Messaging Guide

Gun violence

Begin in agreement, for example: The most fundamental job of our city/county/state is to protect people from violent crime.
Use values, for example: Security, safety, protection, justice.
Show how they benefit, for example: A simple, commonsense change in the law would make you and your community safer.

Persuadable Americans know almost nothing about gun laws and have little idea how easy it is for dangerous people to obtain firearms. They overwhelmingly support background checks and other modest gun laws, and always have.

Say… The most fundamental purpose of government is to keep our communities safe from violence. But every day, dozens of Americans are murdered, hundreds of others are shot, and about one thousand are robbed or assaulted with a gun. It’s not just a horror and shame when little children are murdered in school, gun violence threatens you and your loved ones every single day.

Then link the problem to whatever solution you’re debating. For example, for requiring background checks for all gun sales, say:

Say… Our communities can’t be safe if we allow guns to be sold to felons or the dangerously mentally ill. That’s why current law requires that no gun can be sold by a licensed gun dealer without a criminal background check. But millions of guns are sold by unlicensed sellers at gun shows and through Internet sites with no background check. We need a simple commonsense change in the law in order to cover all gun sales.

You don’t have to argue too hard for this. Americans already agree with us. Pro-gun advocates know that they lose the argument on the merits, so their tactic is to sidetrack the discussion, talking about the Second Amendment, the technical definition of certain guns, their misperception of what a law does, their bizarre ideas about how other countries’ laws work, or proposing an entirely different policy that they claim will solve the problem. So, when you argue with pro-gun people, you must concentrate on steering the conversation back to the specific proposal at hand. Here are a couple of examples:

Pro-gun argument: The solution is to arm schoolteachers.

Say… You are arguing for the mythical “good guy with a gun.” Remember, there were 19 armed police officers in the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas who failed to save the lives of the students and teachers. Both Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Columbine High School had armed deputy sheriffs on duty when their massacres happened. Virginia Tech had an entire police force, including a SWAT team. There were many armed police officers at the Las Vegas massacre. And President Reagan was surrounded by armed police and Secret Service agents when he was shot. Arming somebody simply does not stop the shooting. Let’s get back to the real debate over the gun violence legislation that’s on the table.

Pro-gun argument: We should do something about mental health/make parents take responsibility/ban violent video games instead.

Say… We should make our communities safer. If you’ve got a good proposal, that’s fine. But this is not an either-or debate; one policy does not exclude another. Can we get back to the legislation on the table: why should we sell these guns to any adult, without any background check, no questions asked?