Even mass child killings failed to move the gun control needle

Evidence

In a Pew poll also conducted shortly after the Newtown massacre (Pew Research Center, 2012), Democrats (72%) were considerably more supportive of gun regulation than were Republicans (27%). Republicans (63%) believed more strongly than Democrats (33%) that guns protect people from crime. In contrast to liberals, (12%) more Republicans (42%) believed that ownership of assault weapons makes the country safer. The marked political polarization indicated that shock and outrage at the massacre of young children would produce no gun reforms at the federal level. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1298

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the moral disengagement themes in the rest of this book about how exonerative framing blocks reform; also connects to arguments in ‘The Social Control of Impersonal Trust’ about institutional failure to respond.