Gunfight at the Consequentialist Corral: The Deadlock in the United States over Firearms Control, and How to Break it

Abstract

For most Americans, the ‘Great American Gun Debate’¹ is not particularly great.² The question of how strictly to regulate firearms has convulsed the national polity for the better part of four decades without producing results satisfactory to either side. Drowning in a sea of mind-numbing statistics, ordinary citizens stand little chance of even understanding their opponents’ arguments, much less being persuaded by them. Battered by pro-control forces in one election, and by anti-control ones in the next, moderate politicians say as little as they can get away with. The organizers of relatively extreme interest groups, in contrast, say — indeed, scream — as much as they possibly can, symbiotically nurturing a divided public’s anxiety that one side or the other is poised to score a decisive victory.