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“Tougher Gun Laws Won’t Make a Difference” Is a Convenient Lie
Why conservatives love to argue that progressive social change will be futile
In the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Republican politicians and pundits wheeled out a now-familiar array of talking points in an attempt to explain why they were in favor of doing nothing to toughen America’s gun laws. And among the most frequently repeated of those talking points was the idea that tougher gun laws would do nothing to make events like the Uvalde shooting less likely.
“You cannot legislate away evil,” tweeted Rep. Lauren Boebert, echoing Republican congressman Bill Johnson, who in 2019 (after the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings) had said, “You can’t legislate evil out of the world.” Gun control, Tucker Carlson said, cannot stop “a person who is intent on committing violence.” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton chimed in, “We can’t stop bad people from doing bad things.” And Senator Marco Rubio said, in a world-weary tone, “The truth of the matter is that these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes, whether they have to use another weapon to do it.”
It’s odd, of course, for members of the law-and-order party to be so dismissive of the power of the law, and it’s interesting that you don’t see…
