Obviously, I disagree. Not with your assessment of personal choice, but in its overall effect. Sure, a few people making a personal choice to own a gun (or to stop smoking or not drink and drive) is not going to have a very great effect. But if you have the majority of people who decide, not by fiat but decide for themselves that they don’t need or want a gun (or need or want to smoke, etc), then real change is possible…it’s even probable at that point. It’s actually happening in the real world wrt tobacco, at least in the US. And I think, to a degree, it’s happening with guns as well. Fewer people CHOOSE to own a gun per household than in the past.
You can call for the repeal of the 2nd all you like (it would be a refreshing change from people trying to backdoor it by fiat), but until and unless a majority of Americans basically don’t want or feel they need a gun and don’t feel they need or want a protected right to keep or own one you just aren’t going to get real change. You’ll have a vocal minority pushing for bans or serious control by hook or by crook or by any means, slimy or otherwise to get it done while the majority basically don’t want that change and will resist, generally through their vote, to prevent it. You couldn’t have had the restrictions on tobacco we have today in the 50’s or even the 60’s or 70’s because people would have resisted it and opposed it. Yet today, it’s changed substantially. The same goes for gun control, IMHO…the general public isn’t ready, yet, for meaningful and substantial gun controls that would actually do anything other than look like we are doing something for the faithful and piss off the folks looking at them and going ‘WTF??’ as they either make no sense or are clearly slippery slopes. The public has to WANT those changes, and basically not want or feel they need guns. Until and unless those conditions are generally the attitude of the majority of citizens it’s just not going to happen…or if it does, the resistance and push back will be large, and it will probably end up having a backlash that pushes back gun control for decades.
Sort of like the candy from a baby episode on the mythbusters. Try and take the candy from the baby and the baby fights you and throws a tantrum. Leave the baby alone, and sooner or later the baby loses interest in the candy and tosses it away. It’s a simplistic analogy, and not very relevant, but I think it shows the underlying concept…if people don’t want something, they won’t fight for it. If they do and you try and take it, they will.
It’s a notion that’s supported by historical evidence. See the Mulford Act, and see the Cruikshank decision (and Code Noire).
I guarantee you: arm people of color, give them concealed weapon and open carry privileges, and you’ll see gun control. Nothing scares white men like seeing black and brown men having the ability to turn the barrel of the gun around.
Wait for it, wait for it…cue remarks about how black and brown people should spend less time killing each other.
You and I must be looking at different polls, because I mostly see the anti-RKBA side getting it’s ass kicked in the public opinion polls. In 1996, 57% of those polled by Gallup were “for” “a law which would make it illegal to manufacture, sell or possess semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles” and 42% were “against”. Last year, public opinion had essentially reversed itself with 40% “for” and 57% “against”.
I’m all for more non-prohibited-person black and brown people owning guns, mostly because I think it’ll effectively tamp down on the dems’ constant mewling for more gun control.
i’m having trouble locating the case using my phone but there is a case that creating unreasonable encumbrances to a right effectively violates it. It also tends to impact marginalized populations harder.
Yes. And so is nationwide. I mean, then the excuse will be “well the guns are coming from over the borders”.
Gun control simply doesnt work- it can’t work to reduce mass killings. It could, maybe reduce violent crime a bit.
Mass killings here in the USA aren’t caused by guns- we have had lots of guns since 1776. They are caused by the media glorifying the killers. Noted sociologists have done many studies (which I have linked to previously) that show it’s the media that is pushing the recent increase in mass shootings.
It’s equating one constitutional right with another.
Sure, and they have them every so often in most cities. They bring in a bunch of old crap, and some guns where the owner inherited them and didnt know how to get rid of them, etc. Nothing wrong with a voluntary buy back. Go for it.
The problem with these stats is that they ignore extraneous factors.
As others have pointed out it is difficult for a single state or city’s gun laws to be effective when there are lax gun laws in neighboring states and no way to prevent guns crossing state lines. This is why any gun control legislation needs to be enacted nation wide.
There are differences in overall crime rates between states that have nothing to do with gun laws. In particular population density is correlated with crime. So straight up comparison the gun crime rate of a rural state with a that of an urban state without taking that into account will be fundamentally flawed. This flaw is exacerbated by…
Having a high rate of gun homicide is leads to the enacting of gun laws, not the other way around. I see all the time statistics that say “Chicago has the strongest gun laws but also the highest gun death rate, That proves they just need more good guys with guns Hur Hur”. But saying this makes a much sense as saying Chemotherapy is counter productive in fighting Cancer because a much larger proportion of people undergoing Chemotherapy die of cancer than so die among the general population who don’t take chemotherapy.
This is totally false, and a meme that was spread to equate guns with racism, as if blacks , asians and hispanics dont own guns. Which is pretty racist.
Yes, in CA, during the Reagan era, the Black Panthers discovered CA had a obscure and not used open carry provision. They open carried their guns. This caused CA to ban open carry. But it didnt have to be the Black Panthers, it could have been the KKK- it was just that the legislature didnt realize CA had a sort of open carry, since it hadnt been a issue until then. Nothing to do with racism, everything to do with a scary group finding a loophole and the legislature closing it.
It’s a red herring anyway. PoC have the legal right to buy guns, to carry guns, open or concealed, legally, and they’re already doing it now and have been for years, and I don’t see conservatives being sufficiently intimidated by it to advocate gun control.
Standing there shrugging our shoulders while our fellow citizens are slaughtered senselessly again and again and again is not what this country should stand for either.
they already have those rights, and I don’t see white conservatives pushing for gun control.