I’ve often been puzzled that gun-control advocates so uniformly use the phrase “common sense” to describe their proposals, whereas that phrase practically never shows up in advocacy for other causes with which those advocates are usually bedfellows. You don’t hear so much about common-sense environmental regulation or common-sense abortion legality or common-sense affirmative action. (And they damned sure aren’t going to talk about common-sense gender identity.)
So I think I’ve figured out why “common-sense” is almost universal in describing gun-control proposals:
These are “common-sense” proposals, i.e., proposals which seem like intuitively good ideas in ten words or less. Gathering actual data on the effectiveness of those proposals, however, usually shows their potential for effectiveness is moot at best, and counter-productive more generally. But labeling those proposals up-front as “common-sense” prejudices the mind of the audience into believing that a proposal that sounds intuitively reasonable is therefore solid, and further examination or thinking on the subject is unnecessary. After all, we all want to believe that our “common-sense” understanding is accurate even though plentiful research shows that our instinctive judgment, developed to work best in an environment of clan vs. cave bear, isn’t the equal of rational consideration. But just as far more people consider themselves “above-average drivers” than is mathematically possible, far too many of us think that our common-sense bullshit-o-meter is superior to those around us, and are thus willing to accept “common sense” as equal to actual facts.
Obviously, this kind of persuasion is effective in all sorts of arenas. It’s particularly effective in this discussion, though, because “common-sense” ideas and proposals for gun control are almost universally unsupported by data; they have either been instituted formerly and proved ineffective, or are already part of gun-control laws and fail because of input failures. Yet this is such an emotionally hair-triggered subject that it’s even easier to be persuasive with a non-rational argument, especially one couched in terminology that encourages acceptance without deliberation… like “common-sense.”
(This is especially apparent in gun-control discussions because the statistically uncommon mass school shootings dominate the conversation, yet any measures put in place specifically in reaction to those shootings, even if effective, would move the needle on national gun violence statistics so little it would look like a rounding error. The conversation starts in an irrational place, and it ain’t gonna get better from here.)