Local Symbols as Grounds for Policy Change in Mass Shooting Eulogies

Abstract

Gun violence constitutes a national health and policy crisis in America. Gun suicide and homicide rates in the United States surpass every other western industrialized democracy. Despite the national scale of the crisis, however, local communities, families, and institutions are impacted directly by America’s gun crisis. Deeply rooted mythological and ideological attachments to guns overwhelm reason and evidence-oriented argument in favor of reform, making the national debate over gun control “all but intractable”. Gun rights advocates “perform resistance while enacting feelings of alienation, marginality, and oppression”—they figure themselves in the national discussion as “defenders of the Second Amendment and pitiable victims of discrimination and prejudice”. Presidents who deliver national eulogies after tragedies must use the moment to craft value-oriented grounds for future policy change. The site where individuals are killed in a mass shooting often has local importance, but in these eulogies, Obama elevated the local to stand in for national institutions and values.