Gun-law opponents use futility and mental-illness frames to dodge regulation.

Evidence

Robert Levy, the chairman of the Cato Institute, used causal displacement to mental illness and the futility justification to argue against gun regulation. He argued that with millions of guns in circulation, any restrictions on new guns would have little effect. Instead, “early detection and treatment of mental illness” can reduce the risk of mass killings (Baker & Landler, 2012). Governor Hickenlooper of Colorado noted, “The common element of so many of these mass homicides seems to be a level of mental illness” (Nagourney, 2012). What is conspicuously missing in this truncated causal analysis is the fact that semiautomatic firearms are always present in the recent spate of mass shootings. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1287

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• SEED: An essay angle: the ‘futility justification’ as a recurring rhetorical strategy — it appears in gun control, climate policy, and tax reform alike: any new restriction is too small to matter against the existing stock.

Related

• Gun-regulation opponents displace causal responsibility onto mental illness while omitting weapons’ constant presence (similarity 0.93)
• Claiming regulation is futile absolves the gun industry from moral responsibility (similarity 0.86)
• Judging gun laws while exempting the deadliest weapons is a token test. (similarity 0.84)
• Gun-violence apologists shift blame to mental illness to avoid condemning firearms (similarity 0.83)
• Futility arguments misapply evidence about undeterred individuals (similarity 0.83)
• Gun regulation loopholes can convert safety measures into more lethal devices. (similarity 0.82)
• The NRA opposes all gun regulation by framing restrictions as a slippery slope (similarity 0.80)
• Defending lax gun laws requires numbing moral qualms about gun violence (similarity 0.79)
• Legal evasion arguments are applied selectively to gun laws (similarity 0.79)
• Industry circumvention of gun laws is later cited as proof the laws failed. (similarity 0.78)