Support from family, friends and partners can influence a person’s behaviors around firearms, with more support corresponding to a reduction in unsafe behaviors, according to Rutgers Health researchers. Their study, published in Injury Prevention, examined how connections with others shape the ways that a person interacts with firearms.
The researchers utilized data from a 2024 nationally representative survey of more than 8,000 adults, with 2,451 of the respondents reporting they had access to a firearm. The researchers measured people’s perception of social support from their loved ones with the widely used Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, a set of 12 questions widely used by researchers to measure an individual’s perception of support. Using this data, they analyzed the connections between social support and firearm behaviors, such as frequent carrying and safe storage behaviors like locked storage and storing firearms separate from ammunition. To read the full story.