The U.S. Senate’s failure to pass gun control legislation is the victory of an intense minority against an apathetic majority

Despite support from around 90 percent of US citizens in the wake of 2012’s Sandy Hook School shooting, expanded background checks for gun purchases failed in the US Senate. Laurent Bouton, Paola Conconi, Francisco J Pino, and Maurizio Zanardi write that this ‘gun-control paradox’ can be explained by the fact that the intensity of voters’ preferences differs across policy issues, and voters only have one vote with which to hold politicians accountable on a bundle of issues. A model incorporating these features predicts Senate voting behaviour very well, finding that Senators closer to re-election are more likely to vote pro-gun, and only Democrats ‘flip-flop’ on guns.