10/01/2026
MSU PLS is hosting an American Politics Workshop Thursday, October 8, at 12:00 p.m. in SKH 104 featuring Agustin Markarian, Loyola University Chicago
Title: Boundaries of Protection: Why Some Gun Deaths Trigger Gun Control but Most Don't
Abstract: Within weeks of the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people—disproportionately White upper-middle-class children—a Republican trifecta passed the most significant gun control legislation in the state's history. Twenty months earlier, 49 people—most of them young LGBTQ people of color—were killed at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The state never even considered gun control in response.
Boundaries of Protection asks what explains these disparate responses. The book contends that political responses to gun violence are racialized, shaped by "colorblind" narratives and structures with deep historical roots. These narratives construct White victims as deserving of protection and link their victimization to gun policy. On the other hand, they paint victims of color as undeserving and disassociate their victimization from fi***rm laws. Drawing on thirty years of state gun policy, millions of legislators' tweets, multiple measures of interest group advocacy and spending, large surveys tracking public opinion, and election returns data, the book shows that American gun policy is disproportionately responsive to the deaths of White victims, leaving communities of color under-protected from violence. In doing so, the book speaks to America's under-responsiveness to its devastating gun violence epidemic.
