“Where were you shot?”: analyzing location rhetoric as strategic maneuvering in contemporary gun-control discourse

Abstract

AbstractThis essay analyzes contemporary American gun rhetoric with particular attention to location. Funded by a pragma-dialectic perspective, I examine conservative and progressive attempts to situate the national discussion about firearms and gun control legislation in urban locations (especially Chicago) and in suburbs (especially schoolhouses), respectively. I demonstrate that these location rhetorics function as strategic maneuvering, enabling both sets of discussants to move the conversation to issue sets that favor them and make their policy preferences seem more reasonable, even as they often prevent the public from responding to the bulk of actual gun violence. To begin, I develop a perspective on public argument based on pragma-dialectic argumentation theory. Next, I attend to conservative rhetoric that publicizes gun violence in large urban population centers, especially Chicago. Then, I turn to liberal gun rhetoric that centers attention on leafy suburbs where mass shootings often occur. In the final portion of this paper, I argue that both strategies disadvantage the public and forestall meaningful improvement on this important issue.Keywords: Strategic maneuveringgun controlgun rightspragma-dialecticsmass shootings Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This is not an errant suggestion, by the way. Conservative politicians frequently refer to the federal deficit or the national debt as justification for eviscerating programs that serve the public. However, there is substantial evidence from Keynesian and post-Keynesian economists (see Galbraith Citation2010; Kelton Citation2020; Vickrey Citation1998; Wray et al. Citation2023) to suggest that the assumption that deficits or debts are bad is unfounded. When progressives entertain discussions about how they will “pay for” a proposed policy, they unnecessarily begin the discussion at a massive disadvantage.2 Conservatives argue that the Left’s failure to attend to so-called “Black-on-Black” crime is evidence of the Democratic party’s racist neglect of Black people and their concerns. And there is no shortage of examples of the Democratic party failing to live up to its promises to Black people. However, one ought to note that, because of the de facto segregation that characterizes much of the United States, most crime experienced by White folks is “White on White” crime as well. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (Citation2020) found that in 2019 (the last year for which data is available) 78.6% of all White homicide victims were killed by other White people. Moreover, 88% of all male homicide victims were murdered by other men. But such recognition does not serve racist ends and, therefore, finds little purchase in conservative politics. Nobody seems to be clamoring for increased policing in heavily White neighborhoods or in places where men tend to congregate.3 Although mass shootings have been recorded in the United States for more than a century, they did not seem to be perceived as national problems. When, in 1966, a 25-year-old Marine veteran shooting from the tower of the Main Building at the University of Texas in Austin killed 15 people and wounded 31 others, the newspapers could not recall any similar massacre since previous century (Hammack Citation2016). President Johnson did not directly address the American public, but he did issue a statement through his press secretary that read, “What happened is not without a lesson: that we must press urgently for the legislation now pending in Congress to help prevent the wrong person from obtaining firearms” (Troy Citation2018). In the 1970s, university campuses were the sites of bloody showdowns between anti-war protestors and reactionary police forces. But those events did not prompt political discourse about the regulation of firearms. And in general, Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush said little about mass shootings during their administrations, perhaps regarding them as local concerns to be handled by local-level officials (Troy Citation2018).Additional informationNotes on contributorsChristopher M. DuerringerChristopher M. Duerringer is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at California State University, Long Beach. Employing a post-Marxist approach, his research examines the rhetorical processes by which economic,cultural, and political inequality is produced and maintained.