{"id":217609,"date":"2025-07-11T05:14:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T10:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/mathematicians-reveal-factors-driving-gun-sales-in-america"},"modified":"2025-07-11T05:14:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T10:14:22","slug":"mathematicians-reveal-factors-driving-gun-sales-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/mathematicians-reveal-factors-driving-gun-sales-in-america","title":{"rendered":"Mathematicians reveal factors driving gun sales in America"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/mathematicians-reveal-factors-driving-gun-sales-in-america.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As gun sales in the United States continue to soar, researchers at Georgia State University have uncovered insights into what drives Americans to buy firearms. A new study <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/pnasnexus\/article\/doi\/10.1093\/pnasnexus\/pgaf195\/8160866\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>PNAS Nexus<\/i> journal reveals the complex interaction among media coverage, social media activity and firearm purchases.<\/p>\n<p>Led by Igor Belykh, a Distinguished University Professor of Applied Mathematics at Georgia State, the research team\u2014including Kevin Slote, a Ph.D. student in Georgia State\u2019s mathematics and statistics <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/doctoral+program\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">doctoral program<\/a>; Kevin Daley, a recent graduate; and co-authors from New York University (NYU) and the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)\u2014analyzed daily data from 2012 to 2020. Their study explores how gun-rights organizations and regulation advocates influence short-term firearm purchases through social media activity and <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/media+coverage\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">media coverage<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The study found that social media activity by both sides directly affects gun buying behavior, often triggering purchases within days of posts. Media coverage of violent crime also plays a role, as it spurs discussions among these organizations, further influencing <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/public+sentiment\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">public sentiment<\/a> toward gun ownership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As gun sales in the United States continue to soar, researchers at Georgia State University have uncovered insights into what drives Americans to buy firearms. A new study published in PNAS Nexus journal reveals the complex interaction among media coverage, social media activity and firearm purchases. Led by Igor Belykh, a Distinguished University Professor of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}