Marriage Decreases Gun Violence? (and subtle racial coding)

In last night’s debate the following question was asked: “What will you do to get assault weapons out of the hands of criminals?”

Romney answered: “What I believe is we have to do, as the president mentioned towards the end of his remarks there, which is to make enormous efforts to enforce the gun laws that we have, and to change the culture of violence that we have … And I believe if we do a better job in education, we'll give people the hope and opportunity they deserve and perhaps less violence from that. But let me mention another thing. And that is parents. We need moms and dads, helping to raise kids. Wherever possible the benefit of having two parents in the home, and that's not always possible. A lot of great single moms, single dads. But gosh to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone, that's a great idea. Because if there's a two parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will be able to achieve increase dramatically. So we can make changes in the way our culture works to help bring people away from violence and give them opportunity, and bring them in the American system.”

Many commentators have already pointed out that this subtle blaming of single-parents for violence contradicts evidence that gun violence is going down as single-parent families are increasing (see: http://prospect.org/article/stop-gun-violence-get-married and http://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/debate-debate-on-single-mothers-and-crime/) and that the individuals involved in several high-profile shooting cases came from two-parent families (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendy-fontaine/romney-gun-violence-single-parent_b_1972505.html). 

I think there is another point to be made about Romney’s statement: that there is a subtle racial coding at work.  Much discussion around single-parent households revolves around those who live below the poverty line.  It is true there is a correlation between those two phenomena, but a lot of evidence that single-parenting does not cause poverty.  In addition, when those living below the poverty line and “female headed households” are discussed it is usually with reference to “inner cities” and racial and ethnic minorities. There is a long history in the country, going back at least to the infamous “Moynihan Report,” of blaming black single mothers in particular for poverty and attacking welfare by linking it with racist beliefs and ideologies.  Although Romney doesn’t specifically mention race, or even female headed households, I think this is still subtly coded as a problem of minorities and their “dysfunctional” families which are often blamed for problems such as gangs, school drop-outs, illegal drugs, and violence.