Sure, the country has been drifting rightward for a time.
But what you don’t understand is the fact that this has been a reaction to liberal excesses. Liberalism came to fruition in America in the mid-1970’s, and voters sure didn’t like what they saw.
What they saw was a combination of libertine drug use and family breakdown that made the crime rate explode and many of our cities virtually uninhabitable. Overregulation, high taxes, and follies like price controls created a nightmare economy with sky high inflation, interest rates, and unemployment.
Our military was demobilized, and our foreign policy became mere wishful thinking. This emboldened our enemies in places like the Soviet Union and Iran.
They also saw many personal freedoms curtailed. Many of our current gun control laws were passed in this period.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that many liberals learned lessons from this period, and won’t repeat some of these mistakes. It’s still something that needs to be sold to some voters, however.
Dropping gun control as a major issue would be a step in that direction.
Yes- BUT
Kerry hunts. Nobody advocates taking guns away from hunters. Unless the deer in your area are particularly well armed, you don’t need an AK-47 to go hunting. If it’s a given that nobody is after disarming the hunter, then why are hunters worried about it?
Kerry has a richly deserved “F” rating from the NRA. He is anti-gun. He has voted to ban semi-automatic shotguns, which are the weapon of choice for many deer hunters including me.
Buying a camo jacket and spending an afternoon hunting is not enough to fool the voting sportsmen.
It’s a good sign that Kerry tried to run as a pro-gun candidate. This means that the democrat political thinkers have finally realized that this is a losing issue for them. However, now they need to actually start backing this up with some action. Stop Feinstein, Kennedy and Schumer from passing laws against gun rights. Make sure that the next Democratic candidate for president really is pro-gun, not just in word but in deed. Even if they do stop being the anti-gun party it will still be quite some time before the gun owners start to trust them.
Because the NRA whips them into a frenzy by creating the Dems as bogeymen who want to take everybody’s guns away – everything more powerful than a BB gun, and maybe those too. The NRA does this for their own institutional reasons, not out of any real fears that hunters will be disarmed.
You’ve read the NRA magazine? No, I take it. They praise Dem. lawmakers (relatively few though they are) who support the causes they care about (concealed carry, immunity from “faulty product” lawsuits against gunmakers, etc.).
By your rationale, AIPAC would be the weakest, most irrelevant PAC around, because both parties strongly support Israel. Instead, it’s one of the strongest.
I’m an NRA member, and I’m neither paraniod nor gullible.
If anybody was exploiting the gullibility of the voters on this issue, it was Kerry. He believed that an afternoon in borrowed camo would make up for a career’s worth of anti-gun votes.
Sorry, but there are pro-gun Democrats out there, and I’m not afraid to praise them for their stance. Kerry was not, and is not, one of those Democrats.
I suspect this would be a winning move for Democrats, but a risky one.
One problem that could arise is the one BobLibDem mentioned - losing the votes of one of your core constituencies (single-issue anti-gun proponents) without gaining votes from your target audience - the moderate middle. Certainly a real risk.
The other is that abandoning the general rhetoric of anti-guns could lead to conflicts elsewhere in the Democratic platform writers - if you take the Second Amendment literally, what about the rest of the Constitution? Aren’t you then logically compelled to start thinking in strict constructionist terms about Amendments One, and Three thru Ten as well?
Dangerous stuff, when one of your other core issues is based on a penumbra that emanates from the Constitution.
I would love to see it, and the whole approach would increase the appeal of the Democratic party to people like me. If you could convince me to believe you, by not caving in the first time Sarah Brady or Diane Feinstein talks about it’s all worth it if it saves even one child from a drive-by shooting.
I think you need to declare victory on gun control, and go home. Define what is currently in place as “reasonable gun control”, focus on enforcing existing gun laws, and don’t try to implement more.
Of course, you have then basically aligned yourself with the NRA, and if you can’t stomach that, you don’t have to. Was it Adlai Stevenson who would “rather be right than President”? Don’t know about the first half of his wish, but he certainly was granted the second half.
Actually, we do take the first Ten Amendments literally. Consistent court rulings have held:
1- That the Second Amendment prohibits the federal government from restricting the arming of well-regulated militias.
2- All of the first Ten Amendments are restrictions on the power of federal government only.
If a state wants to restrict guns, the Second Amendment does not prevent this.
What difference would a change in position make? Who even notices truth?
Does anyone here seriously believe that the Dems are pro-atheist? Did that stop the rabid right from claiming so? Just look at the looney-tunes nutbar OK just elected for Senator, worried about girls in high school going to be bathroom in pairs, rampant lesbianism, etc.
If the other side won’t engage in fact-oriented debate, the Dems real position doesn’t matter, the Pubs will just make up a position, assign it to the Dems and run against that!
(Well, except for that part about forcing Eagle Scouts into gay marriages…yeah, we really mean that. Didn’t go over too good, might want to drop it…)
Kerry was a co-sponsor of S. 1431 on Nov. 21, 2003. This bill would have banned all semi-automatic shotguns and detachable magazine semi-automatic rifles. This is basically “hunting weaponry”. These are some of the most common firearms used for hunting.
Kerry has voted nine other times to ban semi-automatic firearms:
Vote No. 24, March 2, 2004; Vote No. 295, Aug. 25, 1994; Vote No. 294, Aug. 25, 1994; Vote No. 293, Aug. 25, 1994; Vote No. 375, Nov. 17, 1993; Vote No. 365, Nov. 9, 1993; Vote No. 133, June 28, 1990; Vote No. 103, May 23, 1990; Vote No. 102, May 23, 1990.
Thank you for the cites, I really appreciate the opportunity to dig into the nuts and bolts of this. I shall do some homework.
Now Shodan, a few things to keep in mind:
1- Most states have a second amendment clone in their state constitution
2- Most states also have a first amendment clone in their state constitution.
3- The first ten amendments were not cited in Roe v. Wade.
Well, I believe they aren’t anti-atheist. I’d like to believe they are pro-atheist in the same way I’d like to believe they are pro-gay—supportive and welcoming without assuming everyone can and will be that one. (Republicans seem to like to claim that if you are, for example, pro-gay, it means you’re pushing being gay, as if that were possible. I imagine their idea of pro-atheism would take the same form.)
And therefore, if the states decide to outlaw abortion, the feds (and Dems) would have no objections, as I mentioned.
Same if they decided to amend their state Constitutions and outlaw gay marriage, or impose the One True Church on their citizens, or require newspapers to pass their editorials thru the Correct Thought Approval Board.
Most rifles and shotguns sold today have pistol grips. These are far more comfortable for most people than a straight grip stock.
I’m looking at the Remington page, and they only sell one model of autoloading shotgun with this kind of grip. They have more than twenty other models, all having pistol grips.
A ban on pistol grips would ban legitimate hunting and sporting shotguns owned by millions of people.