Introduction
Prevalence and Seriousness of Gun Violence and Gun Carrying in the United States
Potential Explanations for Gun Carrying During Adolescence and Young Adulthood
Deficits in psychosocial maturity
Antisocial behavioral style
Social influence or contagion effect
Victimization
Demographic factors related to gun carrying
Limitations In Prior Work
The Current Study
Methods
Participants
Procedures
Measures
Gun carrying
Psychosocial maturity
Behavioral
Social influence
Victimization
Time-Stable Demographic Factors
Plan of Analysis
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Gun Carryingit represents the probability of carrying a gun at time t for individual i.
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β1- β12 represents the association between the risk factor and gun carrying
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In the primary models, all coefficients (β1- β12) were constrained to be equal across time. Additional models examined whether relaxing this constraint improved model fit.
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γi represents the combined effect of the time-invariant demographic factors (these are essentially random effects)
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αi represents a fixed constant indexing the underlying probability of gun carrying across the time series for each individual i
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µt represents a fixed constant for each time-point (which accounts for changes in gun carrying over time)
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εit represent a residual variance for individual i at time t
Missing Data
Results
Descriptive Statistics for Gun-Related Study Variables
Study Variable | Time 1 M (SD)/% | Time 2 M (SD)/% | Time 3 M (SD)/% | Time 4 M (SD)/% | Time 5 M (SD)/% | Time 6 M (SD)/% | Time 7 M (SD)/% | Time 8 M (SD)/% | Time 9 M (SD)/% |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gun carrying | 4.40% | 5.40% | 5.30% | 3.80% | 5.10% | 4.30% | 5.50% | 6.70% | 7.90% |
Psychosocial maturity predictors | |||||||||
Impulse control | 3.25 (0.86) | 3.35 (0.86) | 3.31 (0.89) | 3.34 (0.89) | 3.39 (0.87) | 3.38 (0.86) | 3.38 (0.87) | 3.37 (0.87) | 3.44 (0.86) |
Future orientation | 2.54 (0.52) | 2.60 (0.53) | 2.67 (0.53) | 2.72 (0.53) | 2.79 (0.56) | 2.83 (0.55) | 2.87 (0.54) | 2.92 (0.55) | 2.98 (0.54) |
Behavioral predictors | |||||||||
Non-gun theft and property offending | 37.99% | 27.03% | 21.28% | 18.22% | 15.74% | 15.09% | 13.41% | 12.84% | 13.31% |
Non-gun aggressive and violent offending | 43.59% | 40.93% | 32.19% | 28.30% | 22.14% | 19.96% | 16.14% | 19.46% | 20.02% |
Drug dealing | 14.72% | 12.7% | 13.58% | 10.89% | 12.05% | 11.59% | 10.98% | 11.69% | 14.52% |
Social influence predictors | |||||||||
Peer gun carrying | 1.26 (0.69) | 1.32 (0.81) | 1.30 (0.76) | 1.31 (0.77) | 1.31 (0.77) | 1.31 (0.77) | 1.32 (0.80) | 1.36 (0.84) | 1.42 (0.85) |
Peer general (non-gun) offending | 1.71 (0.67) | 1.59 (0.66) | 1.55 (0.69) | 1.48 (0.63) | 1.42 (0.60) | 1.39 (0.59) | 1.36 (0.57) | 1.37 (0.57) | 1.36 (0.55) |
Parent gun carrying | 4.13% | 3.74% | 2.86% | 2.87% | 3.25% | 2.10% | 3.40% | 2.98% | 3.36% |
Parent general (non-gun) offending | 17.71% | 10.86% | 10.28% | 7.80% | 8.04% | 6.20% | 5.57% | 7.65% | 6.62% |
Victimization predictors | |||||||||
Exposure to gun violence | 11.68% | 12.89% | 10.78% | 9.83% | 8.15% | 7.40% | 8.34% | 10.92% | 10.23% |
Exposure to general (non-gun) violence | 41.94% | 41.75% | 33.48% | 27.83% | 24.89% | 20.79% | 21.85% | 20.23% | 19.59% |
Study variable | M (SD) | % |
---|---|---|
Race & Ethnicity | ||
White | 14.8% | |
Black | 36.9% | |
Hispanic | 45.8% | |
Other | 2.5% | |
Parent highest education (continuous) | 5.33 (2.14) | |
Parent highest education | ||
Some grade school | 3.5% | |
Finished grade school | 3.9% | |
Some high school | 19.6% | |
GED | 2.2% | |
High school diploma | 32.5% | |
Business or trade school | 2.7% | |
Some college or graduate of 2 year college | 17.5% | |
College Graduate of four year college | 13.4% | |
Some graduate or professional school beyond college | 1.5% | |
Professional or graduate degree | 3.3% | |
IQ proxy | 88.43 (11.59) | |
Age (continuous) | 15.80 (1.28) | |
Age | ||
13 Years Old | 11.2% | |
14 Years Old | 17.3% | |
15 Years Old | 24.7% | |
16 Years Old | 25.5% | |
17 Years Old | 21.3% |
Predictors of Gun Carrying
Predictor | Model 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 | Model 4 | Model 5 | ||||||||||
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B | SE | p | B | SE | p | B | SE | p | B | SE | p | B | SE | p | |
Psychosocial Maturity | |||||||||||||||
Impulse control | −0.38 | 0.10 | <0.001 | −0.06 | 0.17 | 0.738 | |||||||||
Future orientation | −0.24 | 0.15 | 0.107 | −0.23 | 0.22 | 0.295 | |||||||||
Behavioral | |||||||||||||||
Prior gun carrying | 1.04 | 0.20 | <0.001 | 1.37 | 0.63 | 0.031 | |||||||||
Non-gun theft & property offending | 1.24 | 0.17 | <0.001 | 0.73 | 0.18 | <0.001 | |||||||||
Non-gun aggressive & violent offending | 1.02 | 0.16 | <0.001 | 0.77 | 0.27 | 0.004 | |||||||||
Drug dealing | 0.53 | 0.18 | 0.003 | 0.41 | 0.22 | 0.055 | |||||||||
Social influence | |||||||||||||||
Peer gun carrying | 0.78 | 0.09 | <0.001 | 0.76 | 0.09 | <0.001 | |||||||||
Peer general (non-gun) offending | 0.45 | 0.14 | 0.001 | −0.02 | 0.15 | 0.909 | |||||||||
Parent gun carrying | 0.56 | 0.30 | 0.063 | 0.60 | 0.32 | 0.060 | |||||||||
Parent general (non-gun) offending | 0.48 | 0.20 | 0.017 | 0.26 | 0.23 | 0.253 | |||||||||
Victimization | |||||||||||||||
Exposure to gun violence | 1.84 | 0.18 | <0.001 | 1.45 | 0.19 | <0.001 | |||||||||
Exposure to general (non-gun) violence | 0.80 | 0.17 | <0.001 | 0.27 | 0.18 | 0.139 | |||||||||
Time-stable demographic factors | |||||||||||||||
Race & Ethnicity | |||||||||||||||
Black | 0.26 | 0.35 | 0.461 | ||||||||||||
Hispanic | 0.16 | 0.31 | 0.608 | ||||||||||||
Other | −0.14 | 0.51 | 0.790 | ||||||||||||
Parent highest education | 0.06 | 0.04 | 0.107 | ||||||||||||
IQ proxy | 0.00 | 0.01 | 0.849 | ||||||||||||
Age | 0.09 | 0.08 | 0.260 |
Predictors of Gun Carrying by Time/Age
Supplemental Analyses
Predictor | Model 1: Predicting non-gun theft and property offending | Model 2: Predicting non-gun aggression and violence | Model 3: Predicting drug dealing | ||||||
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B | SE | p | B | SE | p | B | SE | p | |
Psychosocial maturity | |||||||||
Impulse control | −0.31 | 0.07 | <0.001 | −0.12 | 0.06 | 0.050 | 0.04 | 0.05 | 0.394 |
Future orientation | −0.44 | 0.11 | <0.001 | −0.24 | 0.09 | 0.010 | −0.03 | 0.08 | 0.742 |
Behavioral | |||||||||
Prior dependent variable | 0.56 | 0.08 | <0.001 | 0.32 | 0.08 | <0.001 | 0.39 | 0.10 | <0.001 |
Theft and property offending | 0.71 | 0.10 | <0.001 | 0.22 | 0.12 | 0.061 | |||
Non-gun related aggression and violence | 0.73 | 0.11 | <0.001 | −0.01 | 0.11 | 0.903 | |||
Gun carrying | 0.83 | 0.18 | <0.001 | 0.58 | 0.17 | 0.001 | 0.32 | 0.19 | 0.094 |
Drug dealing | 0.16 | 0.12 | 0.185 | 0.09 | 0.11 | 0.388 | |||
Social influence | |||||||||
Peer gun carrying | −0.11 | 0.07 | 0.089 | −0.17 | 0.06 | 0.005 | −0.07 | 0.07 | 0.300 |
Peer general (non-gun) offending | 1.13 | 0.10 | <0.001 | 1.10 | 0.09 | <0.001 | 0.17 | 0.09 | 0.051 |
Parent gun carrying | 0.19 | 0.25 | 0.450 | −0.13 | 0.23 | 0.579 | −0.04 | 0.26 | 0.865 |
Parent general (non-gun) offending | 0.50 | 0.14 | <0.001 | 0.41 | 0.12 | 0.001 | 0.12 | 0.14 | 0.396 |
Victimization | |||||||||
Exposure to gun violence | 0.61 | 0.14 | <0.001 | 0.19 | 0.13 | 0.135 | −0.11 | 0.15 | 0.467 |
Exposure to general (non-gun) violence | 0.40 | 0.10 | <0.001 | 0.76 | 0.09 | <0.001 | 0.09 | 0.10 | 0.345 |
Time-stable demographic factors | |||||||||
Race & Ethnicity | |||||||||
Black | 0.00 | 0.17 | 0.999 | 0.05 | 0.14 | 0.709 | −0.20 | 0.12 | 0.081 |
Hispanic | 0.18 | 0.16 | 0.259 | 0.05 | 0.14 | 0.708 | 0.10 | 0.11 | 0.389 |
Other | −0.34 | 0.35 | 0.327 | 0.23 | 0.28 | 0.415 | −0.33 | 0.26 | 0.208 |
Parent highest education | 0.01 | 0.03 | 0.857 | 0.01 | 0.02 | 0.697 | 0.00 | 0.02 | 0.982 |
IQ proxy | 0.00 | 0.01 | 0.799 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.694 | 0.01 | 0.00 | 0.053 |
Age | 0.06 | 0.04 | 0.166 | −0.25 | 0.04 | 0.000 | −0.01 | 0.03 | 0.775 |