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Freedom States Alliance communications director, Scott Vogel, interviewed Dennis Henigan, author of a vitally important and new book, “Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy.”
Mr. Henigan is the vice president for law and policy at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and founder of its Legal Action Project. For twenty years, he has been a leading advocate for stronger gun laws.
FREEDOM STATES ALLIANCE INTERVIEW
FSA: The gun lobby has been able to advance its irresponsible agenda, not just through money and political power – two very important factors – but through their overly simplistic sound bites. Would you say that the gun lobby’s messaging strategy is their best weapon?
Dennis Henigan: Yes, it’s a critical factor. The vast majority of the American people support stronger gun laws and yet our political system seems at a stalemate on the issue. I have struggled with this anomaly for the twenty years that I’ve been involved with the gun violence prevention issue.
There is an intensity gap in terms of advocacy on both sides of this issue. The gun lobby has a cadre of people who are intensely devoted to their cause and will be very politically active in influencing legislators, especially during elections. Yet the vast majority of the people who favor stronger gun laws don’t seem to do so with the same kind of intensity. One of the fundamental problems is that the gun lobby has been able to dominate the discourse with these very simple messages that resonate on some level with people who need to be persuaded on the issue.
For example, the phrase “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.†That line, like all these bumper-sticker slogans, is a cleverly disguised fallacy. But it resonates with a lot of people who think that the real problem of violence is not a gun problem but a problem of violent people. We see this effect when there is a mass shooting such as the Columbine tragedy. During that high-profile tragedy a great deal of public attention immediately focused on the shooters, the problem of disaffected youth, bad parenting, the influence of violent video games, bullying in school, etc.
But the discussion missed the more obvious point that the tragedy at Columbine happened in the way it did because those two disaffected teenagers had access to guns. The problem was not as much two deeply alienated teenagers. The problem was their access to the instruments of killing.
That whole national dialogue that occurred after Columbine was an illustration of this way of thinking about gun violence that is captured in the phrase “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.â€
FSA: A big part of the gun lobby’s success, if you call it that, is cynically embedding fear in its messages. They promote fear on multiple levels – fear of the government, President Obama, the United Nations, and obviously gun control itself. But they also use fear on a very localized level – the fear of the common criminal and not being able to protect yourself. I keep thinking that the “fear card†has been overplayed but it clearly works with the radical elements of the gun lobby. Clearly selling fear works to their advantage.
Henigan: I think advocates of stronger gun laws need to constantly talk about the seriousness of the gun violence problem at every level. Many Americans intellectually support stronger gun laws. They will tell a pollster that they support such reforms as universal background checks on gun sales for example. But they are not yet convinced that gun violence is a specific threat to them and their family or that, even if it is a threat, there are some doubts that stronger gun laws will make a real difference in their lives. Nonetheless, there is no question that stronger gun laws would make our communities safer and more secure.
There is no question that we are all constantly at grave risk from gun violence of various forms, whether we live in the inner city, whether we live in the suburbs or rural areas. There’s no question that the risk is there. But we have to go further and be able to convince the American people that sensible gun laws will in fact make a difference.
And that brings to bear one of the gun lobby’s other prominent bumper stickers, which is “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.†That bumper sticker is used to express skepticism about whether gun control laws really have an effect on access to guns by dangerous people. Although it is easily demonstrable that gun laws have saved lives and stronger laws will save even more lives, there still exists a troubling degree of skepticism on the part of the public about whether that’s true. And it’s essential that we overcome that.
FSA: What’s the origin of some of the gun lobby’s bumper-sticker messages? Surely they were tested in focus groups.
Henigan: There are some messages that are of very recent origin, and I do track the history of, for example, the message that we “don’t need new gun laws, we just need to enforce the laws we have now.†That message was very clearly created out of whole cloth by the NRA for a specific purpose, and that was to discredit the Clinton administration’s efforts to advance a gun control agenda. I go in great detail in the book on how the gun lobby used that phrase against the Clinton administration. Of course it’s utter hypocrisy for the gun lobby to argue for stronger enforcement of laws that they have long opposed, and then doing everything they can to change the laws so to weaken enforcement.
That message was probably the subject of extensive focus group testing, and it was trotted out for a specific purpose to deflate any effort to pass stronger federal gun laws. It is all the more troubling when we see recent statements by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama. When asked about proposals to ban assault weapons, they have both invoked the notion that we ought to concentrate on enforcing the laws we have.
So it’s very troubling to hear these national leaders who have been prominent advocates of stronger gun laws for their entire careers actually channeling the NRA’s rhetoric in this way.
To be clear, my book is not a communications treatise, and I’m not analyzing the gun violence prevention movement’s messaging strategy. But it’s undeniable that the gun lobby’s success can in large part be traced to its effective use of these simple bumper-sticker slogans.
I know that many gun violence prevention advocates are frustrated by our inability to come with counter-bumper stickers. But it’s not clear to me that that’s the solution. I do think it is absolutely critical that these cleverly disguised fallacies that the gun lobby has been getting away with be exposed and be completely routed. That is my intention in the book, to give gun control advocates and policymakers many of the tools needed to deconstruct and destroy these very harmful messages.
FSA: In addition to their use of rhetoric, don’t you think that there is an inherent advantage to the gun lobby and industry – just like all special interests – that can say, essentially, “no†to everything. Systemic policy changes threaten the status quo. Being any kind of an advocate, especially those challenging one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington such as the NRA, have a harder time making the case for change versus those that always deflect and deflate the problem. Advocates have a steeper hill to climb.
Henigan: I agree there is on the gun issue, as well as on other issues, a very unfair and unjustifiable presumption in favor of the status quo and placing enormous burdens on anyone who wants to change the status quo. Often we lose sight of the fact that the status quo is itself a policy choice.
On the gun violence issue, it’s very easy to conclude that the status quo is not working. The way we’re doing things in this country on gun violence is not working. And particularly when we compare the approach taken by other Western industrialized nations that have demonstrated that in fact the regulation of guns can be successful in curbing death and injury from gunfire.
So I agree with you that there is this kind of unfair implicit presumption in favor of the way we’ve always done things, which makes no sense at all when you consider that our laws and policies are costing us 30,000 American lives every year, and about three times as many Americans seriously injured. It’s hard to believe we can’t do better than that.
FSA: You talk at length about perception is power, especially with respect to the politics on the gun issue. How do you break that perception that the NRA is all-powerful?
Henigan: I think the real challenge is to try to address this intensity gap because the political problem is that too many politicians literally think they have nothing to fear politically from siding with the gun lobby. Their perception is that when it comes to public opinion on this issue, all of the intensity is on the pro-gun side and very little on the pro-gun control side. I believe that fundamentally that intensity gap has its roots in these bumper-sticker slogans and the degree to which they have penetrated the consciousness of the American people.
Now I do believe that this conventional wisdom – that politicians have more to fear from the gun lobby – actually is in defiance of the facts – of the political facts. But it is a perception and it is a fear. That fear is paralyzing to our nation’s efforts to move in the direction of sanity in our gun policy.
FSA: You’ve been working on the gun violence prevention issue for over twenty years. You were there when gun control was at its peak during the passage of the Brady Bill, for example, and perhaps the lowest point when Congress gave the gun industry legal immunity. Give me some perspective and where you see the country moving. As more and more younger people turn away and reject the NRA and their radical ideology, the saturation of the gun industry’s market, decrease numbers of households owning guns and the diminishing impact of “social issues†in our politics, what do you think the future holds for gun control?
Henigan: First of all when I look back on the last twenty years, it’s certainly been a labor of love for me personally. I really cannot imagine a more satisfying career than to work to prevent gun violence. And I’m deeply grateful to the Brady organization for giving me that opportunity.
It is also helpful to have been around long enough to remember that the NRA’s perceived power can be overcome. I have seen the NRA in full retreat. Obviously it’s not in full retreat right now. But it does give you a sense of historical perspective and a reason to be optimistic that we are in fact on the right side of history here.
I don’t believe it is possible for American gun policy to be dictated by crass irrationality forever. I think ultimately the arguments that are presented in the book, and the arguments that are made by eloquent advocates for gun control every day – ultimately those arguments will prevail over the fear and intimidation tactics of the special interest gun lobby.
FSA: Denny, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.
Henigan: It was a pleasure.
