GUNS 5 from Medill Washington on Vimeo.
Pro-choice or pro-life? How about pro-abortion rights versus anti-abortion? Military intervention? Didn’t that use to mean “war”? And be aware, until the Associated Press deemed it politically incorrect, undocumented immigrants were illegal immigrants.
But how times—and words—change.
Few instances in recent Capitol Hill history have shown the power of language as powerfully as the on-going debate over guns. The defeat of the Manchin-Toomey amendment on the Senate floor in April was the latest casualty in the war of words that can distract people from the reality of the issues at hand.
“Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”
The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act had all the makings of successful legislation: bipartisan backing, strong public support, the wholehearted approval of the president. It came on the heels of one of the deadliest years in gun violence: 2012 saw no fewer than 14 mass shootings (defined by the FBI as involving four or more victims) in the United States, most notably the Newtown, Conn., attacks in which 20 schoolchildren were killed.
Commentator Joe Scarborough, speaking about the Newtown shootings on his morning show, said it succinctly. “From this day forward, nothing can ever be the same again,” he said. “Friday changed everything. It must change everything.”
But since last December, not much has changed. The bipartisan Manchin-Toomey legislation, named for the senators who sponsored it, was blocked when Senate supporters were unable to choke off a filibuster. It would have expanded existing background check laws to include gun shows and Internet sales.
Perhaps one thing has changed as the debate rages: the way both politicians and the public talk about guns. The Manchin-Toomey bill failed for a number of reasons, said Helio Fred Garcia, professor of communication at New York University, but chief among them was the language used to discuss the bill and firearms in general.
“It was politics in the end that caused the filibuster,” he said, but the “language of the debate is critical to public opinion.”
“It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
Bill Clinton, testifying before a grand jury
Although President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were careful to avoid any mention of it, Garcia said congressional Democrats made a mistake when they used the term “gun control.” The phrase is heavy with anti-Second Amendment sentiment, at least to the ears of many gun owners who balk at legislation that may infringe their “right to keep and bear arms.”
Days after the shooting in Newtown, then-Senator Joe Lieberman appeared on “Fox News Sunday” to talk about what could be done to combat the rash of deadly violence. Lieberman, a moderate, didn’t shy away from the phrase gun control. When asked if he thought Democrats should once again “push for stricter gun control,” he responded:
“It’s time for Democrats, Republicans and independents to … to acknowledge two things: One is, the strongest conceivable gun control laws won’t stop all acts of violence. But also to acknowledge that the stronger our gun control laws are, the fewer acts of violence, including mass violence, that will happen in our society.”
Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, also let slip the problematic phrase during an appearance on “Face the Nation” in December, saying, “Those of us who are pro-gun control have to admit that there is a Second Amendment right to bear arms.”
“Gun control equals ‘they’re coming to take our guns,’” NYU’s Garcia said of the way some react to the term, and the message it sends could cost Democrats’ support among moderate, gun-owning voters. “They’re alienating people they need to keep on their side.”
Garcia said that by not being more disciplined with language, Democrats weren’t able to frame the debate about guns when it was time to vote on the legislation. Gun lobbies kept a stronger hold on the discussion by staying on-message and pushing “gun rights” and “Second Amendment rights.”
Despite polls showing strong public approval for background checks for gun show and Internet sales, supporters of the Manchin-Toomey bill perhaps weren’t vocal enough to overcome the negatives associated with gun control. Some groups, including the National Rifle Association, insisted the legislation would “criminalize” private transfers of firearms.
“The question isn’t what percentage support a public policy, it’s how motivated they are to vote on a certain policy,” Garcia said. “One of the things that the gun lobby and NRA and others are good at is using language” to rally their supporters.
But gun reform advocates have since learned their lesson, he said, and “gun control” has steadily fallen out of favor in Washington.
The only mentions of any sort of control in the Manchin-Toomey bill involve the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act; nowhere in the text is there a mention of controlling guns. On a tour earlier this year to promote the bill, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., told a crowd, “It’s not gun control — it’s gun sense,” according to The New Republic.
President Obama likewise publicly avoided any mention of “control” following the Newtown shootings and also after the failed vote on the Manchin-Toomey amendment. Speaking before reporters just after April vote, he stressed that the legislation was about “protecting more of our people from gun violence.”
This move away from the frame of “gun control” was deliberate, Garcia said, and it may help Democrats convince some of their Republican colleagues (and a few reluctant Democrats) to vote in favor of legislation in the future.
In some contexts, such as discussions about school shootings, Garcia said “’gun reform’ is a better frame than ‘gun control’” and “‘ending gun violence’ is a better frame than ‘gun reform.’”
The deliberate language isn’t just limited to political conversation, but to public opinion as well. A recent Pew poll found that 86 percent of Americans support “background checks for private and gun show sales”; 80 percent support “preventing people with mental illness from purchasing guns.” However, in a USA Today poll conducted after the Manchin-Toomey bill failed, just 49 percent of respondents answered positively when asked if Congress should “pass new gun-control laws.”
Language that has become taboo in Washington may now be taboo outside the Beltway. It wouldn’t be the first controversial issue to be colored by a calculated shift in political language.
“A number of people felt that ‘illegal immigrant’ was the best choice at the time. They also believed the always-evolving English language might soon yield a different choice and we should stay in the conversation.”
Kathleen Carroll, senior VP and executive editor, AP
On the topic of abortion, the terms “pro-life” and “pro-choice” are still largely in use, but many media outlets have made the switch to the more neutral “abortion rights” and “anti-abortion,” per a decision by the Associated Press in 1986 to phase the more divisive terms from AP’s respected Stylebook.
The news agency did the same again earlier this year, announcing that “illegal immigrants” would now be referred to as “undocumented immigrants.” Perhaps removing the stigma of “illegal” has shifted perception of the issue: Public support for comprehensive immigration reform, and specifically for allowing undocumented immigrants already in the country to remain, is around 70 percent, according to Pew polls.
But as we found speaking to voters visiting the White House, whether it’s gun control or gun rights or gun safety, the underlying issues often trump language. The issue is more complex than a two- or three-word phrase can convey.
For now, gun legislation is on the back burner, but the debate continues — and it remains to be seen how all of the words and deeds will play out.