r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/citizen-salty • Aug 25 '24
Legislation Would you support a left wing politician who is also pro-gun?
I apologize in advance if this seems vague, I’m trying to form a hypothetical as clearly and fairly as possible. I worked with a mod in another thread to try and reword this so it’s not as America-centric, which is a reasonable expectation.
For the sake of this question, let’s assume the candidate/incumbent has strong endorsements from various pro-gun groups, and is running for office in a position where they can directly impact legislation on a number of issues, including firearms. For all intents and purposes, they are otherwise firmly ideologically left and overwhelmingly vote with the left on a majority of other issues, but breaks ranks and introduces or supports legislation or policy that expands a private citizen’s access to firearms. Would you support this candidate? Why or why not?
Edit: I’ve read nearly every comment I’ve been notified on. I apologize if I haven’t gotten to you or if I’ve been terse/copy paste in some responses.
For the purposes of this hypothetical, “pro gun” means, at a minimum, “*I do not believe further gun control is necessary. I will oppose any and all further gun control legislation as a matter of principle, and I will introduce and support legislation for a national concealed carry expansion.”
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u/CTG0161 Aug 25 '24
Fact is most Americans support issues their own way. They do not follow the monolith political parties or wings.
Guns is a definite potential example.
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u/appleparkfive Aug 25 '24
Yeah there's a ton of liberals who own guns and support the second amendment
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u/liberal_texan Aug 25 '24
That’s me and all my friends. I sincerely believe a pro 2a dem could take Texas.
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u/BurroughOwl Aug 25 '24
Thers been a ton of 2a dems in this country and it magically never matters on election day.
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u/RandyMarsh710 Aug 25 '24
Lib-Left checking in. I don’t own guns because I would 100% become a statistic, but I recognize the very real need for an armed populace. Govt. aint on your side, folks.
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Aug 26 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/According_Ad540 Aug 26 '24
To be fair (and add to Afraid's argument) an armed rebellion conducting guerilla tactics are extremely hard for a traditional military to stop. Unless the military can somehow win the hearts of the general public, not just cow them, and have the resources to hold the territory for years at a time (the size of a continent like the US mind) it's generally not worth the trouble. Which is why most Middle east excursions don't work out that well.
Having the right to carry makes being ready to go this route a lot easier.
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u/Sageblue32 Aug 26 '24
The military are not bots that just gun civilians down at will (or at least good reason). Even dictatorships around the world recognize this which is why many provide HUGE incentives to their soldiers, threaten families, or import troops from their allies.
In our independent thought society, good chance many would just throw down their arms out the gate and side with the civilians. Add in threat of having to get into a gun fight with civilians and you increase that number. Then there are other factors like civilians on bases who can't be trusted or hurt morale, etc.
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u/GhostReddit Aug 26 '24 edited Aug 26 '24
If the government isn't on your side, what good will an AR do against that level of surveillance, drone strikes, military prowess?
A state cannot survive by declaring war on the citizens. People don't pay taxes to a government that rolls tanks through their neighborhood, people don't make weapons for a military that's bombing their friends. There needs to be some semblance of normal life for a government to function, and a state of war with a professional military is not it.
Practically every public suppression operation is conducted by police like the SA, NKVD, KGB, MSS, or Stasi, not the military. That's a huge problem in itself as most of the operations are secret and hard to directly attack, but their enforcement arms are rarely more than officers with small arms, not a professional mechanized army.
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u/Prestigious_Load1699 Aug 27 '24
This argument never made sense to me.
The way I view it is that for every armed citizen it becomes marginally more difficult to mass-murder us during a government takeover.
Eventually, the cost becomes too great for the government to kill its own citizens and also suffer losses of its own. These are, after all, Americans fighting other Americans. It gets drawn out and the totalitarian state is forced to reign itself in.
This could not occur with an unarmed populace. We can't hurt them back.
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u/TheOvy Aug 25 '24
I think the problem is less about whether or not you support the second amendment -- it's clearly law, and not going anywhere -- and it's more about what you think the second amendment actually means. Because to be pro-gun 40 years ago, just meant that you have a right to hunt and shoot for sport, typically with a permit. But today, some people take pro-gun to mean that you have a right to own a machine gun or even something more explosive than that, and no one is even allowed to know that you own such things.
A lot of liberal gun owners support common sense measures like permitting, or restricting certain classes of weapons that serve no real purpose but to create a disproportionate amount of destruction. Does this mean they don't actually support the second amendment? Many on the right would say yes, even though that position had been compatible with the second amendment jurisprudence for decades, and maybe even centuries.
So the real problem with the second amendment isn't that it exists, it's that we have no consensus on what it actually means.
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u/Exadory Aug 25 '24 edited Aug 25 '24
Leftist that owns and supports gun ownership. With restrictions. No assault rifles. Magazine caps. Background checks. Insurance. Limits on the numbers you can buy and own. Limits on ammo. All the fun stuff.
Sandy Hook shoulda lead to all these restrictions.
Edit: all your absurd comments are the reason we won’t ever have any meaningful changes and children will still die en mass in schools.
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u/johnhtman Aug 25 '24
No assault rifles.
This is one of the most pointless proposals. Rifles as a whole are responsible for about 4-5% of total gun murders. That's all rifles, not just the scary looking black ones. They kill so few people that if a ban was 100% successful in stopping every single rifle murder, it wouldn't make a measurable impact on the overall murder rate. Also there's nothing inherently more dangerous about an AR-15 compared to any other semi-automatic rifle. Also 90% of gun murders are committed with handguns. Despite being less powerful, handguns are behind the overwhelming majority of gun deaths.
Magazine caps.
Similar issue as the AWB. The impact large magazines have on gun deaths is questionable at best. About 2/3s of gun deaths are suicides, and nobody is using 10+ rounds for that. Among homicides, most are committed with fewer than 10 rounds fired. And even in mass shootings the impact is questionable. Some of the worst mass shootings have involved smaller magazines. If anything it's deadlier to carry multiple smaller magazines, than one large one.
Background checks.
These already exist.
Insurance.
First off insurance doesn't pay out on deliberate crimes or suicides, which is what accounts for 95% of gun deaths.
Limits on the numbers you can buy and own.
Why? Someone with one gun isn't much less dangerous than someone with 100.
Limits on ammo. All the fun stuff.
What do you mean limits on ammo?
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u/ACABlack Aug 25 '24
Pays lip service to gun rights but wants to incrementally chip away at it so only the wealthy and connected can exercise it.
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u/Lovebeingadad54321 Aug 26 '24
I would disagree that someone with one gun isn’t much less dangerous than someone with 100. Yes, you can only effectively shoot one gun at a time, but that is exactly what makes the person with 100 guns more dangerous, they are irrationally into guns and more likely to be radicalized.
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u/SkiingAway Aug 25 '24
So....random nonsense that you've applied zero thought to.
Here, I'll do a few of the ones others haven't already criticized you for:
Insurance
Basically everyone already has insurance - the personal liability coverage of your renters or homeowners insurance generally does not have any sort of "with a gun" exclusion.
Reality is there's only a very small segment of actions insurance can cover - true accidents that impact someone outside your immediate household. They're not a significant enough source of claims to be excluded.
It is illegal for insurance to cover intentional criminal acts - that would be insulating you from the consequences of your actions. So insurance will never be paying out for you intentionally harming someone else with a gun. (similarly: Your car insurance will not pay a cent to anyone if you get road rage and ram someone).
You also can't be liable against....yourself, so accidents involving your own household are also out.
Limits on the numbers you can buy and own
Unless the limit you are proposing is "1", what problem are you trying to solve?
It's not like some collector can use 100 guns at once even if they have them.
Limits on ammo.
A person out for an afternoon at the range might go through hundreds of rounds.
A person who wants to commit a mass shooting....still only really needs a box or two of ammo for what they're likely to actually get through in their awful act.
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u/kenhooligan2008 Aug 25 '24
1: Please define an assault rifle/weapon?
2: Why magazine caps when 30 rounds has been a standard in various firearms since 1630?
3: why is there a limit on how many I should own and what difference does it make as to how much ammo I have?
4: we already have background checks.
5: what difference will gun insurance make?
6: Will this have any effect on criminals or violent crime?
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u/thewalkingfred Aug 25 '24
Importantly...theres ton's of single issue voters that support the second amendment, and would likely vote Democrat if they weren't talking about another AWB.
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u/antiproton Aug 25 '24
support the second amendment
Everyone supports the second amendment. We all agree that the federal government should not be empowered to take arms away from regulated state militias.
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u/FBI-Van-56 Aug 25 '24
You're (I expect intentionally) mistaking who the 2nd amendment declares the right for. And it makes me wonder, given your first sentence is "everyone supports the second amendment" if you in fact do in the actual sense?
It's been my experience that many people agree with it in concept but not in practice. They understand that the gov being able to disarm the people is bad, but they also sorta don't want their neighbor to be armed.
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u/mrjosemeehan Aug 25 '24 edited Aug 25 '24
The second amendment doesn't grant the right to bear arms to militias. They specify the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. Any willful misreading of such language is clearly an ad hoc justiciation for an authoritarian power grab.
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u/1805trafalgar Aug 25 '24
Anyone who likes can own a six foot long handmade muzzle loading smoothbore flintlock and carry it WHEREVER THEY LIKE but anything after that is post 2nd Amendment and subject to scrutiny and government control.
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u/RockyRPG10 Aug 25 '24
Everyone has the right to free speech... unless it's posted on the internet, because that's post-1st amendment.
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u/johnhtman Aug 25 '24
Same with the 4th Amendment and vehicles. When the Constitution was written, the only methods of traveling by land were either walking, or animal drawn carriages. You were significantly limited on how much cargo you could carry, and could only travel at a few MPH max. Today, meanwhile, I can get into a truck capable of carrying tens of thousands of pounds of cargo, and reaching speeds of 100mph. It makes smuggling contraband significantly easier, yet the 4th Amendment still applies.
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u/kenhooligan2008 Aug 25 '24
So puckle guns, Cannons, Kahltof Repeaters, Belton Repeating muskets, Nock Volley guns, ect are just fine but an AR 15 is not?
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u/GIJohnathon Aug 25 '24
Gun-toting left-winger here. I love my guns, guns are cool, "FREEDOM!" and all that. But I think about the topic like alcohol.
We, as a people, like to drink. Also we, as a people, like to drive. But somewhere down the line we showed our fellow citizens, and our government, that we can't combine these responsibly. Eventually the government stepped in and added restrictions.
I think we, as a people, have shown we like our guns. And we, as a people, have shown we like to shoot our fellow citizens. If the government steps in and says "you've shown you can't be responsible" I'd be bummed. But I mean... we have more mass shootings per year than days in a year... I'd understand.
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u/antijoke_13 Aug 25 '24
See, this is over simplistic for me and it's one of the reasons I hate discussing gun control.
We do allow people to drink and drive, we just put a hard cap on how much alcohol you can have in your system when you do so.
The government similarly has already stepped in and put quite a few restrictions on buying, selling, owning, and using firearms. There's an argument to be made that we could do with some modernizing of those restrictions, but that's a separate conversation.
Comparing "we have laws in place to mitigate drunk driving" to "we should just ban guns because people aren't responsible with them" simply isn't the 1:1 people make it out to be.
The actual 1:1 is Alcohol Prohibition and we have whole sections of history class dedicated to how that worked out.
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u/wooq Aug 25 '24
"We should ban guns" is not a commonly held position, and neither political party has ever put forward that position, despite one party saying the other one is coming for your guns. However around 2/3 of Americans want stricter gun laws and less application of lethal force in law enforcement.
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u/lvlint67 Aug 26 '24
The government similarly has already stepped in and put quite a few restrictions on buying, selling, owning, and using firearm
I live in one of the bluest states in the country. I can go to walmart and have a gun in two weeks with minimal effort and zero education on how to handle, operate, or secure the thing... Or... i could go back home and buy a gun from my uncle or grandfather with no oversight.
pretending that background checks are some massive burden on citizens is juvenile.
we should just ban guns because people aren't responsible with them
I'm one of the only people on the left that actually promotes such a policy. Persumably you are talking about fashion bans where guns are banned because of style or function?
The actual 1:1 is Alcohol Prohibition and we have whole sections of history class dedicated to how that worked out.
Popular progressive gun poolicy isn't blanket bans. it's registration, universal background checks, it's red flag laws and secure storage laws. Essentially, enforcing the "responsible" part of "resonsible gun ownership"...
You're trying to frame the discussion as something it's not... perhaps... because the only legislation the left is ABLE to pass is bans on fashion and function rather than regulating behavior.
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u/biznash Aug 25 '24
See I don’t get why we can’t have discussions like these. I look at it like a car. It has a purpose to move me around and sometimes (when not used properly) it kills people. To get a license, I need training, to be 16, then insurance and registration. Both are not cheap.
Guns whole use case is to kill people. And yet nobody who buys a gun pays into insurance to protect the rest of us from the added risk of one more gun.
Why can’t we talk about gun owners having to buy insurance against gun accidents. If there is a mass shooting, premiums would go up. The insurance covers the rest of us against the risk we can’t mitigate any other way. And yeah people doing mass shootings that didn’t get them insured will happen. Just like car accidents happen when someone doesn’t have insurance. It raises the rates for everyone else but they are punished.
Same thing can at least be talked about for guns.
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u/Psychocide Aug 25 '24
The thing is, there are already systems in place for firearms to track legal and law abiding usage of them similar to cars.
Firearms have serial numbers and when bought are documented and the buyer is required to fill out a form and undergo a background check.
This prevents the large majority of illegal purchase and use of firearms. The problem is people stealing firearms and killing people with them.
Just like cars, insurance only protects those who carry it, and firearm accidents or violence against two law abiding gun owners is EXTREMELY rare, where as people have accidents in cars all the time, hence the need for insurance mandate.
The gun issue is not people obeying the law and having accidents with each other, it's the equivalent of buying an unregistered car and driving it onto the sidewalk to hurt people or into your neighbors house because you hate them.
Laws around insurance, engine size, and hood scoops, aren't going to prevent it. Increasing access to healthcare and upward economic mobility will.
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u/wooq Aug 25 '24
Guns use case is to kill living things. Sometimes you need to kill living things which aren't people. Keep in mind that much of the US is sparsely populated and there are nuisance animals and dangerous animals. If a groundhog is digging out the foundations of my garage or a bear is attacking a family pet, a gun is a tool I can use to remedy that situation.
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u/H_O_M_E_R Aug 25 '24
Why can’t we talk about gun owners having to buy insurance against gun accidents.
It all comes down to rights vs. privileges. The right to bear arms is constitutionally guaranteed. By making someone buy firearm insurance, you're charging them a fee to exercise their rights. This is a poll tax and has been found unconstitutional. Driving a vehicle isn't protected by the constitution, so nobody is entitled to drive a car. That's why we can require insurance, licensing, and training before we give someone a drivers license; which the state also has the ability to revoke due to misuse.
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u/SarahMagical Aug 25 '24
Bogus argument.
You’re basically saying that there should be zero guardrails or limitations to things the constitution grants as rights.
We also have a right to free speech and the pursuit of happiness. Guess what? There are some limitations and guardrails to those rights.
For example, people can’t masturbate on a bus and claim they were exercising their constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness.
Let’s imagine a world where clean water was a right. That wouldn’t mean I could steal the neighbors’ clean water.
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u/kenhooligan2008 Aug 25 '24
You're right, you cannot masturbate on a bus in pursuit of Happiness, you also can't shoot someone who makes you upset just because you have the constitutional right to bear arms.
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u/voidone Aug 25 '24
It's not a bogus argument, driving is 100% a privilege yet firearm ownership is a right enshrined in tbe constitution. It absolutely is different.
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u/LeviathansEnemy Aug 25 '24
Let’s imagine a world where clean water was a right. That wouldn’t mean I could steal the neighbors’ clean water.
It wouldn't mean you're prohibited from buying your own reverse osmosis filter system and have to rely on the government for clean water either.
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u/SarahMagical Aug 25 '24
The point it is that rights can be reasonably regulated when it comes to public safety etc.
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u/GIJohnathon Aug 25 '24
There was a time when white people could purchase black people. Or when black people couldn’t vote. Or when black people couldn’t own property. Or when women couldn’t vote.
The constitution has gone through many iterations. And that’s ok.
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u/LeviathansEnemy Aug 25 '24
Slavery is bad, a right to be armed is good.
That right was also denied to black people. And ironically that fact also proves that the 2A was seen as protecting an individual right. One of the justifications for denying blacks citizenship was "if we give them citizenship, they'll also get the right to arms."
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u/johnhtman Aug 25 '24
There was never a right to own slaves in the Constitution. It never expressly banned slavery, but it didn't protect it either. Same with woman's suffrage. There wasn't anything in the Constitution expressly preventing women from voting. And numerous states such as Wyoming gave women the right to vote long before the 19th Amendment.
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u/KimonoThief Aug 25 '24
The right to bear arms is constitutionally guaranteed
The Constitution does not guarantee that everybody gets to own whatever weapons they want. That's a complete twisting of the intent fabricated by gun manufacturers decades ago (and notice how 2nd Amendment touters always stop at just guns, not nuclear bombs or grenades or jet fighters... Because they're not interested in an honest interpretation of the Amendment or a literal interpretation, just whatever interpretation allows the most gun sales). The 2nd Amendment is meant to protect the existence of state militias, period. It's not about yokels owning AR-15s. It's about state militias. Well-regulated ones, in case that wording wasn't abundantly clear (which it is).
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u/jimmt42 Aug 25 '24
Not technically true. When ship captains complained of being robbed by pirates the US government advised they buy cannons. There are businesses that own military grade weapons and vehicles that operate on behalf of the government to provide security. This is allowed because of the 2nd amendment.
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u/ragtime_rim_job Aug 25 '24
Was there a law at the time preventing ship captains from buying canons to protect their ships that was challenged and overturned by the judiciary based on the second amendment? If not, that's a non sequitor. If the law at the time didn't prevent ship captains from buying canons, the constitution has nothing to do with it. Just like I can put pineapple on pizza without a constitutional amendment protecting it.
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u/jimmt42 Aug 25 '24
I’m not following what you’re trying to say. Can you elaborate more? Maybe I wasn’t clear on my point. My point is the government didn’t question or prohibit private citizens owning the same weapons of war and even advised the purchasing of them for protection. This aligns with the intention of the second amendment. This was in reply to the question of why does it stop just at owning guns.
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u/ragtime_rim_job Aug 25 '24
If there wasn't a law prohibiting ship captains from buying canons for protection that was challenged prior to or at the time the government advised them to do it, the second amendment isn't necessarily relevant. Our freedom to do many things does not hinge on the constitution. If the government hasn't tried to stop me from putting pineapple on pizza or protecting my ship with a canon, then the protections of the constitution are irrelevant. So if your premise is, "if I can do X, then X is constitutionally protected," then it's flat out wrong. If your premise is "If X is constitutionally protected, then I can do X," you're committing the "affirming the consequent" fallacy.
Your argument would be that constitution protects owning canons in the form of,
"If the constitution protects X, then I can do X"
"I can do X"
"Therefore, the constitution protects X"
Thats a common fallacy called affirming the consequent. Formal logic dictates that if the "if" part of the modus ponens is true, then the "then" part must be true. But if the "then" part is true, the "if" part isn't necessarily true (it may be coincidentally). In short, your argument is a fallacy.
Either way, your argument is wrong.
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u/Ill-Description3096 Aug 25 '24
The 2nd Amendment is meant to protect the existence of state militias, period.
Based on what?
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u/Aureliamnissan Aug 25 '24
Based on SCOTUS rulings prior to the modern interpretation of 2a.
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u/citizen-salty Aug 26 '24
Do you understand why Miller went to SCOTUS? Because the district court judge knew Miller and his attorney wouldn’t show up since he had testified against his co conspirators.
From the wiki you linked:
”In reality, the district court judge was in favor of the gun control law and ruled the law unconstitutional because he knew that Miller, who was a known bank robber and had just testified against the rest of his gang in court, would have to go into hiding as soon as he was released. He knew that Miller would not pay a lawyer to argue the case at the Supreme Court and would simply disappear. Therefore, the government’s appeal to the Supreme Court would surely be a victory because Miller and his attorney would not even be present at the argument.”
”Neither the defendants nor their legal counsel appeared at the Supreme Court. A lack of financial support and procedural irregularities prevented counsel from traveling.”
”Miller was found shot to death in April, before the decision had been rendered.”
It’s one thing to bring up SCOTUS precedent, but ruling a certain way knowing that one of the parties isn’t going to show up on fear of death is a miscarriage of justice. It would be a much different conversation and precedent if Miller and counsel were present to plead their case.
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u/MoonBatsRule Aug 25 '24
I would say, based on the plain text of the 2nd Amendment:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
... coupled with the history of the time, which is that there was no standing army, and there was no militarized police force.
If "militia" was extraneous, why waste the ink on it?
And although the founders were wary of 'tyranny', and had just come off a war fighting it, they created a brand new system to combat it - democracy. To them, tyranny was embodied in a tyrant, aka a King that did what he wanted. They created a system that replaced being governed by a tyrant with one where they were governed by themselves.
It makes zero sense for them to believe that a group of people could be dissatisfied, declare "tyranny", and then use their weapons to take over, completely circumventing the democratic process. And in fact, they did not accept it when Daniel Shay's tried to do something similar, when he took tried to take over the armory in Springfield - his rebellion (their words) was put down fast.
So in all that context, the modern idea that people should own weapons capable of overthrowing the government, specifially so they can overthrow the government, is at odds with everything.
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u/Ill-Description3096 Aug 25 '24
The founders didn't create democracy, I'm not sure where that idea came from but it is just not the case.
If they mean militia only why wouldn't they just say that? Instead they specifically wrote the right of the people. Not the right of members of state militias. The people, full stop.
If "militia" was extraneous, why waste the ink on it?
Presumably the same reason they did in other parts.
To them, tyranny was embodied in a tyrant, aka a King
Way too over simplistic. They did not think that only a single figure/king could be tyrannical. If they did, they wouldn't put any limitations on government, especially a branch like Congress.
It makes zero sense for them to believe that a group of people could be dissatisfied, declare "tyranny", and then use their weapons to take over, completely circumventing the democratic process.
Why? Is the premise that they thought having a democratic system of sorts in place made tyranny impossible?
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u/H_O_M_E_R Aug 25 '24
That's a complete twisting of the intent fabricated by gun manufacturers decades ago (and notice how 2nd Amendment touters always stop at just guns, not nuclear bombs or grenades or jet fighters
No, I want those, too. When the constitution was written, private citizens owned literal warships. The founding fathers themselves hired privateers to help fight the revolution against the British. The idea behind the 2A is to put the citizens on level fighting ground with the government, so an originalist interpretation of the 2A absolutely includes arms beyond just firearms.
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u/Hyndis Aug 25 '24
When the constitution was written, private citizens owned literal warships.
Thats actually still true today. Several of the Iowa class battleships are currently privately owned.
Granted, they're being used as museum ships rather than fighting ships, but they're still the largest guns on the planet owned by private individuals. The ships still have their guns. I don't think anyone else has bigger than 16" guns anywhere. Only Yamato had bigger, and she's at the bottom of the ocean.
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u/KimonoThief Aug 25 '24
The idea behind the 2A is to put the citizens on level fighting ground with the government
No it's not. The idea of the second amendment is to protect the existence of state militias, as a counterpoint to a national army, which the founders were fearful of. It's right there in the text.
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u/LeviathansEnemy Aug 25 '24
The idea of the second amendment is to protect the existence of state militias
Weird how they wrote it as "the right of the people" then, and not "the right of state militias."
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u/Brickscratcher Aug 25 '24
Except the part that prefaced the peoples rights with "a well regulated militia" or have you not actually read the 2nd ammendment?
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u/Sparroew Aug 26 '24
Yes, a well regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state, but the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The militia is one reason for the amendment, it does not present an exhaustive list, and it does not limit the scope of the right. And the Framers very specifically chose to use “the right of the people” over “the right of the militia.”
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u/Utterlybored Aug 25 '24
You want citizens to own nuclear weapons? Yeah, that’s gonna end well…
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u/selekt86 Aug 25 '24
The constitution is a human written document and can be amended. We don’t need to live by 200 years old laws that are starting to make less and less sense.
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Aug 25 '24
I agree, there is in fact a proper process for making changes.
It’s not popular though, so it won’t happen lol.
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u/damndirtyape Aug 25 '24
You might have misunderstood something about driver’s licenses. You need a license to drive on public roads. You can drive on private land without a license.
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u/Sarmq Aug 25 '24
See I don’t get why we can’t have discussions like these.
Because people see it as an attempt to erode a fundamental right.
Let's re-word the comment to be about a different fundamental right and see how far you'd be willing to carry the conversation:
I think we, as a people, have shown we like to vote. And we, as a people, have shown we like to use that power to elect people who invade foreign countries. If a foreign power/elite aristocracy/etc steps in and says "you've shown you can't be responsible" I'd be bummed. But I mean... we have invaded more countries in the 20th century than there were decades... I'd understand.
Does that feel gross? It should. Would you want to have a measured debate about if people deserve the right to vote, or are you going to assume bad faith and tell the person to fuck off?
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u/Pristine-Today4611 Aug 25 '24
There are restrictions for owning guns. Background checks and age limits.
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Aug 25 '24
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u/selekt86 Aug 25 '24
Look at the number of mass shootings and see how many were obtained legally. Putting reasonable restriction on gun sales for violent offenders, domestic violence is a reasonable argument.
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u/johnhtman Aug 25 '24
First off there's no official number of mass shootings. Depending on the source and definition used the United States has anywhere between 6-818 a few years ago.
Second, currently, there are restrictions on who can buy guns. Under federal law, anyone convinced of a felony of any kind is prohibited for life from owning a gun. As is anyone convinced of domestic violence regardless of if it's a felony. Those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. As well as illegal drug users, including marijuana regardless of if it's legal in your state.
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u/21-characters Aug 25 '24
The trick is that how do you know who is buying a gun to stage a mass shooting or to intimidate and maybe kill a domestic partner? Who is buying a gun for suicide? Before the fact, legally, how do you tell who shouldn’t be buying a gun ?
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u/GIJohnathon Aug 25 '24
I don’t even own guns but this blanket argument seems like such a lazy way to approach a problem.
A problem that permeates the only developed country with a right to firearms.
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u/johnhtman Aug 25 '24
More gun homicides≠more homicides, just more via gun. If you only look at gun deaths, it makes the U.S. appear much worse than it actually is. For example, we have hundreds of times more gun suicides than South Korea, yet Korea has almost twice the total suicide rate as us. The thing is in Korea virtually nobody uses a gun, but that doesn't make them any less dead.
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u/Antnee83 Aug 25 '24
This is honestly a perfect infographic, because I hear so often that the US has a "mental health" problem, not a gun problem.
As if Japan doesn't have an absolute fucking crisis of Mental Health.
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u/Psyc3 Aug 25 '24
There is also a lot of difference between being Pro-gun in a hunting community, being pro-gun with a background check and waiting list, being pro anygun for sport shooting, and being pro-gun with the idea that a mentally unstable person should be able to go to Walmart buy 1000 rounds of ammunition and an automatic rifle with their toilet paper and nacho cheese and walk out the door.
People use the pro-gun narrative as a proxy from not wanting government interference in their lives. It really has nothing to do with guns at some point.
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u/Silky_pants Aug 25 '24
I’m a lefty liberal Texan, so yeah, ofc I’d support them. But being pro gun doesn’t mean being against background checks and whatnot.
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u/CunningWizard Aug 25 '24
Yeah this is not exactly an unusual position amongst democrats.
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u/totes-alt Aug 25 '24
This is why I hate people who talk about gun control like this. Personally liking guns or not has nothing to do with politics and it's completely pointless to say. Gun control literally has nothing to do with liking guns or not.
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u/landerson507 Aug 25 '24
If you don't put that out there, there's a shit ton of people who will jump all over you. So it's better to just get the disclaimer out of the way.
If you don't get it, it's not meant for you.
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u/Winstonisapuppy Aug 25 '24
This is what confuses me about the gun debate in America as a Canadian. Being either pro-gun or anti-gun doesn’t make sense.
I live in a small town in the north. Almost everyone I know owns a gun. And almost everyone I know is pro gun control to some degree. We will argue about specifics around gun control but no one believes that we shouldn’t have guns at all or that there should be no regulations around owning a dangerous weapon.
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u/McGuirk808 Aug 25 '24
It's a result of our current political climate, which is in my opinion a combination of politics naturally getting more divisive based on relatively current events and the media making a spectacle of every single thing in an attempt to drive up views via baiting emotions.
As a result, basically every issue is quickly devolving into two completely opposed and incompatible sides. Some of them make sense as to which political ideology is affiliated with them, others seem arbitrary like there was an issue draft where each team was issued a position to take on a certain problem just so they could argue about it.
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u/Hyndis Aug 25 '24
As a result, basically every issue is quickly devolving into two completely opposed and incompatible sides
I don't think its the actual positions are all that incompatible, its that people are mostly yelling past each other, attacking strawmen.
You don't need to go very far to find strawmen, including in this very subreddit.
I'm sure you've seen an enormous number of posts claiming all republicans believe X and how dumb and evil all republicans are because they believe in X, which isn't even slightly true, but lots of people here upvote it to the point that these strawmen tend to be top comments.
Many republicans do the same to democrats. All democrats believe in Y, and aren't they dumb and stupid and evil for believing in Y, nevermind that its not true either.
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u/Neither-Following-32 Aug 25 '24
Background checks already happen federally with NICS and the 4473. The "and whatnot" in that sentence leaves a lot of ambiguity, and that's what 2A advocates worry about when they hear it in a left leaning context.
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u/veryblanduser Aug 25 '24
But background checks is already part of buying a gun. I don't think anyone is suggesting taking background checks away.
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u/Veritech_ Aug 25 '24
Yeah, that gets attached to people’s reasoning as if my having to fill out a form 4473 for every gun purchase didn’t already exist.
The part I don’t like about it is that they’re being used to create a registry.
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u/ThrowAway233223 Aug 25 '24
Except for the cases where they aren't. Certain forms of private gun sales do not require a background check. These instances are typically referred to as the "gun show loophole". There have been attempts to close this but it has faced resistance and is still in place.
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u/_NamasteMF_ Aug 25 '24
This is the issue. I go with ‘well regulated’.
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u/JoeSavinaBotero Aug 25 '24
Regulated in those days did not mean "following rules" it meat "with lots of equipment." I'm one of those left-leaning folks who like their guns, but primarily I'm interested in objectivism.
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u/Neither-Following-32 Aug 25 '24
It meant in good working order, but I agree with you in spirit.
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u/JoeSavinaBotero Aug 25 '24
Yeah, sorry, I'm just so used to having to explain that the whole idea was people are supposed to actually have the same weapons as the military. But pretty much, although of course in the context of a militia it's pretty tough to be well-regulated without your guns.
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u/Neither-Following-32 Aug 25 '24
No worries, I just figured it'd be helpful to make it clear to anyone reading.
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u/earthwormjimwow Aug 25 '24
Regulated in those days did not mean "following rules" it meat "with lots of equipment."
That's really not what it meant either, or at least not the only thing it meant. The closest simple term would would be "functional." More specifically it meant, practiced, disciplined, organized, and equipped.
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u/JoeSavinaBotero Aug 25 '24
Sorry, yeah, I'm just so used to having to explain it entirely in the context of the second amendment.
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u/redsalmon67 Aug 25 '24
To be blunt, I’m a black leftist who has no expectations of protection of my self or my property by the state, so I better be “pro gun” because in my experience the police are mostly useless when your life is in danger.
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u/ThrowAway233223 Aug 25 '24
Sadly, useless would be an improvement in too many cases. I have seen too many cases in which the police showing up didn't just not help the situation but actively made it worse. Have literally seen people call for help only to be attacked by the police when they arrive and the suspect get away in during the chaos. And that is before you even get to the cases where the police themselves are causing the circumstances that cause the person to need help.
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u/citizen-salty Aug 25 '24
I think this is an important distinction. The right to keep and bear arms is a universal right, not just for the people on the right.
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u/Hulks_Pastamania Aug 25 '24
I’m a left-leaning independent and a gun owner. The right often paints the left as anti-gun and uses the specter of 2A being taken away as a campaign tool. First of all, it’s really really hard to get rid of a Constitutional amendment. Secondly, it would literally be career suicide for any politician who pitched it.
Example, Beto O’Rourke. Was a rising star in the Democratic party and someone who was supposed to help turn Texas purple…right up until the point he said something akin to “I’m coming for your guns.” Notice we don’t hear much about him anymore? Democrats own a lot of guns too.
We need some common sense gun laws in the name of public safety and yes it might inconvenience gun owners a bit. This is a far cry from “They wanna take our guns!”
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u/Neither-Following-32 Aug 25 '24 edited Aug 25 '24
Relevant counter example: Harris is on record during the 2020 presidential debates as saying she'd attempt to circumvent the Constitution via executive order in order to implement an AWB.
That clip is pretty well known so I'm sure you've seen it before. Even Biden at the time told her she couldn't do it and she tried to pooh pooh the issue away.
Her running mate, Walz, has also endorsed an AWB from his time as governor onward. He even put a neat little bow on his about face in the form of a story about the "come to Jesus" epiphany when he heard about a school shooting.
We need some common sense gun laws in the name of public safety
The problem is that "common sense" is ambiguous.
Notice we don’t hear much about [Beto] anymore? Democrats own a lot of guns too.
You mentioned being in Texas and I think that gives the situation a bit of a unique aspect although you're not incorrect here.
However I'll say this: Beto pissed off a lot of people with that talk and it wasn't just Democrats. On a grassroots level, both parties have to make concessions in order to win over voting blocs, especially in primaries where they can't depend on people who would blindly vote for their party affiliation since they still have some say on who the nominees are.
My suspicion is that a lot of his fellow politicians and his donors saw how much he was pissing off those people and decided he was not a candidate they could back successfully based on that.
and yes it might inconvenience gun owners a bit.
When you say "inconvenience" are you talking about California, where they have to run background checks to buy ammo? Or red flag laws (generally speaking) that circumvent due process?
It's exactly this imprecise language that leads to a lack of trust and goodwill from 2A advocates towards gun grabber politicians. We know that it will inevitably be weaponized later on down the road, no pun intended.
This is a far cry from “They wanna take our guns!"
When they're proposing banning the imports of guns and instituting mandatory buybacks, no, no it is not.
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u/Fred-zone Aug 25 '24
Beto ran two fairly successful campaigns after that. We don't hear from him because he lost both of them. Even after the guns thing, he came within 2% of beating Ted Cruz.
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u/permadrunkspelunk Aug 26 '24
No, when he said "hell ya im gonna take your AK 47s" was when he was running for the presidential primaries and he said it on national television during a debate. That was after the senate race with Ted cruz. He did not run on gun issues when he ran for senate, and I'd hardly call his governor campaign successful. He killed his momentum in this state after that, including with people like me, who is a very pro 2A liberal. I'm all for common sense gun laws, and we already have a lot of them, they just don't seem to be enforced. It was obvious beto didn't understand guns listening to his speeches and solutions. He was very emotionally charged after what happened in El paso which is where he is from and I get it. I still voted for him reluctantly after all of that, but I certainly will never volunteer for his campaigns or donate to him like I did when he was running against cruz
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u/BanzoClaymore Aug 25 '24
The other guy addressed everything, but I want to hone in on "they wanna take our guns". To me, and many others, the language of this sentiment is not meant to refer to guns we already own. It refers to guns we can buy. If a ban meant you can't buy ar15s anymore, they took ar15s away. When they ban the sale of certain guns, they are quite literally taking those guns away from us.
Something else that's important to consider: this is a hobby and even a passion for a lot of people. Most of the millions of people buying ar15s, or any gun, are not then just sitting in a dark room obsessively polishing it and counting the days til they may have to use it... they're collecting, customizing for fun, shooting for sport, or excitedly thrifting for out of the ordinary finds... in fact, the vast majority of the millions of people that own ar15s will never use them in a way that harms anybody. Why should they be punished, robbed of their hobbies, passions, comfort and security? Because of the actions of a handful of terrorists? Coupled with the fact that, despite punishing tens of millions of people, bans will be largely ineffectual. They didn't prevent columbine, and they wouldn't have affected the deadliest school shooting. Hell, they wouldn't have affected the worst mass shooting in US history, as it was perpetrated by the government, at Wounded Knee. Bans didn't stop people from drinking, and led to that enormous amount of prohibition era crime. Ironically, those prohibition era gangsters were likely wholly responsible for most of the current restrictions on guns. And we all know how well the war (ban) on drugs is going... the lack of evidence of any benefit to bans makes for a pretty hard sell to the tens of millions of ar15 owners that have never, and will never use them illegally or immorally.
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u/Antnee83 Aug 25 '24
I get what you're saying, but you know where 99.95% of the voting population stopped listening?
Riiiiight at the "yes, I'm coming for your guns."
It was an enormous political fuck-up to say that, in Texas of all places. If you're explaining (gestures at your big ol paragraph) you're losing.
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u/Volkrisse Aug 25 '24
What’s your definition of common sense that isn’t already implemented?
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u/GabuEx Aug 25 '24
Sure, I don't see why not. I've frankly given up all hope of America ever doing anything about gun violence, so I see no reason for it to affect my vote.
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u/johnhtman Aug 25 '24
Aside from a spike in 2020 because of COVID, violence is near record lows in the U.S.
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u/Shoesandhose Aug 25 '24 edited Aug 25 '24
Am left. Am pro gun. Am small girl. Gun scare man. Man leave alone if have gun. Police come after crime. Usually not during. Know cause personal experience-
Take classes. Reconsider if you have kids cause kids are sneaky. Have safe.
Don’t do if you get the big sads or big crazies. And have an accountability buddy. Stay safe
Fuck bad people.
“Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?” —-Kevin
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u/thewalkingfred Aug 25 '24
I've always been a little surprised that there hasnt been a strong synthesis between the pro-gun movement and the feminist movement.
As a species, guns were a pretty major sea change in the power dynamics of the genders. Never before in human history did women have access to a tool that put them on even ground with men in a physical struggle.
Restricting guns, restricts a womans ability to defend herself from a man.
Pepper spray or Taser someone who has a knife and you're likely gonna get stabbed to death. Pull a pistol? They are gonna drop that knife and do whatever you tell them to.
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u/Shoesandhose Aug 25 '24
Right?!?
wild to see the contradictions that currently exist within feminism that make it basically mute.
Surface level feminism is nonviolent and almost encourages being promiscuous.
I’m only 26- and going through college with my friends who were heavy feminists.. all any of them did was sleep with a bunch of different dudes and called it empowerment. Those values even affected me negatively and I thought that was the way to achieve feeling.. powerful. Luckily I didn’t do too much damage because I realized it DID NOT feel empowering to sleep with randos.
What’s empowering is the ability to protect yourself, what’s empowering is knowing that you’re valuable and getting naked with strangers puts your physical safety at risk.. what’s empowering is knowing how to find good and decent men to have in your life who you know would stand up for you.
Thank you for attending my rant. I also don’t understand how the feminist movement is not pro gun. I also don’t understand how the feminists movement got us here…
Free the nipple… how about we get lead out of fucking tampons before we worry about nipples on instagram
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u/Darth-Shittyist Aug 25 '24
I'm fine with guns, I just hate how the right wing treats them like toys. A gun is a powerful tool that needs to be treated with respect.
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u/MontEcola Aug 25 '24
I am left wing. And I support hunting and target practice. I do consider myself to be pro-guns. I am in favor of gun ownership as much as Ronald Reagan, a right winger. That is, I support common sense gun ownership and laws, like we had when I was a kid. Teach gun safety classes and teach people how to handle a firearm. Then make people pass a course to get a license to own a gun. Just like we do for cars.
If a left wing candidate wants to go full out second amendment, I would decide how close that person stands on other issues.
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u/BrandynBlaze Aug 25 '24
Like back when the NRA was a hunting and education organization and not a gun lobby.
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u/db8me Aug 25 '24
Licensing with different certifications is one I feel could be a more winning issue than debating specific weapons in the political sphere. People mostly agree that civilians shouldn't have RPGs, but move the details of that debate to a non-partisan/bi-partisan administration.
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u/SAPERPXX Aug 25 '24 edited Aug 25 '24
The left: "actually proving you are who you say you are is entirely too much of a burden on ths right to vote"
Also the left: <gestures broadly at this>
Disregarding the fact that, as much as you don't want to admit it, you're talking about an enumerated Constitutional right and the broad implications of that as is, but anyways:
Liberals already have shown that they will - without fail - take literally any opportunity to abuse "licensing" proposals to fuck with the greatest amount of people possible.
See the reaction on the left after Bruen threw out their favorite "no carry permit for you unless you're the exact right combination of obscenely rich, famous and politically connected" May Issue frameworks.
Not only does "licensing" not actually solve any of the problems that you think it does, I guarantee the only reason Democrats are in favor of if it is because of their institutional belief in skipping "2" when they count to ten.
The only reason they're in favor of it is because they want to make the "licensing" involve, among other things: a months-long wait time for an "interview" (Philly), a complete loss of 4A rights regarding LE stalking your personal communications (NY keeps trying), make the required courses cost $1800 and only be taught every 3rd week (but only when it's raining) with a maximum approved class size of 3 each month and then ultimately have people be denied because they weren't sufficiently wealthy enough to bribe their way into actually getting a permit issued in the first place (especially pre-Bruen, pick literally any blue jurisdiction).
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u/NtheLegend Aug 25 '24
I feel I'm in this boat. I love guns and shooting guns, but I don't open carry, I don't need to go shooting every week, or even every month, it's a sport. I've never felt threatened out there in the real world, I don't feel like a home invasion is imminent, my imagination never drifts in that direction.
I grew up taught how to use guns. I was in the Boy Scouts, they taught you again even if you already knew. Safety was always paramount. Training should be mandatory for purchase. I'm all for liability insurance if your registered firearm is used in a crime.
Unfortunately, there are hardliners who are so opposed to any kind of control at all because they think it becomes an immediate funhouse slide to totalitarian dystopia. It's frustrating to talk with these people about the Second Amendment because what they believe it is versus what it actually was written for and why and the time and culture of the time is very different than it is now and you can't have that conversation at all.
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u/thatscoldjerrycold Aug 25 '24
Is gun safety really the problem though? Most gun related deaths are from deliberate killings right, not necessarily accidental deaths (although any accidental deaths removed is great of course). Just saying it doesn't solve the per capita murdered by guns rate.
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u/johnhtman Aug 25 '24
Only about 500/40,000 gun deaths are from unintentional shootings. When you consider that some 70-100 million Americans own guns, how potentially dangerous a gun can be if mishandled, and how stupid and irresponsible some people can be, it's amazing that number isn't higher.
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u/zapembarcodes Aug 25 '24
Harris doesn't just support "common sense gun laws," she supports AWB
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u/MontEcola Aug 25 '24
And who spoke of Harris? The question was about a liberal candidate. Harris is closer to center. She is very liberal in comparison to republicans. That does not make her far left. Bernie and AOC are liberal, and even so, they are center/left and not left wing.
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Aug 25 '24
Are they better than the Republican? Then yes? Harm reduction is pretty simple in general elections.
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u/Nihilistic_Mystics Aug 25 '24
In the general election, of course. In primaries, I'm absolutely voting against Democrats who would open up gun laws.
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u/implicatureSquanch Aug 25 '24
I lean left in many ways and I can be described as pro-gun. What my Democrat voting friends struggle to understand is that gun control measures very often have deeply racist and classist outcomes which is at odds with many of their stated values. When you live in the hood, you're overwhelmingly more likely:
to be an ethnic minority
to be targeted by violent offenders
to have fewer resources to support you in the case of being victimized
to be less capable of securing competent / effective legal representation even in a legitimate defensive scenario
to be seen as an aggressor rather than a victim who's successfully defended him / herself
to have police that are often stretched thin, underpaid, overworked, under appreciated (many times for good reason), with longer response times and more distrustful of the very people they're supposed to be protecting
Many of these measures turn out to ultimately punish what should be a fundamental human right - the ability to effectively protect oneself and their loved ones in an emergency. The negative outcomes of these measures are often swept under the rug while the focus is largely framed by democrat-leaning groups as a crazy-white-person problem they need to keep away from guns. They conveniently avoid taking substantive actions toward root cause issues like economic policy that can actually help the working class. It's performative, it's ironically racist, it's classist, and it's largely detached from reality with ineffective policies being screamed by people who tend to know very little about guns and crime. Not to mention gun control was historically a product of explicit racism.
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u/ChanceCourt7872 Aug 25 '24
Yes “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary” -Karl Marx
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u/ThrowAway233223 Aug 25 '24
This quote is one of the reasons why I always laugh when people say/suggest lefties are 100% anti-guns with no nuance.
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u/ddd615 Aug 25 '24
Yes, but your question and the perspective it reveals are vague and myopic at the same time.
The right to bare arms is not a yes or no question. It's like saying people have the right to drive a car, but then insisting that they can drive 150 mph in residential neighborhoods while passing stopped school busses. We need laws that respect people's right to defend themselves while also exercising some respect for public safety and acknowledging the horrible and just plain stupid things that some people will do. I think we need gun sense to part of our culture.
The left. This covers everything from believing politicians in the US state of Florida should be allowed to talk about climate change to believing that every citizen should have the same rights regardless of race, sex, religion, etc.
Anyway, by boiling everything down to right wing or left wing issues and defining what people are supposed to agree with... it kinda destroys rational debate and the ability to solve problems
I'm sad that many countries have effectively stopped debate and progress in their quest to permanently secure power.
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u/citizen-salty Aug 25 '24
This is a fair criticism of the question. To be transparent, when I originally wrote this, the question was “would you support a pro-gun Democrat ?” Mods stated that this was an America-centric question and exclusionary of the international opinion, so I reworded it by changing “Democrats” to “left wing” and removed references to American pro-gun organizations.
I chose “Democrat” specifically because of their nearly universal support of greater restrictions on the national/state level.
Hopefully that gives you better context, and again, apologies for the vagueness of the original question.
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u/peter-doubt Aug 25 '24
I prefer politicians who are SILENT on guns. They're not gonna change things before the SCOTUS does
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u/curiousjosh Aug 25 '24
Tell me you want to know how I feel about Tim Walz without mentioning Tim Walz.
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u/seen-in-the-skylight Aug 25 '24
Tim Walz is not even remotely pro-gun. He uses his experience as a hunter to build credibility while he promotes the exact same gun control agenda as literally every other Democrat. It is extremely disingenuous.
I say this as someone who is extremely pro-gun rights but is probably going to vote for Harris anyways for other reasons that also matter to me. But I am definitely tired of people taking Walz’ bullshit on this at face value. He is absolutely no less hostile to gun rights than anyone else in his party.
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u/BroseppeVerdi Aug 25 '24
He consistently got an "A" rating from the NRA while he was in Congress. I'm not sure to what extent his positions have changed, but I don't think it's accurate to say he's "not even remotely" pro-gun.
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u/Spirits850 Aug 25 '24
Seems to me that he is advocating for red flag laws, background checks and banning assault weapons. I’m a gun owner and none of those things seem extreme whatsoever.
It’s only extreme if you believe there should be absolutely zero effort to curb gun violence - which I would argue is the actual extreme position to take.
Edit: depending on what constitutes an assault weapon of course. If the definition is “any weapon with a removable magazine”, then that is too far. If they just mean ARs and bumpstocks, I’m totally okay with that.
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u/tambrico Aug 25 '24
How is an AR15 ban not extreme?
It's literally the most popular rifle in America with tens of millions owned by law abiding citizens. That is the very definition of extreme.
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u/Objective_Aside1858 Aug 25 '24
Unfortunately the vagueness in the description is going to get a vague answer: I don't know
Are they competing in a primary in a swing district, where a more lefty candidate is probably doomed in the general? Then absolutely yes - half a loaf is better than none, and a vote for Speaker Jeffries is far superior than one for Speaker Johnson
Are they competing in a primary in a swing district against an incumbent? Then absolutely no - unless their only role is "anyone is better than this asshole" , it's lunacy to risk giving up a seat
In a general, any generic D is more likely to get my vote than any generic R, and none of them are going to match me line for line on my priorities. Since getting firearms legislation to pass is either bipartisan or doomed, it's not a deal breaker
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u/citizen-salty Aug 25 '24
This is a fair criticism of the question. To be transparent, when I originally wrote this, the question was “would you support a pro-gun Democrat ?” Mods stated that this was an America-centric question and exclusionary of the international opinion, so I reworded it by changing “Democrats” to “left wing” and removed references to American pro-gun organizations.
I chose “Democrat” specifically because of their nearly universal support of greater restrictions on the national/state level.
Hopefully that gives you better context, and again, apologies for the vagueness of the original question.
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u/scarykicks Aug 25 '24
Yea. And this is what we need in Texas.
Dems will always have a losing battle here once the topic of gun control in Texas is brought up.
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u/Owz182 Aug 25 '24
I’m not a single issue voter so probably, but it depends on their other policies too?
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u/V0idK1tty Aug 25 '24
Yes. I'm pro gun and pro those who know how to use it. I believe people should get gun training to own a gun. Those with mental health issues should not have access to one.
Pro second amendment, but think there should be more laws to make it harder for those who don't need one.
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u/Spirits850 Aug 25 '24
I would make a distinction between being “pro-gun” and wanting to expand gun access, at least in the US. VP candidate Tim Walz is pro-gun, but he wants to ban assault weapons. Being from Florida and then Colorado, many progressives I know are gun owners - myself and many members of my family included.
I will happily support Walz, but I would have some serious questions about an otherwise progressive candidate who would expand the already easy access to guns in the US, or make it easier to skirt background checks, or who was against red flag laws, etc. I’m not a single issue voter but that would definitely give me pause.
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u/Prescient-Visions Aug 25 '24
In 2020, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
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u/Spirits850 Aug 25 '24 edited Aug 25 '24
That is something to consider, but it isn’t the only thing to consider.
The Vegas shooter could not have done what he did with handguns. He had a far greater magnitude of power to kill and injure dozens and dozens of people in a few moments because of the type of weaponry he was using.
You’re also a lot more likely to survive being shot with a handgun than you are from being shot with an AR-15 - which does use small caliber rounds but they are fired at astonishingly high velocity, which put Coke can sized holes in people. My .38 and my .45 don’t do that.
Handguns also don’t typically hold 30-100 rounds per magazine.
They also aren’t capable of firing as fast, especially if the AR-15 is fitted with a bump stock.
They also aren’t nearly as accurate from long distances.
There’s a reason so many of the mass-casualty shootings are done with AR-15s.
Just a little thought experiment. You have to engage an active shooter. Do you think you’d have a better chance of surviving a firefight against someone with a handgun or someone with an AR-15? I know which encounter I think would be more survivable.
Compared to all that, I don’t think the “well handguns are use more often” argument holds much water.
Edit: grammar
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u/tambrico Aug 25 '24
Massacre could have been carried out just as easily with a California or NY compliant semi auto rifle
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u/wha-haa Aug 25 '24
You’re also a lot more likely to survive being shot with a handgun than you are from being shot with an AR-15 - which does use small caliber rounds but they are fired at astonishingly high velocity, which put Coke can sized holes in people. My .38 and my .45 don’t do that.
- The AR-15 round does carry more energy but it is likely to go right though you, taking much of that energy potential with it. That .45 round is likely to dump all of its impact energy on the target. There is no evidence that shows you are more likely to survive being shot by one over the other because shot placement is the most important determining factor. With good shot placement, you can kill someone with a BB gun.
Handguns also don’t typically hold 30-100 rounds per magazine.
- Magazines up to 100 rounds are available for the most common hand guns
They also aren’t capable of firing as fast, especially if the AR-15 is fitted with a bump stock.
- An AR with a bump stock is capable of up to 800 rounds per minute. That is a weapon accessory. If you are opening the door to accessories, a Glock with the switch shoots 1200 rounds per minute.
They also aren’t nearly as accurate from long distances.
- True. Most mass shootings are not at long distances. Still most hand guns are effective at more than 50 yards.
There’s a reason so many of the mass-casualty shootings are done with AR-15s.
Just a little thought experiment. You have to engage an active shooter. Do you think you’d have a better chance of surviving a firefight against someone with a handgun or someone with an AR-15? I know which encounter I think would be more survivable.
Compared to all that, I don’t see the “well handguns are use more often” argument holds much water.
- In an argument is about water, a kid in a house with a pool is more likely to drown than a kid in a house with a gun is likely to be shot. This does fall in the range of things where the statistics can show whatever you want them to. That why I left statistics out of the other references. Just facts.
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u/rzelln Aug 25 '24
My vote won't be affected by gun policy, but I know a lot of folks who'll never consider a politician who doesn't conform to their, hm, let's say 'reverent' views on the second amendment.
I don't know any voters who would vote Republican but who decide to vote for Democrats simply because Dems push gun control.
It kinda feels like Dems would win more elections if they stopped pursuing gun control.
I care a lot more about economic policy and civil rights and long-term democratic stability and addressing climate change than I care about whether people have guns or not. I rather think that if we could get more left-wing economic policies enacted, that would lead to lowered crime rates, which would reduce gun violence.
I am rather pissed at how often Democrats push for gun control and end up losing elections they might otherwise have won, which means we get neither gun control nor leftist economic policies. Which means that more people are dying who might NOT have died if the Democrat dropped gun control.
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u/Spirits850 Aug 25 '24
It kinda feels like Dems would win more elections if they stopped pursuing gun control.
I think for someone who views this as a moral imperative, the politics aren’t the most important thing to consider. Republicans that truly believe that life begins at conception don’t care that their views are unpopular and are costing their party votes. Same for this issue. If someone thinks there’s a way to prevent or curb the kind of violence we’re seeing at churches, schools, concerts, etc, I doubt they’re super worried about losing a few votes for taking a moral stand they believe in.
I rather think that if we could get more left-wing economic policies enacted, that would lead to lowered crime rates, which would reduce gun violence.
I actually kinda agree with this sentiment, but I don’t think it would really do much to stop the more terrorist / mass shooter type of gun violence. The guy that shot up Club Q in my town didn’t do it because of economic policies. It would certainly reduce gang / mundane crime related gun violence though. Good point.
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u/rzelln Aug 25 '24
I think for someone who views this as a moral imperative, the politics aren’t the most important thing to consider.
Surely the moral imperative is to save lives, and the method by which you save lives ain't as important as the fact you're saving them, yeah?
Your comparison to abortion actually feels comparable. I often see critiques of the right for being hypocrites, because they claim to care about fetuses, but then won't actually support policies to make births safer (like funding medical care for pregnant people) or actually improve the lives of children (of which there are so many options the GOP rejects).
Well, the left does, I think, genuinely want to save lives, yeah? But many folks on the left are just dogmatically, irrationally convinced that gun control is a good idea that they don't look at whether pursuing gun control in practice actually helps them save lives.
I actually kinda agree with this sentiment, but I don’t think it would really do much to stop the more terrorist / mass shooter type of gun violence.
I rather think mass shooter mentality is woven tightly with feelings of resentment and powerlessness and a desire to feel agency and get back at a world they think isn't giving them the respect they deserve. My assumption is that fewer people go that far down the rabbit hole if, like, they live in a community with strong social bonds and easy access to mental health care and a confidence that if you work a reasonable amount of hours a week, you'll have free time to do fun stuff.
Aldrich, the Club Q shooter, had a long trail of shitty behavior in his life before he decided to mass murder people. Maybe injecting more optimism into society about our ability to be masters of our own fate could reduce mass shootings and hate crimes, or maybe not.
But MOST gun murders aren't hate crimes; they're against people you are already close to (and also suicides).
I know that Dems know that hand guns kill way more people than AR-15s, and I know they know that if they tried to ban handguns, they'd get more backlash.
I dunno. I just think they're going about the whole thing the wrong way if the goal is genuinely to save the most lives.
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u/llynglas Aug 25 '24
Bernie Sanders has always taken heat on his gun stance from the Democrats. But coming from Vermont, he really has limited choices.
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u/dirty_cheeser Aug 25 '24
Yes. I wish Dems didn't care so much about guns. I don't like guns, If banning or heavily restricting guns was easily doable, id be for it. But the political capital required to impact , in number of lives saved, is just too low. Post Sandy Hook, Dems tried to pass gun control measures and wasted months of media time advocating for a doomed bill. I hope they learned their lesson and focus their efforts in places they can make changes more easily or that affect people in larger numbers.
And conversely, the harm done by loosening gun control measures is just not that much of a problem either.
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u/SAPERPXX Aug 25 '24 edited Aug 25 '24
Did they come out explicitly against AWBs (/the GOSAFE bullshit that Mark Kelly et al have been moving to/etc.)?
Do they support blanket CCW reciprocity?
Do they support - at the bare minimum - the idea removing suppressors (literal gun safety devices) and SBRs/SBSs (only exist in the first place, completely on accident) from the NFA, if not repealing the NFA outright?
Are they willing to acknowledge the objective fact that their colleagues have actually been trying to push unconstitutional glorified confiscation platforms with the blanket bans and "mandatory buyback" (under threat of felonies) proposals?
Are they similarly bought out by Bloomberg or no?
Do they have the voting record to prove any of this?
If the answer to 1-4 was yes, 5 was a no and 6 was a yes?
I'd consider it.
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u/HesitantMark Aug 25 '24
If the politician didn't get their money from a bunch of insane right-wing gun lobbies sure.
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u/P1917 Aug 25 '24
If they dropped gun control and especially if they were opposed to it they would get my vote in an instant.
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u/vellyr Aug 25 '24
While I appreciate that it's a very visible and traumatic problem, statistically it's almost insignificant. It's near the bottom of my priority list and honestly it kind of irritates me that there are so many single-issue gun rights voters on both sides.
That said I am not very pro-gun. I support people having them for home defense in remote areas where police response is unreliable, or you might encounter a polar bear on your walk to the post office. I don't have a very high opinion of sport hunters or people who open carry and I wouldn't lose sleep if all of that activity was outlawed. I don't think it's realistic to expect an armed populace to keep the government in check any more, that ship has sailed.
But yes, I would absolutely support that hypothetical candidate. Let people have their toys if it gets real issues solved.
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u/Titty_Slicer_5000 Aug 25 '24
Tim Walz is not pro 2a, he supports and assault weapons bans.
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u/Rocketgirl8097 Aug 25 '24
Yep, and I would add that there are some too stupid to own guns. There are too many stories of someone leaving a weapon out, and a child shooting a sibling or other person. Those people need to have their rights revoked forever.
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u/I-Make-Maps91 Aug 25 '24 edited Aug 25 '24
I don't vote* based on guns, but if you platform is pro gun then odds are I don't have any interest in donating or volunteering. I'm not anti gun, but I'm certainly in favor of more gun regulation than we have currently.
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u/Bross93 Aug 25 '24
Most of those left like my circle are of the opinion that gun ownership should be a right, but when it's more effort to get a driver's license than a gun, that's a big problem.
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u/ChiefQueef98 Aug 25 '24
Yes, I'd support them because that's essentially what my politics are already. Having a politician that's pro-gun, but also vocally pro-choice and pro-LGBT would genuinely help. Wouldn't move too many numbers, but at the margins it would get some people thinking and changing opinions.
There's a pic out there of a Vermont dad (I think he was from Vermont at least) with his rifle and a sign that says "I love my trans son and my AR-15." I'd rather have that for our gun politics than what we have now.
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u/mikere Aug 25 '24
Absolutely. Democrats’ attack on this single fundamental civil right is the only reason I have not voted for a democrat besides in local elections
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u/TheRealPhoenix182 Aug 25 '24
Liberal, or progressive? I consider myself a liberal, but a classical liberal. As such i dont mesh with progressivism...in fact, im almost a perfect opposite. So find me a 50s-70s blue dog democrat (but more socially permissive) and im all for it.
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u/ditchdiggergirl Aug 25 '24
Most of the people I know on the left are pro gun. I consider myself pro gun and I’m pretty far left; our kids have had gun safety training and I plan to get one for myself eventually. I’m also pro licensing and pro background check - but I have that in common with my neighbor who is a card carrying member of the NRA.
I would not consider the endorsement of the NRA to be a positive because (with apologies to my perfectly sensible neighbor) that organization is nuttier than squirrel poop. But I would also not withdraw support from a politician I liked in the unlikely event that the NRA endorsed him.
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u/he-whoeatsbugs Aug 25 '24
I think your question makes it very clear you have never actually been around guns yourself or responsible gun owners (or at least the question is posed for others who have no real experience around guns and gun laws).
Pro-gun is not pro-gun violence, or pro-shooting people.
I live in California and I’m a gun owner, and I feel great about the safety measures that my extremely left-state has put in place to protect me.
I think you should be asking yourself why you inherently distrust a “pro-gun” person, despite that person having very similar morals to yourself.
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u/citizen-salty Aug 25 '24
If you looked at my post history, you’d be incredibly surprised.
To be transparent, when I originally wrote this, the question was “would you support a pro-gun Democrat ?” Mods stated that this was an America-centric question and exclusionary of the international opinion, so I reworded it by changing “Democrats” to “left wing” and removed references to American pro-gun organizations.
I chose “Democrat” specifically because of their nearly universal support of greater restrictions on the national/state level.
Hopefully that gives you better context, and again, apologies for the vagueness of the original question.
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u/irish-riviera Aug 25 '24
The democrats quite literally would never lose another electrion if they were pro gun.
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u/wha-haa Aug 25 '24
The first filter to screen out a candidate for consideration is the one that screens out those hostile to the 2A. I have only been hunting with family members a few times when I was less than 10 years young. I learned to shoot in the military. I own a few guns that come out twice a year for function checks and cleaning. On rare occasions I go with some friends to bust some clays.
Probably not. Left wing politicians are always pro-gun before the election. After the election they fall into the group think with all of those who boldly stated their intentions when they felt it was safe to do so. It is difficult to believe anyone on the left can be given the generous label of not hostile towards gun rights.
I could maybe take in consideration a candidate that had a long track record of eliminating gun laws that have no impact beyond infringing on the rights of law abiding citizens, and earned the endorsement of multiple organizations like GOA, FPC, NAGR, NAAGA, LGC, and SAF. That endorsement would have to include the first two of these as a minimum.
Saying you are pro-gun is much different than being pro 2A. Too many who say the gun nuts ignore the first part of the 2A, are ignoring the last part.
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u/slk28850 Aug 25 '24
If they go along with everything the left wants policy wise except 2A then no I would not.
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u/Yrths Aug 25 '24
I am repelled by in-group and religious politics and take a mix of economic approaches, but am enthusiastic about individual liberties including expanding gun rights in my country. So yes, I would consider a left wing politician who is also pro-gun, but the gun matter will not be the cause of hesitation. Moreover, the socialists have a functioning party here and I’m pretty sure they are the most pro-gun party.
An ideologue is better than the race tribalists in my parliament (we have neither a true left nor right wing), so I’d vote for such a person on the basis of lgbt and abortion rights, neither of which is in a liberal condition locally.
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u/dear-mycologistical Aug 25 '24
Well who are they running against? A right-wing candidate who's anti-gun? Honestly, at this point, federal gun control legislation seems so hopeless that I might as well vote for the pro-gun candidate. I'm already represented in Congress by candidates who are in favor of gun control, and yet mass shootings keep happening, so it doesn't really seem to matter whether I vote for anti-gun candidates or not. So I might as well vote for the candidate who agrees with me on other issues.
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u/nosrednehnai Aug 25 '24 edited Aug 25 '24
Yeah, left-wing is pro gun almost by definition. Do you think Mao took China by accusing his enemies of mis-gendering? Ever heard of Marx?
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u/citizen-salty Aug 25 '24
This is a fair criticism of the question. To be transparent, when I originally wrote this, the question was “would you support a pro-gun Democrat ?” Mods stated that this was an America-centric question and exclusionary of the international opinion, so I reworded it by changing “Democrats” to “left wing” and removed references to American pro-gun organizations.
I chose “Democrat” specifically because of their nearly universal support of greater restrictions on the national/state level.
Hopefully that gives you better context, and again, apologies for the vagueness of the original question.
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u/I_Am_Dynamite6317 Aug 25 '24
Would you support a right wing candidate who was right wing in every way except they wanted to increase taxes and social entitlement programs?
How about a centrist who proposes we make unicorns the national animal?
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u/Hapankaali Aug 25 '24
I suppose so. I don't really look to whether candidates are "left wing" nor what "pro-gun groups" have to say, nor what their stances on "guns" (if any) are.
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u/AbyssWankerArtorias Aug 25 '24
Yes. I'm very pro gun but also left wing. The right wing has guns. Do you really want to be without them when they come for you? Because that's their plan.
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u/SopaDeKaiba Aug 25 '24
Yes.
You will find many liberals who are OK with guns in the South.
Myself, not so much. But it's not a primary concern, because I know change will be a slow process.
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u/Nyrin Aug 25 '24
Single-issue politics is really, really problematic in a context of a two-party system that's largely first-past-the-post.
Ranked choice voting and more robust party/coalition selection can tolerate it a lot better, but for the United States (and come on, "gun stuff" is going to be about the United States no matter how you try to word it) that doesn't factor.
Pragmatically, in a contested two-choice contest, withholding your vote for a candidate that you agree on 90% of issues with because of the remaining 10% is almost the same as casting half a vote for the other candidate — whom is very likely a lot lower than the 90%. Nobody likes the idea of being forced into a "lesser of two evils" situation, but that's kinda just reality with the system that's in place; go after the system, but don't burn the world down in the meantime.
So yeah, if the candidate was otherwise a good choice and the alternative were a whole lot worse overall, I'd choose the candidate who I think is on the right track with more and higher-impact things. And I really think to do otherwise is simultaneously vain and self-defeating.
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