Progun lawmakers invoked mourning to silence gun-policy debate after Newtown

Evidence

After the Newtown shooting, several progun lawmakers accused their critics of exploitation. The aide to Congressman Jim Jordan proclaimed that it was “time to mourn, not to debate policy” (Shear, 2012). Iowa Congressman Steve King joined in the denunciation, “political opportunists didn’t wait 24 hours before they decided they were going to go after some kind of a gun ban” (Shear, 2012). His aide, Brittany Lesser, echoed the talk taboo “amidst the funerals of these brave young children and adults” (Shear, 2012). King also trivialized the effect of real guns by comparing them to childhood cap guns: “We all had our cap pistols when I was growing up, and that didn’t seem to cause mass murders in the street.” — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1244

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to tactical topic-avoidance in moral disengagement literature and to how power deflects hard questions by invoking grief.
• SEED: Angle: the ‘time to mourn, not to debate’ move as a recurring rhetorical shield across policy crises — Newtown, school shootings generally, and disasters where regulators are blamed for politicizing.