Is your argument that because making something illegal doesn’t stop determined people from doing it, we should stop making it illegal?
Bloomberg aside, Bricker, I’m sure you can find plenty of Democrats who support tightened gun control laws. I see you came up with two above. In fact, I’ll go ahead and concede that Democrats, on average, are more in favor of gun control legislation than Republicans are, on average. Neither of those were me point.
My arguments were that 1) Democrats as a whole have been ignoring the issue of gun control for several years now and 2) actually conceding the gun control debate in the hopes that this “compromise” will do shit all towards getting Republicans to stop attacking Democrats on gun control issues is a fool’s errand.
I think the Democrats are pretty much doing exactly what the OP wants them to do already. To the extent that it is an issue for them, it’s waaaaay down on the list.
To be fair, this is one of those “A Northern Republican is more liberal than a Southern Democrat” ideas. With Bloomberg “Southern” starts at Staten Island.
Automatic rifles have been strictly regulated for the better part of a century. They are not legal in most states.
That is not the sole purpose of a handgun. I have several handguns, and they are not used to shoot people. They are intrinsically interesting from historical and industrial standpoints, so they have value as artefacts. Most people use handguns for target shooting. Some are useless for anything but target shooting.
And yes, people do hunt with handguns.
No my argument is that there are numerous benefits to private gun ownership, and that while there are some downsides, the banning of the guns as proposed by the OP, doesn’t solve those problems. So legislation would eliminate the benefits and not prevent the problems. Sounds like a failed premise.
Doesn’t seem to be difficult for people to buy those automatic rifles, and I bet if you really tried, you could buy as many as you wished.
Historical artifacts, eh? OK, then how about just banning the bullets? OK with that?
And hunting with a handgun? Really?
OK, I guess some people still spearfish, but my guess is I am not going to see whole bunches of people out in the woods this fall shooting deer with a Colt 45.
When guns & US citizens & Canadian citizens all get in the same place there seems to be a disconnect.
It was pointed out to me way back in the days before computers that In the US western settlement era, the people came & then brought law so to speak.
Canadians had government & law in the western lands before they had the people.
No this is most likely to simplified but like the people of the UK, there is such a difference in culture and history that the two sides can not seem to get past enough to keep nationalism out of the discussion.
And IMO, the same thing hampers the two major parties in the US.
I don’t think it will go away nearly as fast as most folks here would like it to.
YMMV
Generally in agreement with your thinking (if not your solution). But a handgun is a very practical tool in a hunt. Even a good marksman can overshoot his abilities and knock down an elk with a shot to the foreleg or guts. I, for one, am not about to discharge my .308 at point blank range for a coup de grâce. That’s what the .44 mag is for. Also, if I’m hauling a carcass out of the woods and a mountain lion wants to tax me for passage upon his lands, I’d feel better settling the dispute with a handgun than with a long, heavy, ridiculously powerful rifle.
Except it’s not a “compromise” because Democrats haven’t gotten anything in return. Democrats simply abandoned it as a political cause, for no good reason.
Now, you see… This is just the sort of thing I’m talking about that makes Republicans think the Democrats are out to get them and to turn the country into Stalinist Russia. Democrats say things like that and the opposition says, ‘You see? They don’t even know what an automatic rifle is! They’re all like, “Oh, we can’t ban guns? Let’s ban ammo! Muwahahahahaha!” They don’t even know people hunt with handguns! Why should we give them anything?’
Isn’t better to focus on the things that will help people and the country most (UHC, equal rights, etc.), than to keep harping on a no-win issue?
I can’t hear this phrase without thinking of Zack & Miri Make A Porno.
Oh, and I wonder if UHC could provide mental health treatment that would prevent some of the nastier gun slaughters (I’m thinking of The Joker dude in Denver).
Be not distracted by (valid) points about hunting.
The primary, intended purpose of most handguns, and many long guns, is to shoot people. Or more specifically, to be prepared to shoot people, if necessary.
That is the right that the majority of Americans wish to uphold.
Hunting, collecting, target shooting are all fine, but not the core argument.
Carolyn McCarthy is very strongly anti-gun, too- not surprising since she ran for Congress after Colin Ferguson murdered her husband and nearly killed her son in the 1993 LIRR shooting rampage. We could find another example or two, but the point is that she’s one of only a handful of Democrats who actually want to do anything on the issue. The others have decided they’re only going to lose votes if they make a push for more gun control. Of course, at best this is a loss-avoidance strategy. I don’t think it’s gained them anything, and now you can find Republicans who blame every shooting spree on the Democrats and say it’s a Reichstag-burning style operation intended to justify gun control measures that never get brought up for debate.
So it’s not enough that the president and the Congressional leadership no longer put up bill to vote gun control laws into being. So what, every individual Democrat has to personally swear to give up on the idea of any kind of gun control?
Remember there was a brief flurry of speculation after the Giffords shooting about an attempt to limit so-called “oversized” ammunition clips. The Dems couldn’t even get up the gumption to make a push like that – and I would guess there’s tons of support for a measure like that. Of course, what do I know? I’m a liberal.
I think that’s exactly why Johnny L.A. is correct.
As a party, the Democrats are best served by flatly abolishing any hint of gun control from their platform, and indeed explicitly enshrining Second Amendment rights.
They can still tolerate the minority who want to actively break with the party on that issue. But identifying the whole party with gun control–or allowing it to be so identified by the other side–is a losing strategy. Meaningful work on health care and energy and the environment has already been lost.
In addition to being dumb it’d be pointless. No matter what the Democrats say or do, Republicans and the NRA (but I repeat myself) will say they’re going to come take your guns away the first chance they get. Just this week Republicans started telling the public their party platform on abortion doesn’t matter; they won’t take the Democrats at their word and the public won’t either.
Yes, if not for this one issue we’d be in the middle of a bipartisan Golden Age.
REAL men eschew guns and sharpen their hanzo steel katana on their utilikilts.
No, but I’m quite certain that being perceived as the party of gun control has lost the Democrats many more votes than it has won them. And for what? Gun control advocates themselves don’t have any successes to point to.
If the party platform, plus some prominent candidates, explicitly supported gun rights, that perception could be worn away in time. It wouldn’t make any actual difference on guns; the overall trend is against gun control, regardless of what the Democratic Party does.