In the Eye of the Beholder: A “Fact Perceptions” Approach for Explaining Partisan Gaps in Gun Beliefs

We draw on a politically motivated reasoning framework to examine divergent “fact perceptions” about the effectiveness of defensive gun use among conservatives and liberals. This framework suggests that people seek to align their factual beliefs with their ideological identities, a tendency that should be stronger among people with more pronounced reasoning abilities. Using a national YouGov sample of 1,125 U.S. adults, we examined associations among political ideology, education, and beliefs about defensive gun use. Consistent with the politically motivated reasoning framework, liberal-conservative differences in beliefs about the effectiveness of guns were greater among the more educated. In exploratory supplemental analyses, we also found that liberal-conservative differences in gun ownership were greater among more educated partisans and could be explained by gun beliefs. Our results suggest that politically motivated reasoning contributes to “fact perceptions” regarding the effectiveness of defensive gun use, with potential implications for understanding liberal-conservative differences in gun ownership.