JOHN HINDERAKER: Liberals Can’t Argue, They Can Only Bully. “Of course, no such evidence is cited. As always, when liberals say the debate is over, it means they are losing. Actually, the evidence shows that the places with the strictest gun control–Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example–have more gun violence than average, not less. More broadly, the homicide rate today is only about half what it was during the Clinton administration. It has steadily declined as gun rights have expanded. The causal relationship certainly can be debated, and lots of ink has been spilled analyzing data, but the argument is empirical and the New Yorker contributes nothing to it.”

It’s not meant to, merely to comfort the New Yorker’s poorly educated and easily led followers.

UPDATE: From the comments:

The anti-gun writers seem to be engaging more in social signaling than in argument. Their articles are asserting their own membership in the Great and Good, unlike those awful gun owners, who are probably toothless, married to their sisters, and church-goers. You don’t want to be like THEM, do you?

Gopnick’s article is hilariously pretentious, even by the lofty standards of the New Yorker. “Moral work?”

Heh.