Attitudes toward guns and mental illness stigma among college students in the United States

In the United States, citizens opposed to stricter gun control laws as a response to mass shootings frequently reframe the problem of gun violence as a mental health issue. As a result, it has been suggested that pro-gun attitudes (i.e., pro-gun rights attitudes and favorable attitudes toward the National Rifle Association) might be associated with stigmatizing attitudes toward people with mental illness. In three studies (total N = 756), we assessed gun attitudes as predictors of mental illness stigma among college students in the United States (data collected in 2018 and 2019). While zero-order correlations revealed that pro-gun attitudes predict more negative attitudes toward people with mental illness, they were not unique predictors after adjusting for political affiliation. These findings replicate previous research on the relationship between conservatism and mental illness stigma and provide a starting point for future research assessing relationships between gun attitudes, political affiliation, and mental illness stigma. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).