Understanding the Moral Framing of Gun Control Propaganda

Second Amendment proponents are facing a stark reality. One they didn’t think they were going to face. At the beginning of 2025, everything seemed like it was going to be ok, as President Trump signed an executive order directing Pam Bondi to undo all Biden-era gun control. While on the surface this seemed great, there were some underlying questions that few people were asking. First, why just Biden-era gun control? Second, what about Trump-era gun control? Some of Biden’s initiatives, after all, were merely following the precedent set by Trump during his first four years. The bump stock ban being a good example. While many people made excuses for this by saying that bump stocks were just a piece of plastic, and that Trump was throwing the gun grabbing left a bone, the truth is vastly different. The bump stock ban enabled the ATF to begin unilaterally playing with the existing definition of the term machine gun, currently written into federal law. In essence, a bump stock became a fully automatic weapon despite the fact that it is just a piece of plastic. Another action taken by Trump, that many of his supporters still ignore, is his push for red flag laws. William Barr, the Attorney General during Trump’s first term, was given the green light by the president to fund states to pass red flag laws, aka, extreme risk protection orders. To many people across the country, red flag laws seem like a commonsense approach to ending “gun violence,” as they enable the state to disarm anyone deemed to be a threat to themselves or others. The problem with these laws is the absence of due process protection and the fact that the gun owner is often unaware that any petition has been filed against them. Taking this information into consideration, gun owners should not be surprised to see that Trump’s promises have not really gone anywhere. Pam Bondi, despite being fired from her position, ended up defending the very “Biden-era” policies she was supposed to be dismantling. The stark reality that gun owners now face is threefold. On one side, it is highly likely that the gun grabbers will not only win the midterms, but the presidency in 2028 as well. On the other is a lame Supreme Court that can’t even muster the needed intestinal fortitude to defend their own rulings. On top of all this is a relentless propaganda campaign targeting the emotional dispositions, and deep-rooted ignorance of second amendment issues prevalent in many gun owners across America. Not all gun owners understand the significance of the Second Amendment and are willing to accept some gun control measures in the name of public safety. These gun owners are the target audience of this campaign.

The push for gun control is coming on hard. States such as Virginia and Rhode Island, surely taking notice of the Supreme Court’s lack of interest, have jumped on board the gun ban choo-choo train. Rhode Island has gone as far as introducing legislation which would commence the confiscation of firearms that were previously banned. National legislation has also been introduced in the U.S. Senate that if passed into law, would mimic what just passed in Virginia. Behind all this is a message rooted in deception, targeting the ignorance of many gun owners. The message is, “I own a gun, and I support common sense gun reform.” What is so deceptive about this message? First, it is framed targeting the moral foundations that are common to most people using something called Moral Foundations Theory. According to MFT, there are five major moral foundations that can be used as a means of changing political attitudes towards controversial topics. These foundations are harm, fairness, ingroup, authority and purity to worldview. Harm is common to most people as no one wants to see anyone get hurt. Fairness expresses the desire for equality and unbiased treatment. Ingroup prioritizes the importance of loyalty. Authority stresses the respect for tradition and those who hold power. Finally, purity to worldview suggests that one is adhering to the views they hold. For example, conservatives were persuaded into accepting the homosexual marriage issue using the purity to worldview foundation as it was framed in a way that aligns with conservative beliefs pertaining to liberty, and the freedom to live one’s life as they please. The message, “I own a gun, and I support common sense gun reform,” is meant to target the common value that all people hold when it comes to public safety. Nobody wants to see people get hurt. Nobody, even the most die-hard Second Amendment supporters, wants to see a madman get a hold of dangerous weapon and murder helpless people. In other words, this is a message that is deliberately framed to get you to question your values and give up your rights in the name of the greater good.

They have used this tactic before. In 2016, a man named Daniel Hayes published an article called “I am an AR-15 Owner, and I have had Enough!” The point of his article was to get the average AR-15 owner to question whether he needed a rifle that had such a “lethal nature,” that is commonly used in school shootings. Daniel portrayed himself as a Second Amendment advocate who sees the need for common sense gun reform and is willing to give up his rights to protect the children. Is this effective? It depends on who the audience is. While it appears to be a message targeting all gun owners, it is most likely targeting those who are not ideologically rooted in their support for Second Amendment issues. The truth is that many gun owners can be brought to the table of “sensible gun control” because to them, the 2A is about hunting, and the idea of an armed citizenry standing in opposition to tyranny, is a bit extreme. These people are commonly referred to as “Fudds.” When it comes to persuasion, messages can be framed to target certain audiences based on their likelihood of elaboration. This is called the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. An article entitled Guns, Culture, or Mental Health? Framing Mass Shootings as a Public Health Crisis states that messages pertaining to gun control, and the public health issue, are targeted towards those who “are sophisticated enough to understand the message, but not sophisticated enough to know how to, or why it should be, refuted.”

It is expected by those creating the message that the audience does not have the ability to elaborate on this any further than the immediate implications. In other words, they are hoping people will respond to the urgency of the message and not think any further. Unfortunately, there are many gun owners who do not know how to argue against messages promoting public safety over individual rights. This is partly because the nature of the message itself displays a willingness to surrender liberty as a moral virtue, as individual rights, when compared to issues dealing with the collective good of society, can appear selfish to people driven by emotions. If American’s are seeking to win hearts and minds over the Second Amendment issue, we must take that point of view—no matter how ridiculous—into consideration. We must engage in some moral reframing of our own, to show why gun control is an immoral and selfish act.

How do we do this? It doesn’t matter how many ways the gun grabbers try to frame their argument, personal protection is a personal responsibility. Even the Supreme Court ruled in two separate cases that police officers are under no constitutional obligation to die for anyone. To expect another armed individual to put themselves between you and an attacker is, in a word, selfish. To suggest that citizens no longer need firearms because we have the police is to suggest the police should be more willing than you to fight for your life. Aside from the fact that police cannot respond in time, expecting them to save your life because you are afraid of handling a firearm is perhaps the most selfish position one can hold. All gun control laws are immoral affronts against common sense as the politicians that pass them are often doing so simply for political gain. They know full well the laws they are pushing will do more to make decent people helpless against those with no inclination to follow those laws. If an individual is harmed because of unconstitutional gun control legislation that rendered him or her helpless, the politician that passed that law should be charged with a crime. Finally, the moral implications of framing a message that seeks to take advantage of emotional frailties and ignorance is in itself, immoral beyond comprehension as it is a deliberate lie.

Gun owners have a big fight coming. There is a high likelihood that those seeking to force gun control down our throats will make big gains in the midterms. America is very susceptible to emotional appeals as we are constantly locked in a state of chaos and always looking to government to solve societal problems. We must find a way to reframe this issue so that those sitting on the sidelines will see the moral implications of rendering the citizenry helpless, while empowering the criminal who holds no value for your life. None of this even touches on the realities of gun control throughout the twentieth century as millions upon millions were murdered by tyrannical regimes after legally possessed firearms were confiscated from the people.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to be looking out for my latest book, The Psychology of Persuasive Propaganda: The Things You Should Know. In the meantime, you can check out –

Without a Shot Indeed: Inducing Compliance to Tyranny Through Conditioning and Persuasion.