ABSTRACT
The culture is transmitted across generations, with gun owners being socialized by their parents into gun ownership and use from childhood. The best work on criminal acquisition of guns was done by James Wright and Peter Rossi, who surveyed over 1800 imprisoned felons in ten states about their guns. Some scholars have expressed doubt that fear of crime and prior criminal victimizations motivate gun ownership. Guns are manufactured or imported into the United States, sold by manufacturers and importers to wholesale dealers, who then sell them to licensed retail dealers. Some researchers have claimed that gun ownership, especially protective ownership, is caused by pathological or abnormal factors. Gun laws could either discourage gun ownership, as many of them are intended to do, or in some cases inadvertently encourage gun acquisition. The uses to which people put guns are to some extent implied by owners' stated reasons for having guns.
