I keep thinking that states where guns are rampant are that way because they distrust “the other” so much. Look at ridiculous crap like that student being killed for trick or treating at the wrong house in Louisiana.
I believe they do not want “the other” armed. They talk a good game but I think the idea of carrying a big metal dick for protection only works because deep down they realize that 95% of the time “the other” is unarmed. Easy to be brave when you’re the only one with a gun.
So what if we arm them? Organize the purchases of guns and give them for free to the poor and underprivileged.
See how quick the “rules” change about how everyone has the right to be armed to the hilt.
I think you’ve got a pretty simplistic understanding of gun owners and “gun advocate” states.
It’s not a racist thing, from what I can tell. Everyone I know who’s into the whole rights side of things is far more concerned with government overreach, infringement of what they consider a fundamental right (self defense, not strictly gun ownership), and probably most of all, a fierce resistance to the idea of what they feel is collective punishment/regulation for a few bad actors.
Where it gets weird and problematic is in two places. One, the notion that any and all regulation / registration is an infringement of rights and must be resisted full throttle. That’s where the vast majority of the problems lie IMO. And two, the idea that there’s this vital need for “self defense”. There are a lot of very paranoid people out there who are just convinced that people are out there to steal their worthless shit, and attack them, and so on. I don’t know that it’s a consciously racist thing- certainly it could have some historical segregation-type roots, but it’s not part of the current rhetoric. But it is definitely paranoid and a bit weird unless you live somewhere that you are routinely actually threatened.
I mean, as a 49 year old man who’s lived in large cities (Houston and Dallas) my entire life, I can’t say there has ever been an event where I wish I had been armed. I don’t feel threatened, I don’t feel unsafe, etc… But I know some people who do. Some are women, and that’s understandable. Others are more confusing; large white guys who aren’t liable to be threatened by anyone, but who aren’t living in palaces, sporting Rolexes, or driving expensive vehicles. Nothing they have is valuable enough to steal, but they seem to think that the criminal element is lurking around just waiting to steal their crap when they let their guard down. And that this criminal element is going to be armed, so they need to be better armed just in case. Again no racist rhetoric, just some irrational and incomprehensible fear on their part.
AFAIK, the gun crowd would applaud the arming of law-abiding poor and/or minority people. They’d see that as a GOOD thing, not a bad one because it threatens the criminal element even more.
There is historical precedence for this. Look at the history of the Black Panthers and the conservative push for gun control in response to African Americans exercising their right to legally open carry.
That was all back in the 60s, so maybe the response would be different today; modern conservatives are much more progressive than Ronald Reagan, right?
I live in a strong gun advocate state, and I own about a dozen guns that I use for self-defense or competitive shooting. I keep them in a locked gun safe, except for one of them when I’m not using them. I’m not paranoid, I just like wearing a concealed gun under certain circumstances, such as hiking in areas where bears and other predators are present, on where there are assholes who don’t leash their dogs and let them run wild and threaten either myself or my dog on a hike. That’s actually happened a few times. Luckily I was able to defuse the situation without drawing my gun.
Since just about everyone I know owns a gun, burglaries and robberies are fairly rare, although they do happen, and sometimes the burglar is shot and killed by the homeowner. I have a loaded gun on my nightstand (there are no children in the house) and an alarm on the house. If someone were to try to break in the alarm would go off, giving me time to wake up, and if they continued trying to enter the house I would be waiting for them with a lethal weapon pointed at their head. I really doubt that is ever going to happen, but I sleep better knowing I can defend myself if I needed to.
Our biggest problem is when two 20-something hotheads in a bar get drunk, get into an argument, and one of them pulls out a knife or a gun and kills the other person. I don’t see how arming every possible person is going to make that problem go away.
Racial perhaps, but not partisan. CA’s 1967 Mulford Act required a 2/3 majority in each house, with a Democrat majority in the Assembly (42:38) & State Senate (20:19). You politically motivated post has about as much historical precedence as pointing out the NRA was founded to counter the gun control tenets and ideology of the KKK.
I’m quick to agree both parties contained racist back then. The Mulford Act was enthusiastically supported and signed by Reagan, a hero of the conservative movement.
The only point is, that there is historical precedence for arming the other, and in this instance, the other very deliberately armed themselves in compliance with the law. Which soon resulted in the law being changed.
Remember when talking about history, it’s racism all the way down.
Gun rights are human rights, the right to self-defense is something we should all have. Historically gun control has been racist and targeted at minorities or political enemies. A disarmed populace is a vulnerable populace. Even though guns can be dangerous if mistreated/misused, those things should be punished all while the default right of self-defense should not be surrendered.
Already poisoned well aside: there are countless examples of restrictions designed to suppress arming of minority and/or poor people. Just last year the North Carolina legislature voted to repeal a $5 pistol permit fee. Not too onerous, but it wasn’t inflation adjusted and at the time was an intentional act to poll tax the second amendment right under Jim Crow. The governor repealed it. They represented the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively, and you can’t put the motivation on the legislature that they did it to beat Jim Crow, but it doesn’t fit the narrative. The push towards constitutional carry also reduces hurdles on the less affluent and more vulnerable, at least because it makes it free. To carry here, you need to pay about $200 in fees, burn a Saturday or work night on a class or two, take a lunch break or longer to get fingerprints, then wait 3 months for them to approve it. Repeat in 5 years.
In CA, that was a little known and rarely used loophole. The legislature would have reacted the same way if it was Nazis. Armed propel protesting on the steps on the Capital would have gotten that response, no matter their skin color. I remember reading article back then that showed people were amazed that was legal.
Today, many people of color buy and carry guns.
Oh gosh no. CA has since then passed many, many gun control laws, including a ban on “assault weapons”. a large magazine ban, a ban on all new handgun models, a Red flag law , etc.
A five-year Firearm Safety Certificate, obtained by paying a $25 fee, submission of applicant data to the state, and passing a written test proctored by a DOJ Certified Instructor, is required for the sale, delivery, loan, or transfer of any firearm
Private sales of firearms must be done through a licensed dealer.
California has a ten (10) day waiting period for all firearm purchases, transfers, and private sales which must be conducted through a federal and state firearm license holder.
After January 1, 2018 all ammunition purchases must be made through a licensed ammunition dealer and no person may import ammunition from out-of-state…
All of these post 1967 and post Black Panthers. And in fact the Mulford act didn’t really do much.
There’s also been a massive cultural change in regards to gun ownership. The NRA used to be a sportsman organization, now it’s a massive lobbying group. There’s been plenty of studies showing that gun ownership among blacks and other minorities has been tripling since the pandemic started and even the biggest far right mouthpieces I’ve seen haven’t said anything bad about it.
You know where you’ll find people actually protesting against government overreach? At BLM rallies. If the pro-gun side weren’t motivated by racism, they’d be natural allies of BLM. Ever notice how little overlap there is between those two groups?
Unfortunately for the US, effective self-defense is illegal under the Second Amendment. Plenty of people in the US have attempted to defend themselves, using the only method known to actually work, and the courts have repeatedly struck them down.
That student wasn’t killed for “trick or treating”. That student was killed for making a man fear for his life by trying to barge into his house after ignoring orders to back off. I’d sure think it was a home invasion in progress too.
I’m more than happy to have minorities armed. That’s one more person that can protect themselves from criminals.
I don’t consider taking common sense precautions to protect myself from criminals by owning and carrying guns- the proper tool for that job- any more paranoid than taking common sense precautions to protect myself form fires by having smoked detectors and fire extinguishers- the proper tool for that job.
Why? What would that do? You haven’t given any site that it would solve anything,
Someone that steals a vehicle doesn’t go and try to register it in their name. They use it briefly and dump it, just like someone who obtains a firearm illegally.
All your “solution” does it make exercising a state and federal constitutional right harder to do. But solves nothing.
Registering all those other things is just a way for the state to collect money.
I might be willing to treat guns like cars. After all, there’s no waiting period to buy one; no regulations imposing horsepower capacity limits on cars; nobody tries to insist that you store it in a theft-proof container; no hysteria over “assault cars”; etc.
I own firearms, but I haven’t really used them in a number of years. The last time I fired one was on a hunting trip back in 2007, and I don’t even have one loaded in the house for self-defense. But my wife wanted a new pistol, so we went to a gun store in the Little Rock area where I saw two African American women who just got off the range and one of them was looking at at Glock. Back when I frequently went to the range myself, prior to 2000, I cannot recall ever seeing an African American customer. I saw a few at gun shows on occasion, but I never saw any shopping or using the facilities at my local gun range. (Didn’t see a single black person at Bass Pro Shop though.)
You ever consider that states with more gun control have it in place because they don’t trust “the other” so much? It’s not like the left is free from racism even if they’re not so overt about it.
That is an amazingly ignorant description of how that went down. Just about everything you said there is wrong.
Not to say that the homeowner wasn’t paranoid to the point where he shot an unarmed teen outside his home but that’s just why such paranoid people shouldn’t have such easy access to weapons that they are encouraged to use at the slightest provocation.
If the homeowner hadn’t been armed, then the exchange student would have apologized for the mistake, and everyone would have gone on their way.
In the long run, didn’t really work out for the shooter either, his life was pretty much destroyed, and he was left with the guilt of having taken a life.
The presence of a gun in that situation only caused everyone harm.
Hey, you gotta fight fire with fire, right? Where’s your flamethrower?
And of course, not registering them gives a nice little loophole where one can profit handsomely off of providing guns to criminals.
So, are you saying that if someone plans on ever taking their gun into public, you think that they should register it?
What kind of penalty would you recommend for someone who has an unregistered gun in public?
No analogy is perfect. For instance, I can use a car to get to work, I can’t use a gun to get to work.
But of course gun registration won’t do anything so long as gun advocates are in favor of ensuring that they can sell guns to criminals without any personal consequence.