Democrats hurting themselves with gun control stance.

Why Democrats Keep Failing on Gun Control

Democrats keep shooting themselves in the foot on gun control because they fail to connect their push for more firearm restrictions with everything else they are doing. Their approach is to wait until there is a mass shooting and then demand more gun control. But the narrow logic of their argument is undermined by what Democrats do the rest of the time.

The Problem with High-Trust Proposals

Gun control is a high-trust proposal. People keep and bear arms to defend themselves, and so persuading citizens to limit or even give up their guns requires persuading them that they do not need them for protection. But voters do not view Democrats as prioritizing a country with low crime and high social trust. Rather, Democrats are seen as the soft-on-crime party, with a left flank that is committed to insane defund-the-police policies.

• Democratic prosecutors refuse to prosecute
• Democratic politicians enact revolving-door bail policies for violent criminals
• Democratic mouthpieces insist that violent and threatening lunatics on public transit should be accepted as a normal part of life

When Democrats tolerate crime and disorder, they sabotage their demands for more gun control. If Democrats want to convince Americans of the benefits of gun control, they should start by showing they are willing and able to control crime. But they often do not even bother to enforce existing gun laws against violent criminals.

Stoking Mistrust

Democrats are also hampered by the mistrust and animosity they stoke. It is not guns that have created social alienation. Americans have always been well-armed. Rather, it is the culture that has changed, along with the nature of American violence. Americans are increasingly alienated, with a massive deficit of social trust. Trust in everything from the government to churches is down dramatically, and Americans are increasingly lonely.

The ways of life that actually build trust, hope, and solidarity are not mysterious: Get married and stay married, have kids and raise them well, go to church, and get involved in your community. A nation with strong families and communities, united by shared values and high social trust, would probably have far fewer mass shootings, regardless of its gun laws.

The Culture War

It is not guns, but the left’s hostility toward traditional values and ways of life that is driving much of the alienation in our country. If leftists want our guns, they should stop trying to take our children. The left can make the case for gun control, or it can demand that we defund the police. It cannot do both.

If leftists want more trust, hope, and solidarity, they could start by calling off the culture war, or at least admit to waging it. The left can try to empower every schoolteacher in America to transition children without parental knowledge or consent, or it can try to increase trust, hope, and solidarity. It cannot do both.

If Democrats want to succeed on gun control, they need to show they are willing and able to control crime and build trust, hope, and solidarity. Otherwise, they will continue to shoot themselves in the foot.

Nathanael Blake is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.