To give this a better framing, say after Sandy Hook, I'd wager that the first response in the mind of a liberal was, "Fuck! See, guns kill! If we didn't have the 2nd ammendment, so many children wouldn't have had to die!" For a conservative, their first response might have been, "Fuck! This is why teachers need guns to protect their children from crazymen! More children didn't have to die!" May be I'm a little too naive, but I really don't think people are insincerely manufacturing rage, both are upset about the tragedy, they just rationalize it in the mental framework they already have, and they sincerely respond with that mindset.
I think the better question is why can't we be more rational/scientific about this. Forget gut feelings, put down a spreadsheet (at least) how many instances of this statistic correlate with this hypothesis. If it doesn't work, clearly your intuition is wrong, and there's nothing wrong with that, you just need to sharpen your intuition. I'd like to see government work like that, but neither side seems to want to do something like that.
be more rational/scientific about this. Forget gut feelings, put down a spreadsheet
But that already presupposes the answer to one of the major arguments. There's a fair philosophical case to be made for "it doesn't matter if the empirical net is positive or negative: the bottom line is that I have a natural right to defend myself and my family, even if other people cannot or choose not to do so themselves".
Sorry, I don't mean to start the actual gun debate here. I'm just trying to show that the underlying question presents a false choice fallacy. It's incorrect to simply ask, "should the government make this regulation or not?". There's space for a lot more nuance in there: "is this a good idea or a bad idea? If it's a good idea, is it something that should be part of the private sector's purview? If not, can government do it effectively?"
The basic argument I have against this is that people say things that make assumptions they don't realize and those assumptions can be testable. Let me give an example.
Say you have a liberal who says, "regardless of whether we go into debt or not," since that is an objectively measurable observable, "we should spend more on education because education is something I value." That already has a problem: it assumes spending more on education increases the quality of education; therein lies a testable hypothesis that we can demonstrate true or false. If a liberal is offended by that notion, that is what I'm arguing against--for me, ideas just aren't "so obvious" that they can't be demonstrated, if it's true, there better be evidence for its truth. If, for example, we spend more on education than other nations and we still have subpar outcomes (which is true, actually), then the stated reasoning "go into debt because we value education anyway" contains a false assumption and thus the argument is fallacious.
Also, other assumptions could be violated here. To further use my analogy, another assumption the liberal has underpinning his arguments is that a state exists to provide education. If you're in debt to the point where your government bonds are considered crap by the market, your decision to spend more money on education could threaten the existence of your state. Therefore, once again, you're making an argument and not rigorously considering whether assumptions are/will remain true or not.
Of course, you could change the "axioms" of the universe of discourse and just enshrine "spending on education is good regardless of whether it actually improves education or not," as a true, and at that point, you're right that I can no longer argue with you. However, I almost always hear an argument with a "because": "the right for free speech for the press is good because it ensures they report fairly and honestly and make their fellow citizens," or, "health-care as a right is good because the government providing healthcare to citizens increases the quality of their care and wellness." Whenever someone says this, there is something in there that is testable and they'd better be willing to demonstrate it, especially if my tax dollars are going to fund their ventures.
Partly it's because people don't agree on what a rational basis would consist of. For example, pro gun enthusiasts consider a suicide by gunshot to not count as a "gun death", whereas pro gun control folks generally do. This different turns out to be an enormous problem, because suicide by gun makes up approximately half of all gun deaths, thereby making gun deaths either seriously dangerous when compared to motor vehicle accidents, or not dangerous at all.
There are a lot of arguments or catch phrases which seem like wise words of neutral balance, but are kind of bullshit.
"Let's not rush to politicize events" is just a defense of the status quo. It's only as noble as the status quo.
"Both sides are obstinate in their positions" ignores the fact that sometimes one side is right. If I'm obstinate about A and you're obstinate about B, it matters a hell of a lot whether there is a definitive correct answer between A & B. Whether we have lots of guns or no guns in society is a matter of preference and subject to debate, but whether there would be more mass shootings or less mass shootings if we had more or less guns, there's a definitive answer to that question.
It's not a sin to be obstinate about asserting a truth just because some people are obstinate about asserting falsehoods.
There's a whole production line devoted to the manufacture of outrage. It's not entirely spontaneous, it occurs along primed fracture lines defined by talking points which are carefully crafted to appeal to existing prejudices, morality, and tribal identification. The emotional response of the individual member of the public may be sincere from their point of view, but it's not independently arrived at.
Hypothesis testing suffers from being very easy to put a thumb on the scales. Especially if you manufacture a lot of slightly variant hypotheses and pick the ones which are significant. This turns into whataboutery.
I think the better question is why can't we be more rational/scientific about this. Forget gut feelings, put down a spreadsheet (at least) how many instances of this statistic correlate with this hypothesis. If it doesn't work, clearly your intuition is wrong, and there's nothing wrong with that, you just need to sharpen your intuition. I'd like to see government work like that, but neither side seems to want to do something like that.