Have there been any anti-death penalty Democratic presidents at all? Can we agree that most prominent Democrats are not anti-gun in general but rather looking for some sensible regulation?
As far as pro-life, I’ll agree that there are no prominent pro-life Democrats anymore, although I’m sure there are many at the state level.
That they’re probably not interested in a productive discussion, like you.
I don’t think most prominent Republicans would agree with that assessment. I certainly don’t, but I’m not what you’d call “prominent”.
To Republicans “sensible gun regulation” means “no regulation”.
A convenient, and common, avoidance tactic, that. It’s the other guys who don’t want an honest and productive discussion, so there’s no point in trying. Doesn’t that feel good?
Cite? There are already loads of gun regulations on the books.
With you, it feels like a real time-saver at least.
Jimmy Carter
That confirmation is welcome, if perhaps unintended.
Here is the deal IMHO, to most gun owners the Democrat’s idea of sensible regulations means ban all guns. Whenever I see a so called sensible gun control regulation passed I usually see some Democratic politician saying it is a good first step.
I know, there supposedly isn’t any such thing as a slippery slope. Well I’m sorry, I believe there is.
As far as pro-life legislation goes, how about we discuss some reasonable and sensible regulations to abortion? Meaning that abortion becomes more restrictive than it is now.
I personally think there aren’t that many Democratic politicians that believe in total gun control but they are pandering to their base while I also believe that most Republican politicians are doing the same with abortion, pandering to their base.
They’re definitely against anything new. Ban bump stocks? Heaven forbid! I think many would love to repeal much if not all of existing gun regulations.
I asked you for a cite. “I think …” is your cite?
No, we definitely can’t agree on that. Hillary Clinton was certainly a prominent Democrat, but she was in favor of something as close to a complete ban on ordinary people having guns as they can get away with; she explicitly favors a pre-Heller DC style gun control, with handguns completely banned and long guns not allowed for self-defense. Democrats at a national level keep pushing to move as close to this as they can whenever they’re in position to, and oppose ‘common sense’ gun restrictions that respect the concept of due process, like the NRA-sponsored legislation on mental health and background checks. Democrats like to say stuff about ‘sensible regulation’, but in practice that amounts to ‘restrict guns and gun ownership as much as we can possibly get away with’. If they were in favor of what I would call ‘sensible regulation’, then Democratic strongholds like IL, CA, NYC, and DC would have shall-issue concealed carry, but those places all have ‘as close to a ban as we can get away with’.
IOW, “It’s the other guys who are the extremists who can’t be reasoned with!” :rolleyes:
Even if you have to ignore what they’re saying and pretend they’re saying something else.
So claiming that they’re all lying about what they’re secretly scheming to implement is better than a slippery slope?
I live in Illinois. Everyone I know that wants a gun or concealed carry license has one. What the hell are you talking about? I could get one myself if I wanted to. You are being misled it seems.
Do not personalize arguments in this fashion. Here’s a tip - if you don’t feel like a particular line of discussion is going to be productive - you don’t have to respond. If you feel you must, the Pit is right around the corner.
[/moderating]
IMHO, most gun owners are hearing the wrong message. (Pantastic, can I have a cite for that being Clinton’s position?). Their message may be confused (what’s an assault weapon? something that looks scary? seems silly), but after the AWB, the Democrats didn’t push for much more. Background checks, closing loopholes, those aren’t bans.
Contrast that with Republicans who specifically want to ban abortions and openly admit that the various roadblocks and so on they are doing at the state and federal level is in order to completely ban abortions.
I’ll take them, both Dems and Reps, at their word.
In any case, banning guns is certainly not in their platform and there are many pro-gun Democrats. Sorry I forgot about Carter, but there are plenty of pro-death-penalty Democrats.
Yep, they lost those two other special elections, but Democrats are doing well overall:
Democrats have now picked up 35 state legislative seats across the country in special elections, while Republicans have picked up just four since Trump took office.
Clinton stated that she opposed the Heller decision. The Heller decision forbids DC-style gun bans, but doesn’t forget anything that a reasonable person would call ‘sensible’ gun regulation, and in fact explicitly says that regulation is OK. There is no plausible reason to oppose the Heller decision other than a desire to implement DC-style gun bans, so clearly that’s what she wants to do. Opposing Heller on gun rights is a direct analogy to opposing Roe v Wade on abortion rights, asserting that someone who wants to overturn Heller doesn’t want to ban guns is like asserting that someone who wants to overturn Roe doesn’t want to ban abortion.
One can look to Democratic-dominated areas like IL (especially Chicago), NY (especially NYC), California (especially LA and SF), and DC to see what ‘common sense regulation’ looks like, and it is consistently ‘as close to a ban as we can get away with’. Sure the platform doesn’t explicitly say ‘we want to ban guns’, but the practice does - and costs them significant votes. If Democrats would actually push for ‘common sense’ regulation (like shall-issue concealed carry) instead of ‘as close to a ban as we can get’, there’s a chunk of voters that would stay home or vote blue.