Date of Award

5-1-2019

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Sociology

Content Description

1 online resource (v, 190 pages)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Steven Messner

Committee Members

Tse-Chuan Yang, James Acker

Keywords

Firearms, Race, Self-Defense, Threat, Self-defense (Law), Crime prevention, Threat (Psychology), Discrimination in criminal justice administration

Subject Categories

Sociology

Abstract

This study explores the expansion of state-level self-defense laws between 2005 and 2010 using a threat theory framework. Unlike prior historical changes in self-defense law, which were largely made through judicial avenues and were localized at the state-level, the recent expansions of self-defense have been driven by state legislatures to produce notable patterns of change, including protections of criminal immunity and codifications of presumption of reasonable fear. Threat theory would predict that the strengthening of informal social controls to use violence in self-defense is a response by the dominant group to perceived threats to power from a subordinate group. In the US context, the subordinate groups are minorities, most especially blacks and Hispanics. In keeping with prior work, the relative size of the black and Hispanic populations within a state are operationalized as measures of threat.

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