How we can change the conversation around gun violence
If the discussion feels crazy-making, you're not wrong. We can do better.
We are two journalists writing about family and carework from a feminist perspective. Research, interviews and personal stories connecting systemic issues and family life; also, some 40+ mom humor. You can read past issues here. Follow us on Instagram @matriarchyreport.
If you value the work we do here, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Paid subscriptions sustain this work, and help compensate for some of the time, energy (and childcare costs!) that go into it. If you’re not ready to become a paid subscriber, you can also subscribe for free and show support by sharing with friends or on social media. Thank you for being here.
If you’re new here (or even if you’re not), you might not know that Allison and I have spent years working in newsrooms and teaching college journalism and writing.
I worked for years as a full-time journalist, and I teach writing and research courses at NYU. Allison is the Chair of the Journalism + Design program at The New School, and she formerly worked for places like the Wall Street Journal and WNYC.
We have spent our careers working in journalism and writing stories, and teaching college students how to do that, too.
So when we were met with another national gun violence tragedy in Texas the week before last, like a lot of you I felt anguish and grief. And then I waited for another familiar feeling, too. The conversation during and after these events always feels frustrating, confusing, and seems to go nowhere.
As a parent and human being, I find myself mad and frustrated at politicians, mad and frustrated at people I know (and don’t even know) making comments on social media, and frustrated at myself for not knowing what to DO about it. These are feelings that I’m still moving through, to be honest.
But as a journalist and writing prof, I realized that one thing that I do know are the basics of how to responsibly research and report stories. This is something that I teach my students all the time, and I can say with confidence that the conversation we are having around gun violence is deeply messed up.
So this week, I thought one thing that I can do is break down why the conversation around gun violence is flawed and frustrating—and sometimes just downright heart-rending—and what we can do about it.
We can become better receivers of information. And we can demand better of our politicians, media, and even social media influencers—whatever storytellers we plug into.
Neutrality Bias or “False Balance”
If the gun violence conversation feels upside down and like it’s going in circles, it’s because we have been flooded with stories around gun violence that aren’t based in evidence, that blur the facts, and that point us away from solutions and can even be dehumanizing.
It feels awful. And we are suffering terribly for it.
There are clear, evidence-based solutions to gun violence that have been proven to work, and can work relatively quickly. But those evidence-based arguments are overshadowed and stalled by non-evidence based arguments that keep us going in circles.
There’s a name for this that I recently learned that’s incredibly helpful: it’s called “Neutrality Bias.”
The News Literacy Project defines neutrality bias as a type of bias that happens when a news outlet or individual tries so hard to avoid appearing biased that the way they discuss the issue actually misrepresents the facts.
This is also called “false balance” and “bothsides-ism.”
Neutrality bias is sometimes used unconsciously in a misguided attempt to be “balanced.” Sometimes it’s used to deliberately obscure or bury information to benefit certain groups or pander to certain audiences.
Either way, it’s harmful.
But isn’t it good to be objective, you might ask? Yes, objectivity is great. But neutrality is NOT the same thing as objectivity. Objectivity refers to sifting through evidence and facts and seeking verifiable and reasonable conclusions—and being open to what those might be.
Neutrality, on the other hand, purports to be “balanced” by presenting all views, regardless of their merit, and treating them as equal. This gives space and airtime to non-factual and non-evidence-based ideas.
When teaching this to students, it’s pretty easy to see how neutrality bias is problematic. They get good at picking up when arguments are B.S. while they are researching “both sides,” and their job is to investigate which ones really hold merit and why. This is objectivity. The fact that we don’t hold our politicians, media, and public discourse to the same standard as college students is bananas.
A student paper that gives equal space and weight to an unsupported “flat earth” argument as an astrophysicist from NASA, for example, would get a C (at best) and no credible journalism program would publish it in the school paper. The same goes for a climate denier versus an expert on how to reduce carbon emissions. But that is essentially a version of what happens a lot in our media, and then in our water cooler and dinner table conversations, too.
Here are some examples of what neutrality bias looks like right now in the U.S. gun violence conversation, where evidence-based arguments and non-evidence based arguments are given equal space and weight:
Using an objective approach, there is clear evidence that banning assault weapons and instituting background checks can dramatically reduce mass shootings and their impact. This has been shown through peer-reviewed data and research, as well as in examples within the U.S. and from other countries.
In Australia, a 1996 mass shooting prompted mandatory gun buybacks, and the rate of mass shootings plummeted from every 18 months to so far only one in 26 years (one!!). California laws strictly prohibited assault weapons in the 90’s, and its rate of mass shootings fell 55%. California’s gun death rate is 37% lower than the national average.
These examples are confirmed by piles of studies that show that when countries tighten gun control laws, there are fewer guns in private citizens’ hands, which leads to less gun violence and fewer mass shootings (for more of my sources, see the end of this article).
Yet, after last week’s tragedy everyone from the media to popular social media personalities gave air to these non-evidence based arguments, many of which are not even actionable solutions, but merely keep us stuck in the status quo (also known as “deflections”).
We heard non-factual false arguments such as arming teachers to keep schools safe, even though evidence shows that plan is dangerous, and all credible experts including our own law enforcement agencies are heavily against it. We also heard non-actionable arguments that merely keep up us stuck in the status quo, such as “fixing the family” and treating mental health. (The mental health crisis is a worthy cause of its own, but evidence shows that mental illness is not the cause of gun violence. The United States has similar rates of mental illness to other countries, but much higher rates of gun violence due to gun access.)
Of course the politicians who receive millions from the NRA make these bad arguments. But it’s very disheartening to see the talking points that are crafted by the NRA given space in the media, and then further trickle down to conversations with our friends and family.
We feel sick when this happens because lives are on the line, and we should feel sick about it. The conversation itself is damaging because it creates confusion and leads us away from critical life-saving solutions.
And this is why I argue that neutrality bias is such a big problem. It makes us feel sick and dispirited in our hearts and in our guts. I believe this is because neutrality bias isn’t just flawed or bad faith discussion; it’s actually dehumanizing.
When a discussion or line of argumentation starts to make you feel sick to your stomach, or feels abhorrent, it’s often because one group is being dehumanized in that conversation. That feels wrong when we encounter it.
For example: In the gun violence conversation, we often hear questions that are framed like this: “Which is more important—school safety or access to gun ownership?”
Questions like this present children’s lives as equal to or lesser than another person’s choice to own military-grade weapons. The question itself is unbalanced and dehumanizing.
Dehumanization happens when arguments prioritize one group’s preference, comfort, or interpretation of law as equal to or greater than another group’s safety, lives, or human rights.
Once you start to look for it, you will notice “neutral” arguments that are actually dehumanizing in conversations around gun violence, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ and trans rights, race, and other issues.
The way that we talk about things matters, and we can re-frame these conversations. We can become better receivers of information, and we can ask for better from our public discourse.
We can call out neutrality bias and bad arguments when we see them from politicians, journalists and even the influencers that we follow. We can point out neutrality bias in conversations with our community and family and friends.
We don’t have to abide conversations that put children’s lives—or anyone’s lives—on the line. Don’t even entertain them.
And one more thing: I think it’s worth fighting to change the way we frame these discussions, because it’s not just the gun violence problem that’s breaking our hearts. The narrative—the way we talk about it— is also breaking us. We have been living for too long with the narrative that it’s okay for our kids to die and for kindergartners to learn to (somehow?!) protect themselves from assault weapons. That is gaslighting, and it’s dragging all of us down.
Keep in mind that our kids are now growing up with the narrative that they are disposable and have to protect themselves from weapons of war. What is that doing to our children?
It’s a sick story. Let’s not live with it for one more second.
The slides from this post can be found on our Instagram account @matriarchyreport. If you found this post meaningful, please feel free to share it.
Sources:
The News Literacy Project, “Five Types of Bias” : https://newslit.org/educators/resources/understanding-bias/
DiMaggio et al. “Changes in US mass shooting deaths associated with the 1994-2004 federal assault weapons ban: Analysis of open-source data” PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30188421/
Fridel, Emma E. 2021. “Comparing the impact of household gun ownership and concealed carry legislation on the frequency of mass shootings and firearms homicide.” Justice Quarterly, 38(5): 892-915. https://criminology.fsu.edu/faculty-and-staff/emma-fridel
Klarevas, et. al. 2019. “The Effect of Large-Capacity Magazine Bans on High-Fatality Mass Shootings, 1990–2017.” The American Journal of Public Health https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305311
The Washington Post “What Research Shows on the Effectiveness of Gun Control Laws” by Glen Kessler: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/27/what-research-shows-effectiveness-gun-control-laws/
Cato Institute “Good Faith vs. Bad Faith Arguments and Discussions” https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2020-07/Good_Faith-vs-Bad_Faith-Arguments_or_Discussions.pdf
Thank you so much Lane for how you thoughtfully sifted through the noise around guns, which always arises after these tragedies. Your example of the scientist v. the flat-earther is spot on. Why are we pitting the lives and value of our children against the "rights" of people who want to carry guns? I heard an interview today on a very mainstream radio program in which the host asked a gun control advocate -- himself a victim of gun violence -- how he would respond to people who are afraid their access to gun will be taken away. WHY are they asking this guy that question? Why aren't we asking the gun rights people why they think their rights -- which are actually NOT being at all affected by these reasonable restrictions -- are more important than the lives of children, teachers, elders, humans? It was a cruel set-up for this advocate to have to defend his position as though the other side's position was equally valid. The news outlet should have known better. As you say, "Neutrality bias" is a weak cover for maintaining the status quo and it's killing us.
I cannot express how infuriated and defeated I feel when it comes to this topic. The levels of wanton gun violence and death here are enough to justify packing up and leaving this country. However, this article is enlightening and encouraging. Neutrality bias perfectly sums up the core of the problem in our national discourse. It causes meaningful conversations to be derailed and leads to productive, evidence-based solutions being sidelined. Your last point about how neutrality bias is dehumanizing (especially in discussions about human rights, livelihood, and safety) really hits the mark. I didn't always see this but now it's hard to unsee it. For example, a new CBSNews poll shows that 72% of the nation believes mass shootings are preventable. However, there is a partisan split: 44% of Republicans say mass shootings are something we have to accept.* To your point, this incredibly dehumanizing and callous position is too often repeated and given space in discussion about gun violence and reform when instead it should be called out as incredibly dehumanizing and callous and immediately shut down.