It seems inconsistent with the left wing views to protect individual freedoms that they would not embrace individual gun rights.
Is it because southerners really like their guns that the left decided it was against their philosophy, without regards for any inconsistencies?
Minor correction: Not “right wing” philosophy. Conservative philosophy. And probably not even so much “Republican” philosophy the way things are heading. It’s of vast importance that you understand the difference between what you ask and what you probably thought you were asking, because it will have a huge bearing on the quality and appropriateness of the answers that you’ll get.
The left doesn’t care about individual rights; it’s social rights, and in their view, it’s a bigger social problem to allow guns than to prohibit them. That’s a very, very general answer with all kinds of exceptions, counter answers, and missing details. I pray that someone with common sense and restraint can fill in all the missing details.
While I have no animus for tomndebb, this one needs to go to Great Debates NOW. Before it spirals out of control. Moved.
samclem GQ moderator
Agree w/ Balthisar.
Liberals believe the federal government should proactively solve social problems.
Conservatives believe social problems are better solved by localities, markets, charities, individuals, etc…
Besides left-wing and right-wing, the issue tends to split along rural and urban, north and south. Complicating the issue is that many gun control laws were enacted to keep guns out of the hands of the “wrong people”, the definition of which depends on local fears and prejudices.
Many (not all) leftists are suspicious of gun control because if guns are outlawed, how will we shoot the capitalists? Liberals see the matter differently.
I think it’s more likely that liberals believe that gun control is permissible under the second amendment (especially given the “well regulated militia” bit) than that they reject gun rights wholesale.
And I wonder about the opposite; why do second amendment rights groups seem interested only in that issue, and not, say, first amendment issues?
Uh huh; that’s why civil liberties organizations like the ACLU are all hotbeds of conservative activism.
What I don’t get is why liberals are first amendment fundamentalists and conservatives are second amendment fundamentalists.
In no particular order :
First because the Right loves corporations, and therefore wants to encourage gun sales, to profit the companies that make them.
Second, because the Right loves the idea of force being the solution to all of life’s problems. Guns, bombs, nukes; they hate the idea of solutions that don’t end with people being hurt and killed.
Third, because the Right is authoritarian. Focusing so many people on gun rights keeps them from worrying about rights that actually make a difference. A concern over gun rights makes people easier victims for authoritarians.
And fourth, because the prevalence of guns mainly hurts the poor and middle class, and the Right loves anything that hurts or kills them. Even if they, themselves are among those at risk; just as with health care, the malice of the Right is so immense, so absolute that they are willing to suffer and die themselves if it means that others also suffer and die.
And thus we’re throw into the abyss.
Leaving the pointless rant above to the side allow me to make a sane point.
Electorally gun rights are a rural issue. Republicans, therefore self-identified conservatives, have large majorities in rural areas, therefore republican candidates will have a greater incentive to protect gun rights through promotion of the second amendment.
Conversely, democratic voting power is concentrated in cities where both gun ownership is low and gun violence tends to be high. Therefore democratic candidate tend towards restraint of gun rights.
Interestingly, from a campaign and election perspective, the success of conservative democrats, including retired military officers, in the 2006 Congressional elections is partially founded on 2nd amendment protections and a more pro-military and force foundation. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that such strong gains were made with that sort of platform.
It’s also indicative that it’s not just a small minority of the electorate that interprets the 2nd amendment as protecting private ownership of guns. There is a strong enough sentiment among both self-indentified republicans and democrats that candidates from both sides can be elected while espousing gun ownership rights.
With the possible exception of Dick Cheney, I can’t believe any of that. 
Crossbows. Hammers. Whatever.
Just looking over my lefty handbook here, and darned if I can find that chapter about how much we favor big government solutions. You would think after all these years spent hanging around with them, someone would have said to me “What we really need here is a big overbearing government meddling in people’s lives.” But, oddly, no. The only people who have told me that’s what I think are people who don’t seem to really know what I think.
But sometimes thats all that will do it. Take civil rights. If the matter were left to local control, as it had been for the preceding hundred odd years…there is a good to certain chance that progress in civil rights would have been, at the very least, retarded. Nowadays, we have revised the history to fit our myths, we pretend that Kennedy and the FBI took vigorous and direct action to protect the civil rights movement from its enemies. In the words of The Master, there’s nothing wrong with that, except that it just ain’t so.
But with sufficient intervention, trampling over local custom and mores with liberal jackboots, voter registration began to effect its power for change. Without dat ol’ debbil, Big Government, it might never have happened. Progressives favor change, there is much that needs change. (Is the SDMB Understatement of the Year Award still open for nominations?)
Child labor laws, civil rights laws, union laws, if you favor these things, then you can thank the radicals who first spoke up about these crazy, impractical notions, and then the liberals who (finally!) got on board. If you want to thank the conservatives who were dragged screaming and clawing over the line, I reckon that’s your business.
Cheney only shoots lawyers. Considering the dignity of his office, perhaps some exceptions can be made.
I always found that to be interesting because with regard to other amendments “the people” is never understood to be a collective right, just that one. I think that the perception of a social problem has caused the supporters of gun control to latch onto whatever they can to effect change, and while that interpretation has a long history it is pegged to gun control advocacy and always has been. The literature does not support the notion that the Founding Fathers intended the 2nd Amendment to be anything but an individual right.
Because they are 2nd Amendment interest groups. Why would they be interested in anything else? Diffusion of purpose causes loss of focus.
I think it’s as simple as a willingness to forfeit one ideal for the good of another ideal (not a philosophy peculiar to the left, BTW). If peace/non-violence is considered a higher ideal than individual rights, then it’s an easy conclusion to reach that guns should be outlawed (given an assumption that gun rights=less peace/more violence).
Why is owning gun a “right”, and the desire not to be shot an “ideal” ?
And outside of a few anarchist loonies, no one believes in absolute individual rights. The question is not whether or not rights will be restricted, but which ones.
Semantics.
Well, I actually meant for both of them to be an “ideal.” But if you don’t like how I phrased it, I will happily change it to the following, because it doesn’t change my point a bit:
“I think it’s as simple as a willingness to forfeit one ideal for the good of another ideal (not a philosophy peculiar to the left, BTW). If the right to lessen the risk of being shot is considered a higher ideal than individual rights, then it’s an easy conclusion to reach that guns should be outlawed (given an assumption that gun rights=less peace/more violence/higher chance of being shot).”
That’s true, which is why I said the concept isn’t exclusive to the left.
Speaking as someone who leans somewhat leftish…
I’m ready to give up on this one. The resistance is rooted and emotional. Its strikes some sort of atavistic chord in our nature, probably a side effect of testosterone poisoning. Whatever. Theres millions of the damn things everywhere, there is no reasonable solution: if the person who should not have a gun is willing to go to the trouble, he can get one. We might force him to wait a day, and pay more. That’s about it.
We will have to rely on education and persuasion to make guns less central to our culture. That’s the slow boat, but none of the rest of them will float.
I say save our ammo for shit we can do something about.
I hesitate to admit it, but that makes sense to me.
Perhaps gun control should be a local issue; hand guns could be outlawed in New York and in more rural areas guns for hunting and home protection could be readily available.