Isn’t That Interesting?

“Social Pressure Index”

Ever hear of something called the “Social Pressure Index?” Neither had I until about a month ago when National Review’s John Fund mentioned it during a presentation at the Gun Rights Policy Conference.

I contacted Fund — an amiable guy and a very good journalist — who sent me the link to a study by a Massachusetts-based think tank called Populace, and it was fascinating. Populace conducted this research, which was designed to estimate “the gap between Americans’ privately held beliefs and their publicly stated opinions.”

Guess what Populace discovered? Younger Americans — referred to generically as “Gen Z” — acknowledged stronger support for gun ownership than the previous generation, identified as Millennials, 40% to 37%.

While that got my attention, so did this: Most people support private gun ownership, although 26% publicly support outlawing guns. In private, however, the study found only 22% hold that view.

The 145-page study noted how the disparities between what people say publicly and what they believe privately “suggest the presence of competing social pressure, depending on one’s age: while many from Gen Z feel compelled to suppress their private disagreement and publicly agree with banning gun ownership, many Millennials feel compelled to do the opposite and hide their true support for making guns illegal.”

The Populace research also revealed White and Hispanic Americans “are least supportive of outlawing gun ownership in public (24% and 31%, respectively), and their private support is even lower (16% and 20%, respectively).”

“Likewise,” the report added, “a minority of Black and Asian Americans agree that gun ownership should be illegal, with roughly one in three supporting this view both publicly and privately (ranging from 32% to 41% agreement).”