STEPHEN L. CARTER: Secretly, Americans Love Guns. Watch ‘The Walking Dead.’

I don’t know how the debate over gun control is going to play out. But there’s a challenge at the heart of the matter to which we pay too little attention.

Secretly, Americans love guns — if not the actual physical devices then at least the abstract idea. We say we don’t, but our collective id, as represented by what we watch on the screen, suggests otherwise. Because for every police procedural where the suspect who swears he’s innocent finds his licensed handgun missing from its lockbox, there are two popular post-apocalyptic thrillers where the possession of firearms is the only ticket to survival. . . .

My point, once more, is the opposite: that such shows are popular because of a deep-set fear that perhaps things might one day spin out of control, that government, law enforcement, all the institutions that exist to protect us, might one day fail. No doubt the fear is stronger in some quarters than others. But in our debate over how best to control gun violence, let’s remember that fear can’t be legislated away.

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