking like historically,
you know, to what extent are guns going to protect
you from this violence? And I think that's a
personal decision that people have to make. themselves.
But I would push back against this idea that
the concern about violence based on identity
is not unfounded one. Like it's not it's not
this like you're making this up. I think part
of that argument is a historical one. And not
just a historical but maybe it's like a recent.
The part about how I would write the history
of today. Oh, man, I in some ways, I feel like
I'm gonna be embarrassed when they write the
history books of this time. I mean, yeah, I don't
know. And also to just like, thinking about that
type of question, I think is interesting. Because
again, I think about time a lot and other research
that I do. In some ways, it's like there's no
way to capture the nuances of what is going on
in our social world. I mean, forget the what's
going on social politically, right? We've just
we've been in a pandemic that like, if you didn't
live through that, I don't know how that's going
to make any sense to people who didn't experience
that firsthand. And like how this all shapes
how we're thinking about what makes us feel safe
in a more, you know, socially isolated and continually
so world and polarized world. I hope that And
so instead of focusing on what the specific history
will write, I guess I'll focus on the trends.
I hope that we can write a history where at some
point in the near future we wrestle with these
questions. But I question that. I think right
now part of what Makes i think reckoning with
reality so hard is there just so many different
mythologies that exist i mean beyond just misinformation
i think that serve to try and keep. are social
and structural in the status quo like the same.
There's a lot of psychology that speaks to, you
know, how do we, you know, justify systems or
how do kind of mythologies, whether that's meritocracy
or this, you know, rugged individualism, you
know, shape how we try to justify inequality
or the status quo. And I think a lot of those
kind of system -justifying mythologies are very
salient. now, which I think impedes us having
these deeper conversations that I would argue
are at the root of, and other, I think historians,
again, Carol Anderson and a lot of other folks
have argued are more close to the root of our
gun problem. So my hope is that we would be able
to have conversations and deeper reckonings with
that. But in the ways that we're thinking about
which history should or shouldn't be taught,
I think rollbacks of explicit efforts to at least
express commitment, even if it's, you know, a
window dressing to things like equity and inclusion.
It does kind of dampers the potential for that
reality. But yeah, I do worry about how history
will look back on this period. And I hope it's
more of a hopeful trajectory than kind of a tragic
demise that we're heading towards. Well, I think
on that note, I feel like that's I think we've
wrapped up. Actually, one more question. Book
recommendation. Can you leave us with a book
recommendation? What are you reading now? Oh,
man. There's a couple. And so again, I have to
shout out my mom on this one because this she
just sent this to me in the mail a few months
and a few months ago, but randomly last year.
And I was just like, where did you find this?
But it's Negroes with guns by Robert. Williams,
which, you know, describes kind of a leader of
a chapter of NAACP and how his perspective on
firearms changed and was used to resist white
supremacists and, you know, local and state violence
that was targeting Black Americans. I mean, it's
one of those stories that draw into question,
like, you know, is this something that can help
protect communities in a way that provides support?
or black communities from, you know, racialized
violence and ways that support that argument,
but also to still show the violence that can
still come even with the armament. And so that
was that's one. Also reading Afro pessimism,
which is part of a book club that just got started
here. Sorry not to interrupt you, but I have
been thinking about that book this entire interview.
And so that's just. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's
a yeah, that one that one's been it's not challenging
in terms of the read I think it's really well
written but just like having to sit with the
ideas because again, it's it's literally Afro
pessimism. So like not seeking for I think this
hope at the end of the tunnel, which is I had
to realize that I think that as a social psychologist
and I think broadly around the scientists like
there's this Hope that we often like a record
reach for and I think this is challenging of
like well What like what do you do when there
isn't that hope and can you recognize and reckon
with? They're not being a light at the end of
the tunnel and still you know persist and make
sense and find meaning and value and in life
and love and that and that That's been an interesting
journey, particularly as we think about guns.
And the last thing I'll say is I was at a moderated
a workshop with kind of three prominent gun violence
scholars, both that are coming from different
kind of domains, whether it's like hospital based
intervention work or kind of folks doing randomized
controlled trials and like how to stop gun violence
and like more, I think, community research and
All of them said that I think we should just
get used to guns. Like, I think we should normalize
the idea that everyone will be a gun owner at
one point. And that to me felt like the most
pessimistic view of guns. And I struggle with
that. I still struggle with that today. Is that
where we're headed? Where everyone is a gun owner.
And to know that there are some people, again,
who are more closely interacting in these spaces,
that's where their head is at. I think that's
something that it's important for us to sit with
and reckon with as well. Well, I wish this conversation
could go on and on, but it has to end. So thank
you so much, Dr. Gerald Higginbotham, joining
us on Guns Unpacked. Thank you so much for your
work. Thank you for having me.