Gun policy conflict reflects irreconcilable rural and urban functions of firearms

Evidence

Disputes about the effects of guns depends, in large part, on the different functions they serve in rural and urban settings. In rural life, guns mainly are used for hunting and recreation. In urban life, guns are mainly instruments of interpersonal violence and criminal activity. Rural residents fear that gun regulation will lose them their way of life. Urban residents fear that inadequate gun regulation can lose them their lives. In progun states and rural regions within states, politicians are gun shy about even sensible safety regulations. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1121

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The rural-way-of-life versus urban-lives frame echoes how the ‘Grafting & Growth’ article treats infrastructure conflicts as value collisions between ways of life.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1121
• XREF: connects to: Urbanization transformed guns from food tools into crime instruments, splitting the nation regionally; Small rural states hold outsized legislative power over urban gun policy