I came across this article comparing the gun control debate with the debates over mutants in the Marvel universe.

From the article:
The human tendency is to judge all people by their worst examples and to act accordingly. This is silly and frankly bigoted, but it’s what people do and you just have to argue around it. Almost all transgender people want to do is use a bathroom in peace and not molest children under pretext; however, people are ready to judge the 99.9% who obey the law by the rare example who actually does commit a bathroom molestation. Most immigrants, particularly from Islamic countries, want to immigrate to the United States for peace and prosperity; however, people are ready to judge all of them because of the few who come here and commit terrorism. I maintain that 9/11 was far more catastrophic than any school shooting, but we shouldn’t block Muslim immigrants because of the dozen or so who killed 3,000 Americans on one very bad day, or the one who killed numerous LGBTQ people in Orlando.

So the X-Men deal with the same crap. Some mutants have gone terrorist; all are judged by that standard. One mutant could commit a crime; therefore, people assume that they will.

To borrow a phrase, snip:

Still, readers connect with the X-Men despite the bona fide concerns of the world around them. Why?

Because we read the X-Men as “real” people. We know that not all mutants are not the Brotherhood and Magneto. We follow them as ordinary people who come from ordinary backgrounds. While they have extraordinarily dangerous powers, they’re not dangerous people. They date, play baseball, go to bars and movies, and are generally not interested in hurting anyone who isn’t out to hurt them first. For the most part, they want to help.

Joss Whedon had a run on Astonishing X-Men, which was the first comic I picked up after a fifteen-year hiatus. There was a scene where Cyclops confronts the rest of the team over who’s being mind controlled. The team is freaked out because Cyclops is holding a handgun. Cyclops. The mutant whose eye blasts can take down giant robots. And his team is more scared of the 1911 in his hand. Let’s just say it was something that yanked me out of the narrative right quick.