There’s been little talk of gun control this presidential election cycle, although state-level proposals continue to make it onto state ballots.
Gun control positions have come down along the usual partisan lines. It was clear from Clinton’s comments in the final presidential debate, for example, that she desires greater restrictions on access to firearms for private citizens. She expressed no such caution about weaponry carried by government employees, of course.
While the candidates have declined to make gun control a central issue in the campaign, mainstream media outlets, academics, and pundits continue to press for greater government restrictions and prohibitions on firearms access for private citizens. Meanwhile, of course, government agencies continue to purchase more powerful and more deadly weaponry.
To keep pressing the issue of gun control, it is necessary for advocates to push a narrative in which crime is especially bad, and in which the United States is somehow unique in the world in terms of crime. The actual historical data often contradicts their claims, however, so in order to push their narrative with greater gusto, advocates for gun control employ several different sleight-of-hand rhetorical tricks.
