There are gun control measures that have supermajority like support among the population like closing gun show loopholes. While I think most of these would ultimately do somewhere between jack and shit when it comes to stopping mass shootings, the fact that we can’t even get these done means WAAF when it comes to guns.
You could try to educate it out like we did with tobacco use but you’ve got parents taking christmas photos with their 8 year old brandishing an AR-15 so I don’t think that’s really going to happen.
Yeah, there’s an identification thing going on with gun ownership and what it means to some people to be “an American.” Those Christmas photos say “owning guns is who we are” and I have no idea how you change that in less than … decades?
What’s nuts is that Czech Republic has quite a few politicians on the center-right that want more gun rights here. Maybe not exactly like America, but more like it. A few of them are running for president next month.
But whenever a major mass shooting occurs in America, it quiets that shit down for at least a few months.
I’ve begun to view guns like opioids. Really the point is to guarantee the profits of the manufacturers. The side effects of the country being flooded with pills or guns is whatever. The 2A is just the excuse to not reign it in plus there is a consistent fear generation to keep demand high.
The difference is that pills are consumable. Even if gun manufacture stopped, it would take a a very long time for the supply to diminish.
It really isn’t about 2A or freedom. It’s all about the Benjamins.
I grew up in SC and half my family was very much firearms-friendly (hunting and handguns)… My grandfather once had a uhaul trailer of guns stolen and had to call the FBI? This was like the 70s or 80s or something, and I was a kid so I have no details.
He gave me several guns as gifts when I was in middle or high school and just over the years. As a high school kid there was a box of guns and another locked box of ammo in my bedroom. I basically never fired these, however. Once in a while we’d go to a range. Today it seems crazy and even then it seemed off to me, that all this was basically just in my closet.
I guess it didn’t stick though, which is why I recount all this (and wonder what would be necessary for others). Left the guns in the closet when I went to college nearby and sold them once I graduated to fund a (short-lived) move to Barcelona w my Spanish girlfriend.
The place I sold the guns was a well-known shop across from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. I sold a several to the shop but they couldn’t take a couple others because they were “Saturday night specials” and would melt at too-low of a temp? Something like that. … Anyway, to sell those, the guys at the shop said “meet us around the side in a minute” and we did a personal transaction.
That was like 25 years ago. I really used to enjoy plinking cans but when my air rifle broke a couple of years ago I thought about replacing it with a .22 but eventually just dropped the whole thing for lack of interest.
My answer is probably in the story … how to break some US peoples’ obsession and identification with firearms? … living in new places, exposure to new people … which isn’t gonna happen because that’s what they want to avoid
True, but also if we had a similar health crisis like tobacco or asbestos nowadays is there any chance the Republicans would get on board with stopping it?
if we just today found out that smoking is unhealth and joe biden went on tv to say “smoking bad” yes, we absolutely would have dipshits like Thomas Massie sending christmas cards with all his kids puffing on cigars
This is more or less what is happening with red meat consumption.
WAKE UP SHEEPLE THE PEDO DEMONRATS ARE TRYING TO TAKE AWAY YOUR HAMBURGERS THEY WANTCHA TO BE A WIMPY SOY BOY LIKE THEM NOT A REAL MAN LIKE ME AND MY PICK UP TRUCK AND MY EX WIFE PLEASE COME BACK LAURA
I view guns as a symbolic issue that matters to right-wingers as much as abortion matters to the left. There are abortion restrictions that poll well, but which liberals are loathe to countenance. I think I could write a book on the symmetries between the two issues, if anyone cared to discuss those issues from a moral relativist perspective that declines to take a position on either issue.
If you imagine what might make you compromise on abortion, regardless of the rightness of that compromise, then you understand what sort of inducement is required to make Republicans compromise on guns.
There’s a difference between policy and tactics. Are conservatives able to protect gun rights and chip away at abortion rights because they are willing to use more extreme tactics? What if the answer is yes?