Texas shooting aftermath highlights the danger of these 4 American gun myths

Instead of relying on mythology, let's base our commonsense gun reform debate on data.

In my walks along the Blanco River in the small town where I live in Texas, a few hours’ drive from Uvalde, I have been contemplating that wonderful town’s horrendous mass murder this week and what we can do about gun violence in America, and here in the Lone Star State.

One big reason pragmatic positive change so rarely occurs in politics is the myths that take hold both among groups of voters and in the media. These myths are repeated over and over, often without much pushback. Here are four myths that need to be confronted and discarded when talking about commonsense gun reform.

Myth One: Only coastal elites want gun reform, because they don’t understand what it is like to own a gun and go hunting. And related to this myth is the (false) idea that gun owners don’t want reform. As a Texas gun owner who has also talked to many gun owners here, this myth is completely false. In poll after poll, nationally and at the state level, the vast majority of citizens want gun reform. This isn’t necessarily a blue or red state issue. In 2015, a Public Policy Polling survey found 83 percent of gun owners wanted universal background checks, and 72 percent of National Rifle Association members supported them as well. While the overall share of Americans who think gun laws need to be stricter has decreased recently, falling to 53 percent in 2021 according to Pew, there remains bipartisan support for various individual reform measures.

Myth Two: The gun violence problem exists because our country has become too secular and more morally lost. In looking at survey data from around the globe, the countries that are the most secular and don’t ascribe to idea that “a belief in God is necessary to be moral and have good values” are some of the safest when it comes to gun violence. More than three quarters of citizens in Spain, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden and France feel that a belief in God is not necessary to being moral, more than 20 points higher than “unbelievers” America, and yet none of those countries are struggling with rampant gun violence.

Read the rest of my article here.