Gun-regulation opponents displace causal responsibility onto mental illness while omitting weapons’ constant presence

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

• XREF: Connects to vault claims about how social-conservative rationalization of harmful policy works, and to Cooper’s social-conservatism argument about causal displacement strategies. — connects to: Attributing blame to mental illness rather than guns is a moral disengagement strategy; The NRA opposed gun registration while proposing a mental illness registry; NRA’s futility argument ignores that the deadliest guns were exempted from regulation (+1 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1287