I think that polls like this provide a useful perspective, but the implication you’re drawing here is incorrect.
The problem with asking a question like “Should there be more gun restrictions?” is that it doesn’t tell you how important that question is to people’s votes. And the importance is highly asymmetric.
I, like most Americans, will agree that we should have more restrictions on private gun ownership. And, like most of the people who will say that, I don’t think it’s that important an issue. It’s not remotely close to my highest political priority.
The people who don’t want more restrictions on gun ownership, though: a bunch of them are single-issue voters on that issue.
Yes, moderate gun control is rather popular, but that varies a lot as to how you word your poll and if some national tragedy has just occured.
But more strict gun control is not popular.
There are 100 Million gun owners in the USA. All Adults, mostly voters. More than voted for either candidate last Presidential election Maybe 5 Million NRA “gun nuts” who are die hard Republicans. You wanna lose 95 million votes? When only 120 Million even voted for President?
**You will lose those votes if those 95 million think their guns will be taken away. ** So yeah sure, ban Bump stocks. Maybe even ban “assault weapons” depending on your definition. Ban the sale (but not possession) of extended magazines. More & better background checks. Those are the popular gun controls anyway.
But try to ban all semi-autos, or all handguns, and you not only violate the 2nd Ad, but you just lost 95 Million voters.
What is funny about your hypothesis is that it ignores that minorities own guns too, and for the exact same reasons whites do.
Why? In fact gun control in America has never led to a reduction in violent crime. It’s just bad logic to think that it will. Yeah sure there are small socialist nations in Europe, etc have strict gun control laws and low violent crime- they same nations that never had many guns, and never had very much violent crime. There are other nations with strict gun control and severe violent crime issues.
Automatic weapons are more or less currently banned. And have been so for quite some time.
Kamala Harris has shown she is very much in favor of confiscation without remuneration of all handguns, etc.
Sure,* the emphasis should be on measures that consistently receive wide support—background checks, etc.*.
I’ve said this same exact thing a dozen times on this board, and all I get is comments about how the Democratic party is looking out for them and they’re too ignorant to see it, or how they’re just racist.
I worry about the same thing you do for the reason I list above, and the reason you mentioned.
Washington DC had effectively banned gun ownership for decades. Chicago too. California has loads of gun control (and so do a bunch of other left-leaning states).
Ok…I’ll pull it. How are you defining ‘gun control’ that in the US has ‘never been done’? Because there have been plenty of gun control laws put in at both the federal and state levels…that’s a fact, not really open for debate. So I’m curious how you are defining your terms, or if you actually thought about what you posted before posting it.
Your post does illustrate why I think the OP needs to define his terms though, because what ‘gun control’ means pretty obviously differs from person to person, and it’s going to impact the answer to the OP.
Not sure that is true while Trump is in office. Anyone on the left pretty much HAS to vote. Many on the right are not nearly as energized. Give them less to get energized about and you can take over government. Then decide which issues you are willing to lose elections over.
The only way rural whites will move back to the Democratic side is if the Democrats can reverse the perception that they are frothing at the mouth for dead babies, and that is the perception among rural whites.
I have said this before, and I will say it again. It’s all about the abortion issue.
There’s no point in reaching out to folks whose hostility is entirely or nearly entirely based on fantasies from right-wing radio and other infotainment sources.
So, it’s never going to happen? Rural under-educated white males (I would add middle-aged or old) are never going to get good jobs with good benefits unless they change at least one of those traits which would mean getting training or moving out to cities, preferably both.
The GOP, however, only has to vaguely promise good jobs with good benefits for blue collar workers and that same demographic eagerly believes it.
Education is increasingly that differentiates Dems from Repubs. With Trump, that’s going to accelerate.
It’s really too bad that the US system gives disproportionate clout to rural states. As rural states empty out and sink deeper, you’ll have more and more distance between the bulk of the population doing well in the cities and a small backward population that still has a lot of representatives, delegates and especially senators. You’ll feel like the early city dwellers 10 000 years ago who were harried by those who were still hunter-gatherers.
I want to point out that correlation does not equal causation in the study the OP cites. IT doesn’t follow that because a metric of race resentment increases in tune with gun ownership, then those people are necessarily buying guns BECAUSE of race resentment.
My personal opinion, as influenced by growing up in a conservative, suburban middle/lower-middle class white area, is that they’re both a symptom of the same thing- fear. Fear of change, fear of the other (usually black people), and fear of losing what little socioeconomic standing they already have.
But are they pro-choice enough to flip and start writing the dreaded D in the ballot boxes?
I’m of the opinion that most rural white conservatives aren’t single issue voters dependent only on guns. Gun restrictions of some type or another might be a deal-breaker for them, but that doesn’t mean that’s all they care about.
Obviously yes, of course. There are 95 million non-NRA gun owner voters in this nation. At least half of them voted Dem.
And true, almost none of them are single issue voters. Propose any 'reasonable" gun law and they wont have a knee jerk reaction to it- they may or may not vote GOP based upon the law. Propose any gun law that would take their own guns away- and you have lost their vote- and thus lost any chance of winning any national election.
A party that wishes to win nationally cannot have much in the way of doctrine. The Democratic Party will have to have people on both sides of most issues.