Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Analysis: Worried about angry people coming to polling places on Election Day carrying handguns

Presidential Debate at UNLV

Steve Marcus

Republican nominee Donald Trump speaks during the final presidential debate at UNLV Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016.

Like many Americans, I am getting nervous about the possibility of violence on Election Day. As the latest Presidential contest polls suggest vanishing chances of a victory for Donald J. Trump, the candidate alleges a vast Clinton-media smear conspiracy and calls the election "rigged."

Trump surrogates daily reinforce the message: Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin said bloodshed may be needed to reclaim the country if Clinton wins. Milwaukee sheriff David A. Clarke tweeted that it is "pitchforks and torches time." Some ardent Trump supporters are openly talking about revolution and assassination. They appear to be angry and getting angrier.

I am worried about seriously angry people coming to polling places on Nov. 8 carrying handguns.

As an academic who studies gun violence from a public health perspective, I rely on scientific data to characterize risk. Last year, my colleagues and I published a research study which found that 1.5 percent of adult Americans had impulsive angry behavior traits and carried guns with them in public.

Anger is a normal human emotion, but these are people who display extreme anger that is destructive and uncontrolled; when they get angry, they tend to break and smash things and get into physical fights. Many of them have diagnosable psychiatric problems, such as personality disorders or alcohol abuse.

A gun in the hands of a person with an emotional short fuse can be a dangerous thing. Last year, in my hometown of Chapel Hill, N.C., an angry man with a cache of firearms shot three Muslim neighbors in the head over a parking dispute.

Based on our study's data, I estimate that on Election Day more than 1 million impulsively angry people who ordinarily carry guns may be going out to vote for president. Some will vote in states like Alabama, where two years ago Attorney General Luther Strange explicitly clarified that guns are not banned from polling places.

On the one hand, some of these impulsively angry, gun-carrying voters will be resentful Trump supporters. On the other hand, some may be people like those who firebombed the GOP headquarters in Hillsborough, N. C., this past weekend. Is it too much to imagine that one or more of them, somewhere — maybe in a community center polling station in a battleground state — would get into a heated argument with another voter, and that a violent tragedy could ensue?

States could categorically restrict guns from polling places, but only 10 of them currently do. Some believe that it is sufficient to restrict gun carrying in government buildings and schools, which often serve as voting locations. Still, there will be some polling venues in precincts throughout the country where people can — and will — exercise their Second Amendment right by voting with a .38-caliber handgun holstered to their hip in plain view, or with a 9 millimeter revolver resting in their pocket.

Why do people need to carry guns to vote? Many of these gun-carrying voters will be responsible and respectful citizens who honestly believe they need a handgun at all times for their personal protection. Some could just want to make an identity statement; for them, carrying a gun is like wearing a T-shirt or having a tattoo _ and why not show "who you are" on Election Day, of all days?

My new son-in-law, Muhammad, is a first-time visitor in our country. As a Muslim, and thus a person whom Mr. Trump has proposed to ban from traveling to the U.S., Muhammad has been fascinated and troubled by what he calls the "Trump reality show" in this unprecedented election season.

Last Sunday, while leaving a crowded restaurant in a small town in western North Carolina, our family encountered a portly white man in a T-shirt with a pistol strapped to his waist. After almost colliding with each other, the man and Muhammad each politely gave way to the other: "You first," said Muhammad. "It don't matter," said the man. But what if the man had felt threatened? People sometimes react to false perceptions of risk.

I am not very troubled by a gun as a cultural symbol. I am concerned about a gun as a highly efficient killing device in the wrong hands. A small percentage of gun-carrying voters this Nov. 8 — about 3 out of every 200, in polling places that allow guns — will be dangerously angry people who cannot control their tempers. Some of them will have been marinating in Trump's message of fear and loathing of outsiders. They will have heard him say that the "Second Amendment people" may need to do something if Clinton wins. In a crowded queue they will rub shoulders — and maybe elbows — with neighbors waiting in the same lines who vehemently reject everything Trump says and stands for.

Guns need not be a part of a moment like that.

Jeffrey Swanson is professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. He holds a Ph.D in sociology from Yale University. His current research is focused at the intersection of gun violence, mental illness and the law.

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