John Anthony "Jack" Kappelman

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at UCLA, where I study American Politics and Methodology. My research examines how citizens respond to political signals—particularly elections that signal sharp policy swings—and how political and institutional contexts shape behavior, markets, and policy implementation. In much of my work, I focus on the politics of firearm ownership and gun violence, investigating how partisan control over state and local governments influences enforcement patterns, firearm purchasing behavior, and the effects of mass shootings on legislative action. A key component of my research explores the spatial dynamics of firearm violence, using high-resolution geographic data to understand the relationship between place, politics, and patterns of gun availability and harm. Methodologically, I develop scalable workflows for analyzing large, spatially explicit social science data, integrating geospatial processing with quasi-experimental designs to measure the local and spatially diffuse effects of political and policy changes. Across these projects, my work advances understanding of how politics, place, and policy interact to shape both individual behavior and policy-relevant outcomes.