Can we at least use that to model our gun control? Oh, wait…
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sir,
i was once in the neighborhood of your beliefs about guns, gun rights, and the place of these in our society. i am no longer there.
i am a 7th or 8th generation native of texas. my ancestors have been being born there so long that if sam houston had lost the battle of san jacinto and the revolution i would be a mexican today, unless the states found some other way to steal it. i grew up around rifles and shotguns, learned to use and respect them from an early age. even now i am proficient enough to add venison to my freezer if i wish and shoot a round of 24 at skeet or bring back a brace of dove if i wish something truly gamy. i am a gun owner, possessing a winchester model 94, a remington model 1100 12 ga., and a ruger redhawk .357 magnum.
in the late 70s and early 80s i approached gun rights from the same stance as i did any other civil rights and civil liberties but over the course of the 80s leading into the early 90s it seemed to me that the nra as well as some of the magazines which had been geared more to the outdoor life of hunting and camping started taking on a more and more strident, almost cult-like aspect. it was the response to columbine which led me to reject my former paradigm of gun rights = civil liberties.
as time, and fatalities, have gone by there is less and less i see about the situation that is reasonable. if gun owners and their lobbyists can’t find a sane middle ground with intelligent reforms that would put modest restrictions on gun ownership, enforceable responsibilities on gun owners, coupled with serious licensing requirements for possession, there is going to come a day when the majority of americans who either do not own guns or who are much less attached to the guns they have are going to demand, in such a way that the politicians will have no choice but to listen, that SOMETHING be done. that something may be an australian style confiscation regime of certain types of firearms, in which case we may get to “suffer” along with them the lower murder rates and lower suicide rates they’ve had. that something may be a japanese style restriction to shotguns or air rifles and only after classes, background checks, mental health reviews, and months long waiting periods. i don’t know what that something will be but i don’t think there will be a better chance for coming together on a compromise that might still be effective but would be an actual compromise. then again, i never imagined america would respond to the murder of 20 children with a big shrug.
i’m personally much less attached to my firearms than i am to the safety and welfare of our people. the win 94 would be the hardest to give up because it was my father’s, but even with that . . .
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As a smoker I’ve had to change my behavior radically over the past 40 plus years for the greater public good. It’s no big deal; I go out into the baking heat, frosty cold, lashing rain and wind, whatever. Even when outdoors I’ll separate myself from non-smokers to have a butt.
So, yes, people will make concessions about things they like if necessary.
@Mister44 Nobody’s asking gun owners to completely give them up, just alter their behavior and limit the variety some. Also, try to keep them out of the hands of people who are likely to use them in an anti-social way. I think the majority of people can manage that.
(Yes, I know I should quit. I’ve recently been diagnosed with COPD and am now down to a third of a pack a day. Progress!)
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The former. Don’t @ me, as the Twitter folk say.
Don’t what? Use “literally” as a means of emphasis, or draw attention to the ongoing correlation between domestic violence and gun deaths at the hands of those who commit it?
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Thread:
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An excellent list, Brainspore. I would humbly add:
- Until gun owners are required to go through licensing, including mandatory competency training, with testing and periodic re-certification; as well as having every gun registered and insured, the car-gun analogy falls apart.
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It’s conservatives and libertarians who need to be convinced. If they aren’t going to listen to framing based on firearms statistics and on the documented outcomes of even mild gun control legislation in other civilised countries, they’re certainly not going to listen to framing based on questions of identity politics, pacifism and social and economic justice.
[See also single-payer universal health insurance]
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That only applies when considered within the framework of the existing distorted US political structure. The majority of the population are already strongly in favour of stopping the domestic carnage, but they do not live in a genuinely democratic state.
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Overthrow fascism (which is going to require a revolution), then change the gun laws. Doing it the other way around is suicidal.
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I am also interested in drawing the attention of liberals to the hypocrisy inherent in liberal imperialism. Iraqi lives matter.
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I read you. From the overall numbers in the polls I doubt that more than 2/3s of the Know-Nothing base aren’t in favour of some kind of common-sense legislation. The problem is the GOP and handful of Dems who are in the pocket of the NRA, and the fallout from Citizens United and party establishments that are hooked on big-money corporate donors.
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Don’t count on revolution unless there’s a glaringly obvious attempt to suspend elections (and if there is don’t count on revolution, either). You might find this review of a new book on Millenials interesting, though.
- That’s a different issue, distracting from the one at hand. Kitchen-sinking issues only creates a loss of focus and lack of results in an already difficult debate (the 2003 anti-war demos come to mind). Also, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any self-described American liberal who thinks the U.S. should ever have been in Iraq.
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Different, but related. And I’d be much less inclined to raise it in these circumstances were it not for constant crap like this:
See also the genre of comments along the lines of “I carried an assault rifle in Iraq, and these weapons of war have no place in the USA”.
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Hey, there’s something about the u s of a that you don’t seem to understand: Our military vets are holy people! Practically saints! Where oh where would the rest of us be if they weren’t out there, fightin for our freedoms?
/s, obvs
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That’s liberal and progressive veterans calling out these faux tough-guy gun nuts in a way that embarrasses them and in a way they can’t respond to lest they appear to be disrespecting the military. I doubt they’re seriously promoting more useless imperialist adventures like the ones they were saddled with or actually urging dangerous yahoos to join the military.
Well sure, but patriotic right-wing drugstore cowboys actually believe it. And when a liberal veteran comes at them in this way … well, ever see what happens when someone quickly draws a chalk line across a chicken’s field of vision?
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Trouble is, most liberals basically do too.
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I suppose liberals like myself recognise that if a nation-state has to have a military then we should have some level of basic respect for those who volunteer for what is a pretty unpleasant and difficult and sometimes dangerous low-paid job, especially if they’re put to bad uses by the powers that be.
That’s not the same thing as the blind hero worship by conservatives that these liberal vets are taking advantage of to stymie them, but it’s also not the deeper questioning of progressives regarding a volunteer soldier’s complicity in an imperialist military-industrial complex.
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Kids these days, they’re so shrill.
You tell 'em, Mr. President!
(/s in case you need to be told that).
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Good for Emma!
Didn’t the Republican Senators filibuster any sensible gun control legislation?
Stop blaming the victims, and stop blaming people that are trying to pass gun control. Blame the shooters and their NRA and Republican enablers.
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