Gun-technology lethality has outpaced public moral deliberation

Evidence

This call to arms also illustrates the moral engagement subfunction in the mechanism of social and moral justification. Fighting gun regulation becomes a source of patriotic honor, moral courage, and self-pride. Each year the National Council of Teachers of English presents its Doublespeak Award to public figures or organizations employing deceptive, euphemistic, or self-contradictory ways. In 1999, the award went to the National Rifle Association, with special recognition of Charlton Heston for his “artful twisting of language to blur issues,” and the “invocation of patriotism, reverence, love of freedom, and the opposing use of dread words to color the opposition” (National Council of Teachers of English, 1999). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1175 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Another strategy, designed to stifle any talk of gun reforms, condemns any talk about the role of guns in the massacre as political opportunism that exploits people’s grief in a time of mourning. Wayne LaPierre set the tone: “While some have tried to exploit tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectfully silent” (Goldstein, 2012). In an even more outlandish charge of opportunism against President Clinton after the Columbine shooting, LaPierre contended that Clinton was “willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political agenda and his vice president, too” (Pear, 2000). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1243 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mass shootings activate a system-level moral disengagement collision over gun rights — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1241; Moral rhetoric can reframe gun regulation opposition as patriotic duty and honor — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1175; Defending lax gun laws requires numbing moral qualms about gun violence — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1262 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Moral rhetoric can reframe gun regulation opposition as patriotic duty and honor #complicates (0.74) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1175
• Reframing gun-safety talk as grief exploitation suppresses reform debate #complicates (0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1243