Gun control vs. mental health: We tracked congressional campaign messaging after the Texas shooting

As news of another mass shooting spread on Tuesday, the campaigns of congressional candidates across the country launched hundreds of social media posts about the Texas attack over the following two days.

Democratic congressional candidates talked up gun reform legislation. Republican candidates cast the tragedy as a mental health problem. A handful of words and phrases appeared in feeds from campaigners from both parties, offering some hope for common ground. But the evidence for any overlap in thinking was limited at best.

USA TODAY analyzed the Facebook and Twitter posts from the campaigns of more than 1,000 U.S. Senate and House candidates to map the messaging strategies related to gun violence of those running for Congress in 2022.

The data showed that words evoked by the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas quickly shot to the top based on share of all words used by the campaigns of each party. More than 1,300 posts mentioned the Texas shooting directly.

Based on the phrases that gained the most usage since last week for candidates from each party, reactions showed some sharp distinctions.

What Democratic campaigns are saying

Among the top phrases that grew in usage among Democratic campaigns were “common sense gun reform,” “gun violence” and “background checks”:

This is devastating and it shouldn't take loss like this to pass common sense gun legislation.” — Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, of Wisconsin

“We must take action to pass common sense, reasonable gun safety laws and we must have principle in our politics.” — Democratic House candidate Shuwaski Young, of Mississippi

“Every member of Congress who refuses to act on common sense gun safety needs to resign right now.” — Democratic Senate candidate Charles Booker, of Kentucky

What Republican campaigns are saying

Among Republican campaigns, the biggest leap in online phrasing came from words including “mental health,” “evil,” “prayers” and “tragedy”:

“Our nation needs to take a serious look at the state of mental health today.” — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is running for reelection in Georgia

“We need to make mental health a priority in this country.” — Rep. Troy Nehls, who is running for reelection in Texas

“We have to fund safety measures for our kids and real mental health solutions.” — Republican House candidate Robby Starbuck, of Tennessee

“My prayers are with the people of Uvalde, TX as we see a true tragedy unfold.” — Republican House candidate Irene Armendariz-Jackson, of Texas

Ronda Kennedy, a Republican running for Democrat Adam Schiff’s House seat in California, summarized her party’s thinking in a tweet: “This is a mental health issue not a gun issue.”

These reactions track a well-worn pattern in the wake of gun violence and mass shootings.

“Partisans continue to rely on rhetorical frames they’ve used in earnest since Sandy Hook,” Lydia Wilkes, who studies the rhetoric of gun violence at Auburn University, told USA TODAY. “Republicans focus on the family as the primary social unit and appeal to morality and religion,” said Wilkes, while Democrats focus on safeguarding children through legislation.

“Each group continues to appeal to its base, unsurprisingly,” said Wilkes.

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What Republicans said that Democrats didn't

The analysis also used a formula to identify phrases uniquely used by candidates in one party and not the other on Tuesday and Wednesday, regardless of whether these phrases were gaining in popularity.

Some phrases and hashtags used heavily by Republicans but not Democrats included “law abiding,” “act of evil” and “#prayfortexas”:

“Joe Biden it wasn’t the gun lobby that killed those children nor law a abiding [sic] gun owner.” — Republican House candidate Omar Navarro, of California

“I’m sickened by the horrific act of evil in Uvalde, Texas.” — Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, of Pennsylvania

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What Democrats said that Republicans didn't

Uniquely used by Democrats were phrases and hashtags such as “tired of,” “#guncontrolnow” and “#endgunviolence”:

“I am one of the millions of moms who are tired of worrying if their kid will be the next victim of a school shooting. We demand action. We demand gunsense.” — Democratic House candidate Cindy Banyai, of Florida

“The only choice is to act. And act now. We know what needs to be done and our leaders — state and federal — must act now to stop this senseless, constant, unacceptable violence. #EndGunViolence” — Democratic House candidate Joy Fox, of Rhode Island

Dichotomy in language reflects parties' difference in values

These phrases reveal how distinctly the parties frame events such as Uvalde.

Even the shorthand used to describe murder by gunfire reflects differences in values. Democratic campaigns in recent days stood out for their use of the phrase “gun violence,” while Republicans were distinguishable for calling attacks such as Uvalde an “act of violence.”

One side casts them as unavoidable tragedies that shouldn’t result in law-abiding citizens being deprived of firearms; the other side expresses legislative proposals and more esoteric arguments.

That dichotomy is well known. One study that analyzed 380,000 political speeches concluded that “liberals lecture, conservatives communicate.”

Alexandra Filindra, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is not surprised by the polarization, describing “a huge asymmetry” to the rhetoric.

“On the Democratic side, the debate has been taken over by public health experts who are well meaning but don’t understand political psychology; they come up with messaging that is based on costs and benefits,” said Filindra. “The other side makes it an issue of fundamental rights. They’ve made gun rights the equivalent of civil rights.”

The rhetoric “doesn’t need to be very sophisticated,” she said. “Fear is easy to cultivate. It’s that simple.”

A glimpse of bipartisan agreement around 'red flag' laws

Yet the data offered one sliver of evidence for bipartisan agreement in the reactions to the Texas shooting — however tiny it might be.

The increase in relative popularity of the phrase “red flag laws” in social media posts by candidates from both parties could suggest a potential area for compromise.

The absolute numbers were small: five social media posts from Democratic candidates and two from Republicans mentioning red flag laws. But those mentions amounted to one of the few areas of overlap in trending words used by both parties.

Legislation in 19 states allows authorities to temporarily remove guns from people considered to be a threat to themselves or others. Congress announced on Wednesday that the House will vote on a red flag bill in mid-June that would authorize federal courts to issue protective orders.

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Matt Putorti, a Democrat running for House in New York, tweeted a proposal to pass red flag laws along with other measures.

“Close gun-show and ghost-gun loopholes, implement universal background checks, pass red flag laws, and increase funding for the CDC to conduct gun violence research,” he wrote.

Larry Lazor, a Republican running for House in Connecticut, wrote: “We need to pass universal background checks, an end to the gun show registration loophole, and increased red flag reporting.”

The viability of a federal red flag law

There appears to be movement on Capitol Hill on the issue of red flag laws. Axios reports that bipartisan talks have started among members of Congress. It’s not clear whether the discussion hints at Republican support for federal legislation or merely support for states that choose to enact their own laws.

Ryan Ceresola, a professor of sociology at Hartwick College who studied politicians’ reactions to the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida, said red flag laws might enjoy bipartisan support because they can be cast within each party’s traditional messaging.

“In my view, the reason this is getting bipartisan support is because it hits both political parties' views of what should be done,” said Ceresola. “For Democrats, they see a plausible gun control strategy. For Republicans, they see a plausible mental health strategy.”

Despite having red flag laws on the books, some states haven’t used them effectively, the Wall Street Journal reported last year. For two states with similar populations, Florida has used the law almost 10 times more often than New York to seize firearms.

Other states such as Oregon and Washington have had success in curbing violence, at least temporarily, by using red flag laws to remove weapons from people who are suicidal or threatening mass violence.

But the research is limited on the overall effectiveness of the laws, most of which have only been passed in the last few years. Studies in Connecticut and Indiana have found that for every 10 to 20 so-called extreme risk protection orders issued, one suicide was prevented. A study in California found no effect on population-level firearm violence.

Aleszu Bajak is a reporter on USA TODAY’s national investigative team. He can be reached at abajak@usatoday.com, @aleszubajak or by phone or Signal at (646) 543-3017.

How we analyzed the candidates' social media posts

USA TODAY has tracked Facebook and Twitter posts of more than 2,000 candidates running for Congress in 2022, working with data from KnowWho, a company that maintains directories of elected officials. Some of these campaigns are no longer active after losing their primaries. Rising words and phrases were calculated by measuring their frequency relative to all words and phrases posted by each party’s congressional candidates that week. Seven-day change is calculated by finding the largest percentage point change in a phrase’s relative frequency week over week. In some instances, duplicate phrasing and terms coming from one account are removed from the analysis. Separately, USA TODAY used a method known as TF-IDF to surface recent words that tended to be used by candidates of one party and not the other, regardless of seven-day change in usage.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What Democrats, Republicans said about gun laws after Texas shooting