A lot of people have asked me about guns. I mostly don't talk politics online, and mostly won't now. But I do like talking about systems, and there's something unfolding here that almost everybody is missing. Thread: (and at the end, there's a link to a potential solution.)
The conversation — from news orgs to Congress to living rooms — seems like a debate. Each side has their arguments and stats. They lob them back and forth, trying to change minds. But on net, the stats and logic almost never actually get results. ~Nobody ever changes their mind.
You can't persuade someone against their will. The underlying concept of "You have deeply held opinion x, I have deeply held opinion y. I will now show that you're wrong." simply doesn’t work in real life. What evidence does exist on it, suggests that it backfires.
Both sides go through the motions of an Oxford debate, but measured by their actions, they know persuasion doesn't work. It’s not a debate. It’s a culture war. And those… well, those you win by force. Example: the states bifurcated *hard* on gun laws over the past 30 years.
The gun-rights-frame states have gotten way less restrictive since the 80s (from 9 states w/ shall-issue CCW to 42 today). The gun-control-frame states, way more restrictive (in 6 of the 7 states with AWBs, they’ve clicked tighter every ~10 yrs). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed…
That's because when persuasion doesn't work, the dominant strategy is to use a greedy algorithm: anywhere you can win, take it immediately. Doesn't matter if it makes sense or even if you really care that much about it. If it upsets the other side, you do it.
That's culture war incentives: there is no middle. Fencesitters have to pick a side, for self-defense. States picked their direction, floored the gas, and now are bouncing off the rev limiter. That would be a stable equilibrium, but there's 1 last step to win a culture war:
To win permanently, you have to eliminate the other side's *ideas*. That's why gun control groups lobbied YouTube to ban videos showing >30-round mags. Or why gun rights groups want 18 y.o.'s to be able to buy rifles. The policy specifics aren't why people care.
Why people really care: one side wants to be normalized, the other side wants them to be stigmatized. That's zero-sum. Every point (bump stocks, Citigroup, mag size, YouTube) is a cultural altercation about what is normal vs. what is shameful.
One side has a deep attachment (individual ownership of weapons qua weapons, unconnected to recreation) they view as healthy, essential, and normal. In their culture, it *is* normal. The other side sees it as deeply repulsive and shameful. In their culture, *it is*.
Again, that would be a stable equilibrium in a world where mass communication didn't exist. But it does exist, so ideas can "contaminate" your bubble from afar. That's why this is so acrimonious. Each side truly believes the other side's ideas are *should not exist in society*.
This is a core feature of any battle over normalcy vs. stigma. Example from a different culture war: in 1999, Jerry Falwell was rightly lambasted for saying that the purple Teletubby was supposedly "modeling the gay life style". Why did he say something so absurd and offensive?
He explained exactly why: "To have little boys running around with purses and acting effeminate, and leaving the idea that the masculine male, the feminine female is out, and gay is OK — that's something Christians do not agree with."
He wanted to stigmatize LGBTQ folks, because he viewed them as not belonging in society. So anything with the faintest whiff of making the people he stigmatized more normal or acceptable or familiar, he abhorred.
One side sincerely wants AR-15s normalized. Hence the marketing, expansion into hunting applications, etc. The other side sincerely views ARs as a repulsive embarrassment to American society. Hence anything that makes them seem normal is abhorrent.
That's why, for example, gun control groups got Citigroup to ban businesses that sell 30-round mags, and YouTube to ban videos on how to build an AR. For brands like Citigroup and YouTube to allow those items normalizes them. A ban makes them unclean.
The gun control tribe sees that, which is why they lobbied for the bans. The gun rights tribe also sees it, which is why gun channel YouTubers and gun Twitter are apopleptic about this. ("Tribes" as in slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-c…)
So that's the dynamic at play here. When two sides are locked into that, what matters is winning wherever they can. The logical coherence of the win doesn’t not matter, and in fact caring about the reasonableness of your policies is a sure way to lose.
Because while you're off sagely ratiocinating like you're Aristotle or something, the other side is either normalizing themselves to escape velocity, or stigmatizing you into extinction. Once either happens, they win and the discussion ends forever.
I know this "existential war of normalcy vs. stigma" frame seems crazy. And it is, for people who aren't deeply invested. But I know hardliners on both sides. This *is* how they see it. And it's the only frame that explains both sides' behavior here.
Let's talk about that behavior. Gun owners are often accused of being unwilling to consider any new gun restrictions (unless paired with a pro-gun-rights advance — more on that later). Broadly speaking, that's actually an accurate observation.
In the debate frame, that intransigence seems crazy. "Why not compromise?", "common sense", etc. Makes sense. But the culture war frame clears it right up: as a rational actor in a culture war, what would you expect the other side to do after scoring a win?
Naturally, you’d expect them to come back for more! As I explained above with the bifurcation of the states, that’s exactly what is happening. Whichever direction a state was slightly pointed in the '80s, it's pointed *much* harder in that direction today.
Example: in 2009, Montana passed a law declaring federal gun laws null and void for almost all firearms made and kept within Montana. A federal court struck it down, but hey, it passed (signed by a Democrat governor no less!). That’s illustrative. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_F…
Example: in 2013, NY state banned rifle features like pistol grips and adjustable-length stocks. Only 4% of covered gun owners complied with the ban, so as we speak there are ~1 million NYers with a 15-year felony in their safe (thread continued 👇). hudsonvalleyone.com/2016/07/07/mas…
Example: Massachusetts banned bump stocks this year. Possessing a bump stock in MA is now punishable by up to life in prison. They sent a "turn them in" letter to every gun owner in MA. Three bump stocks were turned in, total. boston.cbslocal.com/2018/02/02/bum…
So between just NY and MA, and just since 2013, new laws have created >1 million people with a 15+ year felony that's sitting in the house waiting to be discovered.
Personal example: recently spent a day at the range shooting with 2 friends. B/c the rifles had adjustable-length stocks, that same fun day out with friends, if we did it in California, would put us in prison for the next several decades. wklaw.com/practice-areas…
I know that's not the desired result. Nobody writing their ideal gun law with a magic wand would send me to jail for 40 years. And I agree that I haven’t done anything to deserve 40 years in jail. But that is the outcome of these laws in real life.
So moving back to the culture war frame: how does this influence people’s incentives? Looking at this in the objective "what would a rational actor do" sense, she would obviously view any additional concessions as suicidal.
The intransigence accusation is mostly valid. But the gun control groups do have some ideas that are palatable, even interesting, to gun owners. The problem is that that doesn't matter. Good intentions have ~0 actual effect on whether a law turns out well-written.
A gun ban bill has to run through the legislative sausage grinder. Once it does, the real-world result in all of the ~7 states to do it has been "Dear median gun owner: starting n days from today, the same model gun you shot last weekend will be a felony."
It's tough when good intentions produce bad results. Most of the people marching today have great intentions. But empirically, without realizing it they’re marching for laws that would send me and a lot of people I care about to prison for decades.
I was lucky to go to a very fancy east coast private school for grades 1-12, and then a very fancy east coast university. That’s just to say that my formative environment had a lot of cultural overlap with the big bad "coastal elites" some groups rant about.
So again back to the culture war frame: if the recent gun control push alienates someone who grew up in *that* environment, imagine how it plays in the other 42 states. I personally know 5 east coasters who bought their 1st gun in 2018.
*That* is culture war in action. The states bifurcate, the middle disappears, and the sides aren’t just moving apart, they’re accelerating.
At this point I’ve repeated it enough. The gun fight has nothing to do with policy, it’s a zero-sum culture war where facts are worse than useless, etc etc. So now what? If neither side is going to budge, is there any hope? Should we prep for Civil War II: Kandahar in Kansas?
Here’s the path forward. Today each side asks, “How can we defeat the other side?” That’s culture war mindset. Instead, accept the truth and ask a different question: “We are never going to agree. So how can we all move forward even while still disagreeing?” Here’s how:
People often use the word “compromise” here. But what they usually mean is, “Fine, let’s compromise: we’ll do none of what you want and only half of what I want.” Neither side is dumb enough to fall for that. They’ll block it, and it’s back to square one.
A real path forward — and the only way this culture war comes off the boil — is something very different: each side gives some things, and each side gets some things. A path that addresses people’s concerns about guns in the wrong hands *and* advances gun rights.
I’ve talked to a lot of people about this “grand bargain” concept. Ranging from gun owners who’d be first in line for Civil War II, to people who want all guns banned, to every shade in between. To a person, almost all of them loved it. One word kept coming up: relief.
That’s the culture war’s secret: everybody is tired of it. They participate because they’re afraid of what the other side will do to them. But if that fear goes away, so does their reason to participate. One honest give-and-take deal, and the fear goes away.
I made a site that lays out the specifics of a deal. It got a great reception from the not-so-intransigent-after-all gun owners on reddit. Help me seed the meme of a “grand bargain” and we can make a dent to end the culture war. thepathforwardonguns.com
