"The Walking Dead" is all about gun control

To the extent that it has any, The Walking Dead’s politics reflect those of moderate Americans: a deep respect for civil rights, coupled with anxieties about keeping the wrong guns off the market, and out of the wrong hands. As much as this show delights in creative gore, the entire third season focuses on the danger of losing yourself in violence under the pretext of self-defense. Its proposed safeguard against this risk is almost as messy as a zombie’s dining etiquette: democracy and compromise. They only survive with a tenuous balance of a leader’s decisiveness, contentious debate, and wary eyes on their world’s monsters, dead or alive. The show treats guns like most Americans do – an important, dangerous and inevitable part of that tricky balance.