So Cory Booker is now Unelectable.

[Wesley_Clark]

@pool

I didn’t mention anything about white supremacy. But somehow I doubt black Americans, or at least black males would be in favor of gun control.

Are black Americans big advocates for gun control, I work in Atlanta right now and I see quite a few black people walking around open carry. Is there data on it?

All I could find was this. Blacks are slightly more in favor of gun control, but not by much.

Analysis | Black Americans want new gun laws to curb gun violence. Trump...

To reiterate, I’m not saying everyone opposed to gun control is a white supremacist. But racial resentment and opposition to gun control are connected issues, like it or not. And a lot of those people aren’t going to vote democratic no matter what since the democrats are the cosmopolitan, multicultural party.

[Thing_Fish]

I think it’s a smart move for Booker. Gun control is popular with both Democrats and the general public. And frankly, he could use an issue to help him stand out from the crowd, because his campaign’s kind of fizzling. He lost the Bright Young Guy lane to Beto, who subsequently lost it to Mayor Pete. Now Beto is trying to pivot to being Climate Change Guy (sorry, Jay Inslee!). Booker could make worse choices than being Gun Violence Guy.

Can’t read your link, but surprised to hear that. I live in Chicago, where there are many black people and many guns, and I can’t think of a single black politician or community leader here who isn’t strongly in favor of gun control. Well, OK, there’s Farrakhan, but that’s about it. Maybe blacks in the South feel differently?

[Thing_Fish]

It’s interesting that for all the talk on this board of the crucial pro-gun Democratic vote, none of the 27 candidates has seized the opportunity to be Let Us Keep Our Assault Weapons Guy. I wonder why that is?

[pool]

@Wesley_Clark

All I could find was this. Blacks are slightly more in favor of gun control, but not by much.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/12/black-americans-want-new-gun-laws-to-curb-gun-violence-trump-offers-more-police/?utm_term=.8e141931914a

To reiterate, I’m not saying everyone opposed to gun control is a white supremacist. But racial resentment and opposition to gun control are connected issues, like it or not. And a lot of those people aren’t going to vote democratic no matter what since the democrats are the cosmopolitan, multicultural party.

I don’t know man I read your cites and honestly I don’t really find them compelling at all, polls about racial resentment, whatever that means equates to white supremacy I just don’t find it very scientific. Last time I checked correlation also doesn’t equal causation, your a smart guy, I read your posts but I find your whole white supremacy angle a bit of a red herring. If you want to just say those votes don’t matter maybe that sounds like a more legitimate argument.

[Lamoral]

@Thing_Fish

It’s interesting that for all the talk on this board of the crucial pro-gun Democratic vote, none of the 27 candidates has seized the opportunity to be Let Us Keep Our Assault Weapons Guy. I wonder why that is?

Because “campaigning on NOT doing something” isn’t really a thing?

[JXJohns]

@septimus

With one exception, every single item on the list seems like good common-sense to me, and shouldn’t interfere with legitimate gun nuts. Which item is so very very bad that it makes gun owners want to curl up and cry?

The whole going to jail bit he spoke about raises the pucker factor a bit:

“Again, we should have a law that bans these weapons, and we should have a reasonable period in which people can turn in these weapons,” Booker replied. “Right now we have a nation that allows in streets and communities these weapons that shouldn’t exist.”

For all of his tip-toeing around the question, he had to concede a central truth about law: after a “reasonable” grace period, any gun owner refusing to give up “assault weapons” by choice will be forced to do so under threat of prison time.

This represents a significant change in direction from the typical “ban assault weapons” trope. No longer a ban on sales or transfers, he wants the guns turned in.

[septimus]

@Wesley_Clark

https://splinternews.com/the-simple-surprising-factor-that-explains-america-s-g-1793860212

A researcher explains how racial resentment drives opposition to gun control - Vox

You guys can pretend there is no connection between gun nuts and white identity politics, but there is. Nobody is saying everyone who owns a gun is a white nationalist. But its a connection that nobody is willing to talk about.

Alarming reads! Thanks for the links Wesley Clark.

From the first link:

Using this model, we found that racial resentment—not ethnicity, gender, geographic location, or political preference—was the single strongest predictor of gun ownership.

The graph shows that ***over 90% of whites without racist resentmentWesley Clark (a) support a ban on high-cap magazines, (b) support a ban on assault rifles and (c) oppose making it easier to get concealed carry permit. Whites who score high on the racial resentment questionaire have very different opinions. Less than 40% of racially-resentful whites favored any of of (a), (b), (c). This is very strong correlation.

The second link looks at this correlation in more detail.

People tend to associate guns with protection. Except if you look at it from a racial standpoint, this doesn’t, as a self-interested argument for opposition to gun control, make much sense, because white Americans tend to live in more secure neighborhoods and tend to be more affluent and tend to be less likely by far to be victims of crime. So why is it that people who don’t need the extra protection are the ones who want it?

But people who actually do need it from a realistic standpoint — so African Americans and Latinos who live in poor neighborhoods that are far more crime-ridden, where trust in police is low, where response rates by police are lower, where the quality of policing may also be affected — why is it that they’re not rushing to get guns and support gun rights?
…
Half [of a very large group of white people] received three pictures of black people and three pictures of white people from the implicit association test. We asked them to evaluate these pictures in terms of looks and likability, which essentially is a distractor test — it just lets people spend a little bit more time with the pictures and provides a context for assessing the pictures and looking at them, because just having them go through pictures wouldn’t make sense.

The other half didn’t get the test. They didn’t see any pictures whatsoever. They were not primed for race.

What we find is that, on average, the people who saw the pictures [and had race on their mind] were statistically significantly more likely to oppose gun control than the people who did not receive any pictures. Because there was random assignment and this was a controlled experiment, we can basically say that there’s a causal relationship between racial considerations and attitudes about gun control.

@ DrDeth — What do you think about these studies? Obviously you’re not a racist or a white supremacist, but when your own little gun club votes on such matters, how does it make you feel to be voting on the same side as the Nazis or those shouting “Jews will not replace us!” ?

@Wesley_Clark

… Again nobody is saying all gun owners or opponents of gun control are racist. But its voluntarily oblivious to pretend there is no connection.

And again, I am on record as begging Democrats to pander to the racist gun nuts in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina. We can’t get rid of Trump without their help, bless their stupid racist hearts. The U.S. “Greatest Generation” turned its attention to happier matters only when Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan had been crushed. Anerca can becomne virtuous again … after the GOP is crushed.

[Oakminster]

@Chronos

Oakminster, do you know what really curtails someone’s gun rights, a heck of a lot more than anything in Booker’s proposal? Getting killed. The victims of gun violence have had all of their gun rights denied to them (as well as all of their other rights). If you want to support gun rights, the best way to do that is to take measures to stop people getting killed.

That is the single stupidest thing you have ever posted.

[Paul_in_Qatar]

Certainly Senator Booker’s fourteen-point plan has some good points. (Well, in truth, I cannot find an official list. I took the Failing New York Times article and added it the Politico article and got thirteen points.) There are also some silly ideas.

• Limit how many guns you can buy a month (or whatever). What problem is this trying to solve?
• The assault-weapons ban. Even if you think it is a good idea, it can’t be done. There are too many of them out there. Banning new sales won’t make a whit of difference. All this does is upset people.
• Banning bump stocks. That train has left the station. It was in all the papers.
• Increasing funding for the ATF. This is exactly backwards. Disband the Gun Police. It is overly-influenced by pro-gun people. (That is why it has not had a director in many years.) Give all those functions to the real police, the FBI.

Good ideas?

• A nationwide permit system
• Required training
• More research

[DSeid]

Are gun owners lockstep against gun control?

In the wake of SCOTUS rulings that have solidified that gun control measures can pose no threat to most gun owners rights to their guns, is fear of the gun gabber the biggest issue motivating gun owners votes?

No to both.

Data point one.

citizens support an assault rifle ban across most districts (389 of 435) within each party …

… For comparison, the next figure shows the percentage of constituents who support proposals to “make it easier for people to obtain concealed carry permits.” … Clearly, this policy proposal is unpopular in districts represented by both parties. Indeed, this proposal polled above 50 percent approval in just 61 of 435 districts. And, again, it is weakly correlated with each district’s presidential voting patterns, with a range of around 30 percent for most levels of presidential vote.

Data point two. If either group is going to be single or even top issue on gun control/rights this cycle it’s those who want stricter than current gun control, not those afraid of teh gun grabber boogeyman.

Voters citing the importance of guns — traditionally a source of GOP enthusiasm, favor Democrats for Congress by 58 percent to 33 percent.

Gun rights advocates have won. SCOTUS rulings protect their rights; they are secure and grabbing the guns as a class just cannot happen. The price of that victory is that the fear of the gun grabber boogyman is reduced. A D nominee who does not embrace greater controls within those limits is unelectable for the nom and for the nom expressing support for measures that can never occur will win more votes than it loses among those who vote in the D primaries, including in SC.

[Lamoral]

I’m skeptical of any polling data regarding the public’s feelings about assault weapon bans, for the simple fact that the terminology is confusing to a lot of people and I suspect that many of the poll respondents think it means “machine gun.”

[Wesley_Clark]

@septimus

And again, I am on record as begging Democrats to pander to the racist gun nuts in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina. We can’t get rid of Trump without their help, bless their stupid racist hearts. The U.S. “Greatest Generation” turned its attention to happier matters only when Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan had been crushed. Anerca can becomne virtuous again … after the GOP is crushed.

But what % of people are actual gun nuts? I’d wager its a very low %, and most of them are republican anyway. My point is that the guns are the symptom, not the cause. the root cause is white identity politics. People who feel whites, men, christians and the native born are better and more authentic than everyone else (brown people, women, muslims, atheists, immigrants, etc). The obsession with guns is to a large degree just an extension of this philosophy. And the democrats are the multicultural party while the GOP are the party of white identity politics. So a democrat saying "I won’t take your guns away’ is mostly meaningless because the guns are a proxy for being anti multiculturalism, and the democrats are pro-multiculturalism.

Also there are people we need to appeal to in the midwest, but Trump’s base isn’t it. I’m sure there are lots of blacks, latinos, white women, millennials, the disabled, etc who didn’t bother to vote who we can register and get to the polls. Plus there are moderate republicans who can be swayed. We need to appeal to them. Trying to appeal to angry and resentful white people who hate multiculturalism and view guns as their sword and shield in the battle against a multicultural, multiracial society is probably a waste of time.

[Shodan]

@Wesley_Clark

Plus there are moderate republicans who can be swayed. We need to appeal to them.

I doubt that “we’ll pander to you until we get elected, then your party will be crushed” has much appeal. YMMV.

Regards,
Shodan

[kaylasdad99]

@kaylasdad99

I had to look up the “Boyfriend Loophole.” Apparently the Lautenberg amendment essentially restricts the Second Amendment rights of persons convicted of domestic violence. The loophole seems to be that the domestic violence conviction only applies when the conviction involved a spouse, former spouse, or co-parent. So, if you never married, cohabited with, or procreated with your GF, but you did get convicted of slapping her around, your right to buy a firearm and pop a cap in her is not impeded by the conviction.

…

@Iggy

The Boyfriend Loophole is about lack of restrictions on purchasing firearms. There is no right to use a firearm to “pop a cap in her”.

We can talk about proposals for gun control regulations without imagining the situation is different than it truly is.

Meh. I’m satisfied with my characterization.

In deference to your apparent sensibilities, however, I will send the offending phraseology to the rewrite desk:

So, if you never married, cohabited with, or procreated with your GF, but you did get convicted of slapping her around, your right to buy a firearm (thereby supplying yourself with the means to pop a cap in her) is not impeded by the conviction.

Better?

[kaylasdad99]

@Wesley_Clark

All I could find was this. Blacks are slightly more in favor of gun control, but not by much.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/12/black-americans-want-new-gun-laws-to-curb-gun-violence-trump-offers-more-police/?utm_term=.8e141931914a

To reiterate, I’m not saying everyone opposed to gun control is a white supremacist. But racial resentment and opposition to gun control are connected issues, like it or not. And a lot of those people aren’t going to vote democratic no matter what since the democrats are the cosmopolitan, multicultural party.

Huh I could SWEAR that Unca Cece once mentioned that the Soviet CP once used cosompolitanism as grounds for denouncing folks as traitors to the revolution.

So those people who won’t vote for Democrats on account of them being cosmopolitan are a bunch of fucking commies, right?

[ElvisL1ves]

Stalin used “cosmopolitan” to mean people who were just living in Russia, not really rooted there historically. You know, the Jews.

[Wesley_Clark]

@kaylasdad99

Huh I could SWEAR that Unca Cece once mentioned that the Soviet CP once used cosompolitanism as grounds for denouncing folks as traitors to the revolution.

So those people who won’t vote for Democrats on account of them being cosmopolitan are a bunch of fucking commies, right?

A Cosmopolitan is a beverage made or vodka, cranberry juice and triple sec. Republicans are offended by this for obvious reasons.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Shodan

I doubt that “we’ll pander to you until we get elected, then your party will be crushed” has much appeal. YMMV.

Regards,
Shodan

It worked for all the women and minorities who voted for the gop to take their rights away.

Either way, there are moderate Republicans who believe in low deficits, competent government, democracy, etc who can hopefully be peeled away from the authoritarian white nationalists who have taken over the party.

[DrDeth]

@JXJohns

The whole going to jail bit he spoke about raises the pucker factor a bit:

This represents a significant change in direction from the typical “ban assault weapons” trope. No longer a ban on sales or transfers, he wants the guns turned in.

Yeah, that means door to door searches and confiscation. Scary.

[DrDeth]

@septimus

…

@ DrDeth — What do you think about these studies? Obviously you’re not a racist or a white supremacist, but when your own little gun club votes on such matters, how does it make you feel to be voting on the same side as the Nazis or those shouting “Jews will not replace us!” ?
…

I dont have a gun club, nor am I a gun nut. I am a small l libertarian and a supporter of the Bill of Rights. Gun control in America has never had a significant effect on violent crime. It’s a "feel good’ thing that does nothing but hurt some hobbyists. For example the big push on banning assault rifles- the FBI has shown that ALL rifles, all together account for about 4% of murders in the USA. That’s .22 rimfire rifles, lever action 30/30 rifles, 30-06 deer rifles and yes- assault rifles. So banning these *scary *weapons **won’t do a fucking thing as far as lowering the overall murder rate.
**

And sure, the far right are more into guns than the left, but so? Only about 50% (it varies a lot*) of the American public is in favor of gun control. So by your twisted little statistics, half of America is on the side of* "the Nazis or those shouting “Jews will not replace us!”*. The Nazis are in favor of Motherhood also, how does it feel to be on the same side as the nazis? :rolleyes:

As statistics show, Black people are just about in line with whites in their thoughts on gun control, as are Jewish- so about half of the Jews and Black in America are on the side of* "the Nazis or those shouting “Jews will not replace us!”* :rolleyes:

• https://news.gallup.com/poll/243797/six-americans-support-stricter-gun-laws.aspx
  *Support for stricter gun laws typically rises in the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting, only to fall again as the incident fades from the public’s memory. For instance, after the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, support for stricter gun control jumped to 58%, though it fell to 49% less than a year later. Despite these occasional spikes and drops, support for tougher gun laws has generally risen since 2014.

And altho currently more Americans are in favor of SOME sort of gun control, very few are in favor of radical gun control:Americans Support Tougher Gun Control, but Not Handgun Ban
While a clear majority of Americans support tougher gun laws, the U.S. public is substantially less supportive of an outright ban on handguns. Fewer than three in 10 Americans, 28%, support a handgun ban, unchanged from last October. Americans’ support for a handgun ban has been below 30% since 2008.