Should Democrats give up on gun control?
I have absolutely no love of playing in politics (though I would likely remain an enthusiastic observer), but I play the game because I care about my gun rights. Take that issue off the table, and I have better things to do with my time, like, you know, enjoy my gun rights for a change.
So yes, as long as the Republicans remain better for gun rights than Democrats, I will work with Republicans. But boy could I be convinced to stay home and chill if the Dems would just let the issue drop.
And why would they do that? Because there are a lot more people like me out there than there are people who will vote for Dems because they are against guns.
Thing is, does anyone here actually believe if the Democrats “gave up on gun control” that it would be a permanent thing or would they run back to it the instant doing so got them back into power?
I believe 10 seconds after they gained power they’d be back where they are now (if not worse). Gun control is just too deeply tied to the heart of the Democrat party … there are too many people who are Democrats solely because they want gun control (much like I know there are many Republicans who are Republican because of a single issue like guns or abortion … my mom is one of these, she’d be a dem if they weren’t for murdering babies).
I think that’s clear. i.e. Kirsten Gillibrand, and Sen. Bennett right here in Colorado. I know there have been pro-gun demorats in the past and are still a few now, but even if they don’t turn against us they’ll promote anti-second amendment judicial picks, won’t support pro-second amendment policies when push comes to shove, and generally help kill the movement.
I think the bottom line is that if you embrace more government, you want more control, and you damned sure trust government empowerment over citizen empowerment/freedom.
This. Honestly for me if it weren’t FOR the issues of guns and abortion I would probably have sat out on many of the GOP candidates, and many I know would as well.
There are very few original ideas coming from either party, but a 100% near religious adherence to the “free market” from the GOP in their rhetoric as a solution to every problem is getting quite tiring. The free market does not trump (no pun intended) the U.S. Constitution and the institution of the family. The very few respectable politicians like Ron and Rand Paul who actually DO believe in the concept of anarcho-capitalism and political liberty have always been shown the back seat of the GOP bus. I could at least accept the true believers like him being the voice of the party, but most of them just want to wreck the system even worse for the middle class and vote against our civil liberties just for show.
So therein lies the struggle. Yes, if I never had to worry about murdered babies or my gun rights then you bet I would probably not be interested in voting for much of anyone. Especially anyone who votes against my own economic interests to boot!
“Ron and Rand Paul who actually DO believe in the concept of anarcho-capitalism…”
As I suggested in another thread recently, try in some depth to look into the religious background and extensive related philosophy of Gary North — Ron Paul’s one-time staffer and current (?) business partner in flogging homeschool curricula — who has been by Paul’s side literally long enough to have dandled Rand on his knee.
Then explain for me how anyone who could fairly be described as a theofascist can be a sincere anarcho-anything.
I know that at one time Rand Paul had his own email account on NAGR’s servers — and when anyone mentions NAGR to me, I just naturally think of their principals, who are theofascists all.
Only reason I’m registered Republican is so I can vote in the primaries. I consider myself more Libertarian than Republican.
But if gun control were off the table I’d probably only vote in the general election.
Zundfolge is right. Remember how Harry Reid was “pro gun” for years until he decided to go full gun ban?
Gun control is people control Democrats do that on all levels from 1.5 gallon toilets to eliminate incandescent bulbs.So if you like to be free and left alone you can’t allow Democrats control.
Basically Sebastian you are making a pleas for laziness.
This. The key word is “control”, not “gun”.
My first principle is “freedom”. They will claim that their first principles are “safety” or “justice”. In reality “control” is all they really care about.
Yep, after decades of lies and betrayal from Democrats when it comes to Gun Control, it would be hard indeed to trust them now if they suddenly dropped the issue. Deeds more than words would be required for anyone to believe the Democrats had really changed.
That means actual Democrats in office who vote to either repeal anti-gun legislation or pass pro-gun legislation, votes which actually make a real difference, not some deceptive bluff vote. Good luck waiting for THAT ever to happen.
This whole idea of the Democrats possibly dropping Gun Control is nothing but an academic exercise. Despite the overwhelming evidence over the years that Gun Control is overall a losing issue for Democrats, they have doubled down on support. In fact no other issue or demographic distinction defines who today is a Republican or Democrat more than Gun Control.
The Democratic Party IS the Party of Gun Control. As long as the money men and culture warriors of the Democratic Party are fat and happy in places like San Francisco and New York, don’t expect the Democratic Party to change for the better.
Just watched the video. And at first I was struck by the honest discussion of the matter. Oh, but oh then…
Then they regurgitated the false mythology of the ‘mildness’ of the Gun Control package pushed by Obama after Sandy Hook, by focusing entirely on the background check bill and ignoring the AW ban bill.
And then they finished up with the mythology of ‘no one is trying to take your guns’ when talking about gun sales, which ignored not only the failed attempts at the Federal level but the actual draconian legislation passed in many Democratic controlled places like New York, California, Colorado, Illinois, etc.
So even these pundits, who are actually broaching the subject of the negative political consequences of Gun Control for Democrats, don’t yet understand the realities of Gun Control Laws in America.
And something I should have emphasized, the smug chuckling the pundits shared when they regurgitated the ‘no one is trying to take your guns’ Big Lie.
Doesn’t that just sum up the entire national Gun Control controversy in one scene?
Indeed. When they said “The NRA always says that the Democrats are going to take away guns, bud they never do” I *cringed*. Besides the examples you gave, and the Assault Weapons Ban, and heck, the aftermath of Sandy Hook, it’s not for lack of desire that Democrats don’t take our guns. It’s because whenever we’re afraid that they are going to be taken, we rise up and say “Not on our watch!”
The ONLY reason why Democrats haven’t taken our guns is that we are doing our darnedest to ENSURE that they don’t take our guns.
I’m not saying I’d trust the Dems if they tried Blue Dog Strategy Part Deux. I’m saying if they really gave the issue up, and I was fairly convinced they were sincere about it. That’s a big hypothetical.
He’s a goofball, but the youtuber Yankee Marshal is a good example of the kind of voter the Democrats are losing by being the party of Gun Control. He’s self-described as left-of-center and an atheist, but he is also very pro-gun.
The delusion both factions share is that their pols really care about gun control one way or the other. Both share the characteristic that since it is on their “liberal” or “conservative” laundry lists (anti- or pro-, respectively) of issues, they have to make just enough gestures to keep their base voters on the line.
The balance may not be exact; my impression is that more Democrat pols believe that being anti-gun motivates their base, than it actually does; where on the Republican side, there are more motivated pro-gun voters, but they believe more of their pols are sincere about the issue than actually are.
What everyone needs to grasp is, that there is no politician — by definition, someone seeking power for themselves, and for their faction, to impose their worldview on everyone else — who really supports an armed population. What they seek is the ability to impose themselves, and not risk having anyone say a viable “no!” to them.
Culturally, the base of the democrats has drifted extremely far. It’s become very urban, very liberal arts degree, very white collar professional. There’s pretty much zero inherent support for guns in any of their core demographics. There aren’t any solidly Democratic groups that are familiar with guns, let along strongly supportive of RKBA. You can make an argument that blacks/gays/etc are becoming more open to guns, but for the most part, these groups tend to be clustered in gun-free urban areas. Rural (ie, gun owning) blacks and heavily armed gays live in solidly republican areas.
The real problem the democrats have is that people in rural areas have caught on to the fact that electing democrats inevitably results in far left democrats (Pelosi, Schumer) running the congress/senate, which fucks gun owners over.
The only way to take away the issue is for gun rights to make major inroads into the major urban areas by way of federal action.
“You can make an argument that blacks/gays/etc are becoming more open to guns…”
I would only quibble with your use of “becoming.” Please remember that the Open Carry movement originated with the Black Panthers roughly 50 years ago; and they were making gun rights arguments to the right of the NRA at the time. And, it was Ronald Reagan as governor who started the California gun control hysteria. (That relates to my reflection above about no one in power liking people saying a meaningful “no” to them.)
I don’t know the individual histories of the Black Panthers of the time, but I suspect you would find many of them came from families that had already been “urban” for more than a generation. (Though Huey Newton was from a sharecropping family in Louisiana, and he had been inspired by Malcolm X, who had left a rural background at an early age.) But they didn’t need guns as a hobby to understand one of the pragmatic reasons for Keeping and Bearing Arms.
” And, it was Ronald Reagan as governor who started the California gun control hysteria.”
Started? Started!!
That is utter B.S. and a favorite lie of anti-gun groups. A whole slew of anti-gun laws passed in California in the early 60’s years before Reagan took office. I know, because I looked them up in the library law books and read them for myself.
Much of the crap that got larded into the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968, were already passed into law in California in 1965, years before Reagan’s 1st term. And the apparent excuse was the left wing fear mongering about right-wing groups like the John Birch Society and the Minutemen.
The great anti-gun smear against Reagan, is the fact he signed anti-gun legislation that was given a turboboost by the stupid posturing of the Black Panthers Party at the Capitol Building. Reagan didn’t sponsor that legislation, or push for it. He just didn’t veto it.
More and more I become suspicious of your actual motives “Whetherman”, and your cutesy aping of the name used by the “Weatherman” commie terrorists doesn’t help your case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground
I am willing to stand corrected on my use of the word “started,” though if we agree to play the “who started it” game I’m sure we could find a 19th century sheriff in some California mining town who demanded that people check their guns when coming into town. I think we can all agree that gun control isn’t solely a 20th century concept, and that it was practiced by authoritarians of all persuasions from the time the Second Amendment was still wet ink on parchment.
For someone who “didn’t push” the Mulford Act, Reagan certainly didn’t express deep regrets or reluctance when he signed it:
My usage of the wordplay on “Whether” is very unoriginal and derivative; if Bob Dylan thought “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”, you sure as hell don’t need one to know “whether” it’s blowing at all; even ostriches with their heads in the sand should be able to feel it blowing up their asses. Along with the smoke.
don’t worry, it’s not like Brad was about to explain the massive pro-gun battles Reagan fought for us. he just wants to imply you’re a radical leftist because you dared to NOT praise Reagan.
If the Democrats would give up on gun control and stay that way for 30 years, I might trust them enough to consider voting for them. By then, though I will be dead and voting Democrat anyway.
It’s too late to “just drop it.” That worked in 2000 because Dems still had a substantial number of working class voters in their base.
Now that Dems have lost working class voters, they need to go full bore and support and push for gun rights to attract some working class voters. Michigan and Wisconsin, where Dems lost a lot of working class voters in 2016, are now the frontier of constitutional carry.
I’ve voted for fiscally conservative socially liberal Dems before. And I might again, if they jettison the anti-self-defense pro-govt employee union agenda. The reality that the Dems don’t seem to get is that the center of the country is far more small govt, pro-school choice libertarian, than their current leftist socialist base. The pro-school choice activists even picked up a massive victory in deep blue Los Angeles school district a few weeks ago.
I doubt that the Dems will heed this. All change in political parties happens through natural selection, not because elders change their mind – the agenda is eventually written by the winners. That means pro-gun-rights Dems have to win, and win back a large block of seats.
No. At least not while they’re campaigning. If they give it up then, they might regain power, and then they’ll force it on us. See, they won’t give it up, they’ll only hide it.
Of course, they should abandon gun restriction, but they cannot because they are spellbound by totalitarianism – it is identity with them. They have a fundamental need to disarm us to realize that nightmare of oppression of theirs that they mean to impose on us, and they also have a diabolical craving to force it on us. It’s who they are. They’re evil like that.
“Only my enemy wants me disarmed.”
Sums up my attitude towards most vile Democrats and a few traitorous Republicans.
The 2A is there because our Founding Fathers recognized that power corrupts and likewise that evil people crave power.
Anyone who wants to take away your means of personal self-defense or your ability to resist tyranny is evil. They mean to harm or control you.