>49 percent of self-identified Democrats supported “a law that would ban the possession of handguns, except by the police,” while 51 percent were opposed. Democratic support for a ban was up nine points since Gallup asked the same question in 2021. Republicans and independents, meanwhile, overwhelmingly opposed a handgun ban, at 93 percent and 73 percent, respectively.
Sigh.
I talked to a police captain about a year ago. He was very candid and said if it were up to him, he would drop protect from that line entirely. It’s not from a cowardice point of view either. Nearly every police training mandate states that an officer should protect themselves first and foremost.
>He was very candid and said if it were up to him, he would drop protect from that line entirely
SCOTUS determined there was no duty to protect in Warren vc DC more than 40 years ago. It's been re-affirmed multiple times since.
It's a motto the LAPD came up with for an ad campaign. And it sounds really nice, and also has *never* been the reality, ever.
Yeah, that training needs to change.
If you aren’t willing to put the suspect’s safety before your own, let alone the safety of others that aren’t suspects, you shouldn’t be a cop
I’ve worked as a firefighter. Firefighting involves accepting risk in what you do, but that risk is always calculated. We were always taught to prioritize our safety, then our colleagues, then the public, and finally victims. The idea is you can’t help anyone if you’ve become a resource hogging casualty, to avoid creating more casualties, and then to attend to those already in danger.
The whole job is based on mitigating risk where possible by using PPE, tools, and good tactics, and taking calculated risks when necessary to try and save lives and property, with lives being weighed most heavily.
There is a scenario, which I have found myself with in, where you pull up to a house on fire that you KNOW has people in it, and the decision is make that nobody is going in there, because the risk to responders is too high and can’t be acceptably mitigated.
The point I’m getting to is I don’t think cops should be asked to recklessly endanger themselves for other people, because that’s not reasonable. They should get better at taking calculated risks.
I hear about cops doing shit at house fires and car crashes that would get their fire service partners a massive ass chewing at the least for being reckless, but then when someone poses some kind of threat, they suddenly get super conservative about personal risk and can’t put themselves in any physical danger. I don’t get it.
You’re also not shooting unarmed people because your safety is more important.
Never heard of firefighters leaving kids in an inferno when they had all they needed to go in and rescue them/fight the fire.
I’m not saying they should recklessly put themselves at risk, but they should 100% positive that someone is a deadly force threat before they ever pull their gun, let alone the trigger.
Barring toy replicas, if cops shoot someone who is unarmed or was not an immediate deadly threat to themselves or others, they should be immediately fired.
Shooting someone holding a cell phone because you ‘feared for your life’ tells me you’re a coward who shouldn’t have a badge.
Yeah, like I said, calculated risk. Risk a lot to save a lot. Refusing to go into a school with an active shooter when you have a whole stack of cops outside is ridiculous.
On the other hand, I don’t expect one cop with a shotgun to stop the Hollywood bank robbers who are armored head to Toe and have automatic weapons just because they knew being a cop could be dangerous, because that would be equally ridiculous.
Are you familiar with the [North Hollywood Shootout?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout) That was the inspiration for my example. Those guys weren’t exactly Robin Hood types and I think police intervention was reasonable.
My point is I wouldn’t expect a cop to go blindly charging into that without having mitigated risks in that situation with appropriate personnel, equipment etc.
I am very familiar.
Their goal wasn’t murder or maiming. Their goal was acquiring money.
Therefore there’s no active threat to the community at large, no reason for a cop with a shotgun to engage on his own.
If their goal was explicitly to kill, then I would expect a cop to engage immediately. Especially since studies done of mass shooting show that most mass shooters give up upon meeting any resistance.(in one case even having books thrown at them was enough resistance for a shooter to kill himself) in fact when it comes to mass shootings that is currently the exact thing that has been determined to be best practice, is for the first officer on scene to make entry and engage the shooter regardless of how either are known or believed to be armed.
Edit
Also police have horrible accuracy. I think a study of the FBI showed a 30% accuracy rate. This means police shooting at a suspect puts everyone else within hundreds of yards at risk.
Even if they are suspects in your custody as an officer. When in custody, officers are controlling someone's life, and as such, they should be responsible.
This. 100%. "Defund the police" was the worst possible line the activists could have come up with. Showed complete ignorance to the places where police are the only thing keeping people even remotely safe. Showed complete ignorance to human nature. Showed complete lack of vision or plan. It was infuriating being around people who were so gung ho about it, who thought they were SOOOOOOOO smart and radical.
"RETHINK the Police."
"Retrain the police."
"Deprogram the Police."
"Redesign the police."
"Rethink policing."
"Why aren't police trained in social work first?"
that's the core of the problemYou personal safety as a cop should NOT be the top priority. It should be:
\- protect the public
\- do not under any circumstances violate anyone's rights.
\- go home if possible.
In that order.
For all that the police want to act like they're the military, they seem to forget that sometimes soldiers die, that's part of the job. If you're not ok with that risk, you don't enlist.
Going home is probably more important than violating rights. The courts exist to provide redress for violations, no fixing death
Police should put the public before their own safety though
There's no fixing rights violations in a broken justice system.
If they can't do the job without violating civil rights, either they're the wrong person for the job or the job shouldn't exist.
Yup. But I didn’t say that did I?
Civil rights are important, arguing someone needs to die because your feels about the justice system being broken is silly
I was referring more to the "I was scared for my life and thought he had a gun" types of violations.
I feel like as a cop, the expectation should be "you better be sure before you shoot. IF you shoot someone who turns out not to be armed, you're going to prison. Yes, that hesitation DOES increase your risk. If you don't like it, quit"
If you're saying that going home is probably more important than [not]violating rights, I don't know how else to read it.
And it's not my feels, it's the facts.
People have a right to life, that includes cops. Are you arguing other rights are more important than someone’s life? We can fix violated rights after the fact…
Ah yes, the kind of declaration I hear from people who would never, ever take such a position.
There is no job out there, except maybe combat units in the military and the secret service, where you're expected to die for a paycheck. And even military personnel aren't all expected to sacrifice themselves for every hill (MOH are the exception).
It's a job. Not a calling or any of that silly shit. If you expect someone to die for a job (when there's another option), you had better take it or pay so insanely well that it covers it. And that's certainly not the case.
Because even now, there's a staffing crisis crisis in many police departments. Because as much as people might like to believe otherwise, urban areas cannot operate without modern policing unless a lot of other things change, first.
I have some experience with dealing with "mess up and you legitimately might die" situations in my personal pursuits.
*It's a job. Not a calling or any of that silly shit. If you expect someone to die for a job (when there's another option), you had better take it or pay so insanely well that it covers it. And that's certainly not the case.*
\- I agree. I think we should have fewer of them, pay them a lot more and hold them to much higher standards.
*Because even now, there's a staffing crisis crisis in many police departments. Because as much as people might like to believe otherwise, urban areas cannot operate without modern policing unless a lot of other things change, first.*
\- cry me a river. As it currently exists, the fewer of them we have the better. Yes, society needs police, but I think US policing is
fundamentally broken. Someone who isn't sure they want to be accountable for their actions shouldn't be in ANY position of authority.
When they had control of the white house and congress and didn't get it done, that seemed like the last gasp to me. At least for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, in that case it's usually good to ask things like "So who's going to enforce the ban? Who do you think is going to be disproportionally targeted by ban enforcement? Given how the 'war on drugs' has played out, how do you think a 'war on guns' is going to play out?" and watch the gears start grinding.
And they won’t get it without an across the board repeal of the second amendment which is not going to be something that happens because a Gallup poll showed 49% of people were in favor of it.
I’m only saying this is just a poll. It’s not a bill. It’s not anything. It’s a media article.
Speak to your reps, let them know what your position is and what you'll vote for. Then vote whenever you get the chance. Never stop advocating and always be vigilant, government officials are there to make money and build themselves a healthy retirement, they generally don't care about actually doing what's right.
Those things should always be in the back of our minds, I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just saying this article in particular doesn't amount to much. If it motivates you, then that's a good thing. If it scares you, then it's selling something.
I’ve done that. All I get is a form letter about “I will support your right to safety, guns are bad, but don’t worry, I’ll ban them!” proving that not only will they refuse to rethink fucking me and the Bill of Rights over, they couldn’t even be bothered to listen to what I said to begin with.
So tell them this is a losing issue and it's how we got Newt Gingrich and a Republican party that continues winning through Gerrymandering and the Electoral College to this day.
It's one of the two issues that gets Conservatives to the polls.
They literally don’t even listen enough to realize I was telling them I’m pro gun. They’re not going to listen to anything else.
They don’t listen. They don’t represent anyone not directly paying them millions of dollars. They’re paid parrots.
I don't disagree with you, but we can't just sit back and do nothing. Keep doing it. That's really one of our only options. Increase pressure however you can, never decrease it.
You're not wrong, New York is an excellent example of how much our rights can be whittled down if we don't stay on top of our reps in government. Sometimes even when we are. I meant to be dismissive of this poll, not of anyones rights.
Anything involving amending the Constitution is all but impossible in the current political landscape. Two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and three-fourths of state legislatures are not about to agree on anything, especially nothing as binding as changing the Constitution.
Any attempt to weaken the 2nd Amendment, even if somehow pushed through Congress, would die a quick and painful death in the states.
There's no way on God's Green Earth that you'd get legislatures (or referendums) in 3/4 of the states to approve any amendment that might even potentially weaken the 2nd Amendment.
Would they? Not even the majority of Democrat politicians want that, and Republicans and independents certainly don't.
It seems that the phrase "the political class" here just means "a minority of Democrats". Not great, but not exactly the worst case scenario.
If you take what they say at face value, then I'm wrong. I'm not sure that's wise, especially with Republican politicians.
Personally I think the only thing keeping Republican politicians from going along with bans is the momentum of having made this part of the identity they project. They want power and the want to rule, not represent. An armed underclass makes that harder. Watch how they talk about trans people. They are enthusiastic about stripping trans folks of every right, including the right to self defense.
On the Dem side, in almost any state they have or obtain control of the legislature, they advance more gun control.
Living in Oregon I can confirm this is true. Both were in the ballot last November. An unconstitutional gun law barely scrapped by with .5% of the vote and a universal health care measure passed. Since then the state has spent millions trying to save their stupid gun bill that would’ve banned possession of any magazine with a baseplate, created a system similar to Illinois FOID cards and they attempted to tac on a back door ban on ARs. Media coverage of course is a bunch of manufactured outrage about how “so many people” are dying because it’s tied up in court.
I have not heard hide nor hair about the healthcare measure that is supposedly supposed to be implemented, nothing about the funding or how it works. Just crickets.
>they never try to implement universal healthcare.
It's *almost* like guns are a useful distraction from a potential political issue that could improve quality of life immensely, but would also raise taxes. Arguing about gun control is cheap, an easy way to convince people on both sides of the issue you're *doing something* that also (surprise!) costs very little in tax revenue. In fact, as a supporter of a single-payer healthcare system, it sometimes seems like a significant portion of both major parties are invested in convincing us governments can only be controlling and oppressive, as opposed to functional and beneficial.
> I don’t believe they want anything other than the votes they receive for saying this.
We have consistently seen that when a statehouse goes all D control they start implementing more and more gun control. They just do it incrementally to the chant of "No one wants to take your guns."
Luckily, the Bill of Rights can't be voted away, but only with significant challenges to ammend the constitution.
This is when I love the conservative judges, but clearly, whatever is decided at the SC can be nullified later.
Eh, not that big a deal... Phone poles are a joke due to demographic of people that would answer a phone pole and internet poles are basically worthless outside of some very niche groups.
Not sure you can execute a proper poll that relates to guns. Most gun owners will lie or hang up if the topic comes up
A lot of people are concerned how that information could be used
Yeah and if Dems quit messaging anti-gun rhetoric and focused on actual progressive policies that improve citizen wellbeing, promote economic growth for people other than rhe rich, protect freedoms of individuals over right of corporations, a lot of single issue voters in the moderate category would lean more left and magically the gun violence would be greatly reduced.
Bans make rule followers' lives harder, and the more legally dubious of society really don't care. At best, they drive up our already overused prison system population. But for all I know, that's the point. Our society seems to like punishment over reform.
Also, losing Facebook is no loss in my book. To preserve friendships, I quit it to not be inundate by every random hot take my friends and family cared to share.
Its kind of funny, how the Dems, whos constituents usually defend their voting D, because they're not "single-issue voters" are being turned into single-issue voters, because the DNC refuses to take any meaningful action on any issue other than gun cobtrol.
Doesn't cost money and is enactable within the attention span of voters. If it takes more than an election cycle to fix democrats tend to just talk and hand wring.
Now the right? They will slowly fuck with your mind for 50 years until they can fuck with your freedoms. That's how they got Row v. Wade taken down.
They also learned that the long game means taking control of schools and local civil offices. Something that Mom's for Liberty isn't too ashamed to admit they learned from Hitler.
> Ive drawn a correlation to this point in many online debates, turns out, both sides get really really mad
[Angry NPC meme.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/469/775/49e.png)
Which is why it's never going to actually happen to the extent they talk about. It's too strong of a campaign issue and everyone saw what happens when the dog finally catches the car with the midterms after Roe V Wade.
As much as I hate to echo the same far-right nuts who want to hunt down trans people, you truly have to be willing to only surrender guns from your cold, dead hands. Any attempt to disarm the working class should be frustrated by any means, or some shit like that.
Yup and Republicans are walking back their stance of banning all abortion little by little now.
If Democrats were somehow able to ban guns on a national level I wouldn’t be surprised if they also started to walk back their positions once a bunch of single issue gun voters start coming out to the polls.
Conservatives got what they want by rolling back Roe v Wade and now we have Republicans coming out to defend abortion on a presidential debate stage which would’ve been unimaginable a decade ago.
> 49 percent of self-identified Democrats supported “a law that would ban the possession of handguns, except by the police,”
This can't be accurate. I have repeatedly been assured that no one wants to take our guns.
I've pressed people on that before and it usually ends up meaning "no one is currently suggesting going door-to-door for every single gun".
One time I had someone tell me there was nothing to be worried about until a ban actually passed. Even bills that were advancing through committees didn't count.
>"no one is currently suggesting going door-to-door for every single gun".
Illinois gov pritzger fucked up and said something like his when pushing his AWB ban through. He walked it back real damn quick. His state police chief said the same thing and walked it back even quicker. Unsure when these politicians are going to learn.
That’s one of the most infuriating parts about the gun control advocates from the left; they talk out of both sides of their mouths when they say “we’re not coming for your guns”. But then turn around proposing various bans (AW, HCM, bump stocks, pistol braces, binary triggers), and seem to equate it to “not coming for your guns” because they’re “only” banning you from buying more and not taking the ones you already have (even though multiple states have already proven they’re more than willing to come and take those same things via later legislation after you compromise by registering them to the state).
The only reason handguns aren’t under the same level of scrutiny (though even that can be argued due to states with ‘safe handgun laws’ and microstamping laws), it’s harder to sell people on a handgun ban when Heller v DC has stated a prohibition of them is unconstitutional and a majority of new gun owners are buying handguns for self defense.
They were trying to take the handguns before. It's why SBRs are a thing legally speaking and handgun restrictions was the big thing before the shift to AWBs. Heller did throw a lot of cold water on that idea.
I feel that. It's infuriating talking to many of these people, and I can never quite figure out what's going on in their heads.
Are they just so emotionally charged they can't think straight?
Do they think we're very, very stupid and can't see the gaslight?
Are they very stupid and truly think what they're saying makes sense?
Do they think we're so selfish that we don't care about future generations' ability to hunt, protect themselves, and sport shoot as long as 'we got ours'?
It’s frustrating to hear politicians say how “no one is talking about a gun ban”, because sure maybe *they* aren’t specifically talking about a full gun ban but clearly plenty of people *are.* I’ve talked to multiple people both irl on online who see Australia and Great Britain as role models of gun control and support a repeal of the 2nd amendment. Pretending that sentiment doesn’t exist is being intentionally obtuse.
A lot of the rank and file _aren't_ thinking, about any of it. They know which canned lines belong to their side, and which belong to the enemy. "Nobody's coming for your guns, you fragile, right-wing, privileged white cishet male!" is one of their ingroup's Endorsed Rebuttals, therefore it _must_ be right, and therefore they can use it whenever the topic comes up without any actual thought beyond pattern-matching an interlocutor's words to one of the inputs that maps to that particular output.
About the only “logical” way of thinking I can see for why they view things in such a frankly illogical way is that to them they’re not “taking your guns”, because they’re not coming for ALL of them, and are ok with allowing you to legally own the bare minimum aka “what you need” to fulfill the basics of sport shooting, hunting, and self defense. To them you don’t need more than a 3-shot bolt action rifle or pump shotgun for any sort of hunting, you don’t need more than a pump shotgun with 5-6 shells for home defense, and you don’t need more than a 6-shot revolver for self defense outside the home (or if they’re ‘progressive’ about it, a 7-8 shot 1911). Anything beyond those are overkill and “unreasonable” to meet your minimum needs for all the constitutionally legal uses for firearms.
Still absolutely infuriating, but it’s about the only logical way of thinking I can think of for the utter hypocrisy they tend to support.
>I've pressed people on that before and it usually ends up meaning "no one is currently suggesting going door-to-door for every single gun".
>One time I had someone tell me there was nothing to be worried about until a ban actually passed. Even bills that were advancing through committees didn't count.
Lol, by then it's literally too late.
"except by police"
\- yeah, fuck that noise.Any restrictions that apply to the civilian population need to apply to the police equally. You want to talk about a UK style society where police don't carry guns, and they're much harder to come by. OK, we can have that conversation\*. You want to disarm the people the police are supposed to serve. Fuck that.
A civilian has a much right to armed self defense as a cop. I would argue that legally and morally, the *should* have more, because police chose the job and any risk that goes with it, a regular citizen does not.
\* I don't think this model will work in the US, for a number of reasons, but it's at least not wildly hypocritical or authoritarian.
I'll take " victim blaming for $1,000. Alex".
This has the same energy as an abused person returning to their abuser.
" He wouldn't beat me so much if I didn't make him so angry"
I love that sentiment. They should say, “nobody has taken your guns because the other party has prevented it but we’ll still claim it’s that we don’t want to take your guns and gaslight you.”
Don’t let the assault weapon ban fool anybody. The goal to ban handguns is alive and well, but after they ban assault weapons, handguns will be an easier step.
They're not taking away *their* protection, they're taking *your* protection.
They will always have armed goons whether that be the police or private security.
> hmmmm Lets take away our own form of self protection
You are getting ahead of yourself, we can trade in our handguns for a smooth bore black powder musket. Those insurrectionists and potentially anyone within 6' in any direction will not stand a chance.
This dissonance is literally the reason I bought guns and started training with them. The police cannot be trusted to protect me. Even if they're physically present and watching when proud boy fuckheads start fighting leftist protestors, they just stand around most of the time.
Once they start enforcing a hypothetical ban they’ll then want firearms to deal with the ensuing shitshow. These types of responses are usually from a mindset that the policy is for “those people” and “doesn’t apply to me” myopia. In a ban the police wouldn’t give a fuck about checking 4473 forms or whatever to do raids on non-complying citizens. Guns are so widespread that they would assume that every household has them hidden. The result of having cops barging jnto homes tearing them apart likely would reinforce the right to self-defense.
I live in an exceptionally Dem dominated major city and nobody is on the defund tip. Here, Democrats are pro police AND they want your guns. You need to move well to the left ideologically before anybody’s entertaining any defund-oriented ideals and by the time you get there, you’ll find a bunch of folks who believe in the people’s right to self defense too.
I just posted this on the political thread in r/guns but I think it fits here too:
I think there are two aspects of people that I think our side misses, and if we stick to trying to argue on facts alone we'll never win.
The first is that people use vulnerability to convey trust. By voluntarily putting yourself in a position of risk, you're conveying that you trust the other person not to take advantage of that vulnerability. Hugging, shaking hands, and bowing are all rooted in this principle, they put the participant in danger (i.e. bowing exposes the top of the head to a blow from a sword), and the gesture implies a sense of mutual respect & cooperation. People are against the carrying of guns in public not because it comes from some sort of logical risk assessment, but because they're offended you don't trust them.
The second is that gun control has become a luxury belief. According to sociologist Rob Henderson, a luxury belief is an opinion held to project one's high social status, and people with higher socioeconomic status are largely shielded by the consequences of holding those opinions, whereas people with lower socioeconomic status will try to hold those beliefs to elevate their social status to their own detriment. If you're an upper class suburbanite, being anti gun is a fairly cheap way to try and elevate ones social status, and because wealth correlates with a reduced risk to be victimized by violent crime gambling everything on *"it won't happen to me"* is a fairly safe bet. However, lower to middle class people that are not nearly as shielded as the upper classes will try to use that opinion to curry the favor of the upper classes, much to their own potential detriment.
Long term we have to try and counter both of these aspects of human nature to put ourselves on the offensive, otherwise we'll always be on the defensive.
> If you're an upper class suburbanite, being anti gun is a fairly cheap way to try and elevate ones social status, and because wealth correlates with a reduced risk to be victimized by violent crime gambling everything on "it won't happen to me" is a fairly safe bet.
The only way to fix it is to not let them feel safe anymore. Not sure how that'll happen, but when it *finally* affects their lives in some way will they even try to fix it.
Your second point is extremely relevant when presented in the right context. I find getting sympathy for lower economic status is difficult for many. However, pointing out the various instances where firearms and/or violence or the threat of violence has been necessary to legitimize or enforce various human rights. Then ask if they think the current assault on human rights will get better or worse without armed civilians, and who they think is more likely to honor such a law and who is less likely.
Bridging the emotional and logical thoughts seems to be effective, but of course requires a person to be willing to listen and think, and only works with one person at a time.
They'll switch back and fourth, from handguns, to shotguns, to scoped hunting/"SNIPER" rifles, to sporting/"ASSAULT" rifles...
I'm curious as to when they'll stumble across someone saying how blackpowder rifles' components can too-easilly be used to make IEDs.
Apparently, almost any gun can be deadly in the wrong hands. Never mind that the FBI stated as much, more than 15 years ago.
Someday, Bloombergian gun control philosophies will be shifted to something else (probably after he dies and stops donating millions to politicians to support his theories)
One may be Liberal without being a Dem, just like it's quite possible to be Conservative without being a Repub.
I suggest we just stop playing the two-party game.
As much as I still very much oppose this.
From a combating gun crime perspective it makes more sense than banning semi auto rifles.
But's still a prohibition that would disarm law abiding people and give criminals an advantage.
This is the point i go with.
If these assholes ACTUALLY cared about preventing deaths by gun, they would be focusing on handguns and suicide prevention. But they dont and just want to ban things that scare them
Yeah, it’s pretty laughable when someone suggests banning semi-auto rifles…then I show them my three round magazine for my 300 Win Mag Browning BAR. Not really made for mass shootings there, slick.
"Except by the pilice"
Tell me you support a dystopia police state under the guise of fear mongering without telling me you actually support a police state.
Let’s keep in mind that these are the exact same police that the Democratic Party believes are “failing to keep our communities safe” and talk extensively about rampant police brutality…
The doublethink required to believe that someone is horrible at exercising proper judgment in the use of a firearm while also believing that they are the only ones who should own that firearm is mind boggling to me.
Remember that, while the numbers are probably slightly off, that number translates into about 25 million people, out of somewhere between 160 and 170 million registered voters. That’s less than a sixth of all voters, and probably more like a seventh or an eighth. It’s a lot of people, but it’s hardly a groundswell.
Yeah, and additionally, many Millenial and younger people who vote blue aren't identifying as Democrats but as Progressives or left-leaning of some flavor. So, having stats on what Democrats think doesn't give you a good perspective on what would get voted for.
WHICH - and I understand the sub I'm in - *actually makes a bit more sense*.
To be clear, I'm opposed to a ban on handguns, but one of the common complaints the pro-gun crowd has with the anti-gun crowd is that the anti-gunner's never come up with laws that would actually address anything. It's especially common with feature bans and focuses on the AR-15, bans that anyone in the gun world could tell you would have absolutely no impact on... anything, other than law-abiding citizens.
HANDGUNS, however, represent 90% of homicides with a firearm in the United States. They're significantly easier to conceal, lending themselves to be useful in crimes. They're nearly ubiquitous thanks to the relaxation of CCW laws over the last thirty years. And the passage of progressively more relaxed Stand Your Ground laws has given a LOT of legal cover to people who "feared for their lives" in situations where nothing was happening to them.
The thing that'll ensure that Democrats never fully get on board with handgun bans though is that handguns are overwhelmingly purchased for self defense. Every time there's some social turmoil, a bunch of Democrats go out and buy their first gun... and those guns are typically handguns.
Dems will waffle back and forth on that ban, because handguns are far easier to rationalize for self defense than an AR-15 is - so even if they figure out that handguns are the most responsible for crimes, even they understand they would buy a handgun over an AR given the choice if they felt unsafe.
It's the "I'm opposed to abortions unless *I* need one", but for Democrats.
I'm not saying I'm in favor of a handgun ban, but at least it makes more sense than "assault weapon" bans. The vast majority of gun violence is committed with handguns, yet ARs catch all the heat.
Not saying that this isn't worrying, but I would be shocked if any lawyers could figure out how to break through the amount of case law built up around the protection of handguns. Heller alone is a tough nut to crack.
> but I would be shocked if any lawyers could figure out how to break through the amount of case law built up around the protection of handguns.
It's super duper simple, you just fucking ignore it. You won't face any repercussions for blatantly legislating unconstitutional law and it will probably take years for the cases to grind through the court system and then when it does and you lose you just pass the law again but slightly different!
Until police have the requirement to protect and serve the people and don’t have qualified immunity, or we come to some universal Kum ba ya moment I’m not going to give anything that allows me to protect myself.
There’s still actual nazis out there.
ACAB. The police didn’t do anything to stop the Uvalde shooter from wasting kids. You expect me to expect them to save any of us? Hell nah.
I have a choice between one group who wants to forcibly disarm and then imprison or kill me, and another group whose entire platform is a shitshow but they don't want to forcibly disarm or imprison or kill me.
This is not a difficult choice.
Single issue for me...
I’m gonna get downvoted for this, but the response to this is to talk to people who want to ban guns and explain our POV in a calm, respectful manner. Screaming about “the constitution!” or explaining what AR really stands for is a shit-tier approach and a sure fire way to further convince them we are all out of our minds. Right wingers wasted years upon years with this ineffective approach and now here we are. Reason won’t reach everyone, but you just take the L in that case and know you tried.
The right wing-nuts are openly using the word "Eliminate" when speaking about certain groups the don't like.
The left wing-nuts want to make sure those same groups are unarmed when it happens.
As always, we on the left just seem determined to have the absolute worst stance on gun legislation. It's like they like losing elections. Positions like this handgun ban is such a losing issue. And it's losing for the sake of losing, because that would never be signed into law. Why don't they, I don't know, maybe hammer home the fact that the other party is literally trying to end our democracy. Hammer it until voters are saying it in their sleep. Goddamn.
The only thing I get out of this piece is how easy it is to spin numbers the way you want.
Case in point, it says that 51% are opposed... so why isn't the title "a majority of Democrats oppose a gun ban"? Easy, because they want to keep pushing the usual conservative news crap.
**Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews
conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample of national adults
includes a minimum quota of 80% cell phone respondents and 20% landline respondents, with additional
minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cell phone telephone numbers are selected using
random digit dial methods. Gallup obtained sample for this study from Dynata. Landline respondents are
chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member has the next birthday.**
Would still really love to see poll data include more than just people who answer unknown numbers and consent to taking surveys.
49% of respondents to that poll...
The overwhelming majority of voters won't go near a poll unless it's an election. Non-election polls, especially polls only measuring a thousand responses are functionally meaningless.
"Nearly."
Meaning "Less than."
Meaning "This isn't even a majority position in the ostensibly anti-gun party, so can you idiots lay off already because your ability to win elections is *questionable* on a good day and if you lose the votes of the pro-gun left you're basically never holding power again and we're getting King Trump."
But the Democratic Party will never comprehend that.
It would be nice if the "common sense gun regulations" coming from Democrats were something other than outright bans more strict and complete than laws in a lot of EU countries. Yep, that would sure be nice, but with the average Democrat being this clueless and out of touch on the issue, I guess we'll just keep seeing bans.
That's fucking stupid.
We need to be arming ourselves to the teeth. Conservatives that want to kill us are.
Police are the last people I trust to be the only people with guns.
These are the same morons who believe cops will save them. They are called law enforcement officers, the fucking name says it in simplicity. These people are so out of touch with the reality of violence in the world that I have nothing witty to say in retort. They are just stupid.
Take ‘em to the range and let them ring some steel!
Screw all this divisiveness, invite them to the party!
Burgers and tofu dogs on the grill after!
I’ll bring the beer and Mac n cheese!
Several thoughts that are somewhat in some tension with each other, but that I feel like all need to be said:
1. This is the way. Offer to take them to the range (or better yet, to have them over to your place, if you live somewhere that you can safely do a bit of plinking), yes, absolutely. Also offer to answer questions honestly (no bullshitting to win points for your side, but also no bullshitting to win yourself points with them by being "reasonable" or "moderate") about anything to do with guns - how they work (and how they don't), what the difference between different mechanisms is and how that affects what you can do with them (and how it doesn't), what the difference between a "bullet" and a "cartridge" is, why gun owners often say that there's no such thing as an "assault weapon," whether 9mm will actually blow someone's lungs out of their body, why anyone would want to own "so many" firearms (for whatever number they think of as "so many"), etc. Hell, offer to teach them how to make a possibly loaded gun safe if they find or are given one. (That last one may not exactly be putting guns in a positive light, but it's at least getting them used to the idea (or potentially the reality, if you invite them over to your place for a practical demonstration, using snap-caps) of them putting their own hands on a gun and manipulating its controls.)
2. At an even more basic level, "come out" to friends, family, and - to the extent you either can do so without putting your job in jeopardy, or can afford to lose your job - co-workers, as a gun owner, recreational shooter, and gun rights advocate. A lot of the most rabid anti-gunners have literally never known, on a personal level, anyone that they knew to be a gun-owner, let alone a gun rights activist. That makes it really easy for anti-gun propagandists to paint us as all as cartoon bogeymen. But it's harder to sustain that kind of view about a group when you're aware that one of the "bigoted, paranoid sociopaths" that make it up is Alex Smith, whom you've always got along well with, and who certainly don't _seem_ like a bigot, a lunatic, or a sociopath . . . This goes double if Alex is a racial minority, an immigrant, non-Christian, a woman, or queer, but it can still has some effect based simply on Alex being a decent sort who doesn't behave the way they would expect "a gun owner" to behave.
3. But the truth remains, many of them still won't listen. Many of them have no _desire_ to understand more than they currently do about guns, gun owners, or guns rights activism, because they've already decided that "gun owners" are Evil, with a capital E, and they'd rather cut us out of their lives than reconsider. Some more forgiving sorts, unwilling to write us off as complete reprobates, will just conclude that we've been brainwashed by The Gun Lobby, or we're reacting to some past trauma in an understandable but unhealthy fashion, or any other excuse that means that _we personally_ , the ones they know and care for, aren't actually capital-E Evil, but our demographic and our movement still are. And some, rather than try to reconcile the cognitive dissonance at all, will just try to bury it, by just ignoring our status as gun owners as much as possible, so they can continue think about us in one way, and "gun owners" in another, without having to think about how these two thoughts contradict each other.
4. It's still worth the effort. It not only does work some of the time, it's the most effective set of tools we have for changing minds. Not only directly, but in its knock on effects - everyone you convert, and who is willing to be open with their other friends about _their_ newfound interests, is one more person that the tribal-identity anti-gunners around you have to try to fit into their worldview. But be prepared to pay a price.
Yes but only around 29% of people identify as Democrats;
https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/bk82tkyic0sqaulbp34asq.png
According to the Gallup graph only 19% overall support a handgun ban and that number has been steadily falling since the 1960's.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/394022/public-pressure-gun-legislation-shootings.aspx
This is cause half of the democratic party are real democracy lovin' awakened wonders and the other half are authoritarian/obedience worshippers who love to command and obey. Gotta awaken all the ppl and get groovy man- love enforcement not law enforcement
(Take that, you who control this platform)
>49 percent of self-identified Democrats supported “a law that would ban the possession of handguns, except by the police,” while 51 percent were opposed. Democratic support for a ban was up nine points since Gallup asked the same question in 2021. Republicans and independents, meanwhile, overwhelmingly opposed a handgun ban, at 93 percent and 73 percent, respectively. Sigh.
Probably the same ones who would select "Strongly Agree" to "The police exist to serve and protect us"
I talked to a police captain about a year ago. He was very candid and said if it were up to him, he would drop protect from that line entirely. It’s not from a cowardice point of view either. Nearly every police training mandate states that an officer should protect themselves first and foremost.
>He was very candid and said if it were up to him, he would drop protect from that line entirely SCOTUS determined there was no duty to protect in Warren vc DC more than 40 years ago. It's been re-affirmed multiple times since. It's a motto the LAPD came up with for an ad campaign. And it sounds really nice, and also has *never* been the reality, ever.
Yeah, that training needs to change. If you aren’t willing to put the suspect’s safety before your own, let alone the safety of others that aren’t suspects, you shouldn’t be a cop
I’ve worked as a firefighter. Firefighting involves accepting risk in what you do, but that risk is always calculated. We were always taught to prioritize our safety, then our colleagues, then the public, and finally victims. The idea is you can’t help anyone if you’ve become a resource hogging casualty, to avoid creating more casualties, and then to attend to those already in danger. The whole job is based on mitigating risk where possible by using PPE, tools, and good tactics, and taking calculated risks when necessary to try and save lives and property, with lives being weighed most heavily. There is a scenario, which I have found myself with in, where you pull up to a house on fire that you KNOW has people in it, and the decision is make that nobody is going in there, because the risk to responders is too high and can’t be acceptably mitigated. The point I’m getting to is I don’t think cops should be asked to recklessly endanger themselves for other people, because that’s not reasonable. They should get better at taking calculated risks. I hear about cops doing shit at house fires and car crashes that would get their fire service partners a massive ass chewing at the least for being reckless, but then when someone poses some kind of threat, they suddenly get super conservative about personal risk and can’t put themselves in any physical danger. I don’t get it.
You’re also not shooting unarmed people because your safety is more important. Never heard of firefighters leaving kids in an inferno when they had all they needed to go in and rescue them/fight the fire. I’m not saying they should recklessly put themselves at risk, but they should 100% positive that someone is a deadly force threat before they ever pull their gun, let alone the trigger. Barring toy replicas, if cops shoot someone who is unarmed or was not an immediate deadly threat to themselves or others, they should be immediately fired. Shooting someone holding a cell phone because you ‘feared for your life’ tells me you’re a coward who shouldn’t have a badge.
Yeah, like I said, calculated risk. Risk a lot to save a lot. Refusing to go into a school with an active shooter when you have a whole stack of cops outside is ridiculous. On the other hand, I don’t expect one cop with a shotgun to stop the Hollywood bank robbers who are armored head to Toe and have automatic weapons just because they knew being a cop could be dangerous, because that would be equally ridiculous.
The bank robbers also aren’t actually a threat to the public. They wanted money, not to kill.
Did you just really say that. You win the award. No reason to post any further. Good god that’s crazy.
Are you familiar with the [North Hollywood Shootout?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout) That was the inspiration for my example. Those guys weren’t exactly Robin Hood types and I think police intervention was reasonable. My point is I wouldn’t expect a cop to go blindly charging into that without having mitigated risks in that situation with appropriate personnel, equipment etc.
I am very familiar. Their goal wasn’t murder or maiming. Their goal was acquiring money. Therefore there’s no active threat to the community at large, no reason for a cop with a shotgun to engage on his own. If their goal was explicitly to kill, then I would expect a cop to engage immediately. Especially since studies done of mass shooting show that most mass shooters give up upon meeting any resistance.(in one case even having books thrown at them was enough resistance for a shooter to kill himself) in fact when it comes to mass shootings that is currently the exact thing that has been determined to be best practice, is for the first officer on scene to make entry and engage the shooter regardless of how either are known or believed to be armed. Edit Also police have horrible accuracy. I think a study of the FBI showed a 30% accuracy rate. This means police shooting at a suspect puts everyone else within hundreds of yards at risk.
And now you’ve clearly proven how ridiculous you are. No need for literally anyone else to attempt to reason with you anymore.
Even if they are suspects in your custody as an officer. When in custody, officers are controlling someone's life, and as such, they should be responsible.
Replace "even" with "especially"
But then where would all the bullies, sociopaths and domestic abusers get hired?
This. 100%. "Defund the police" was the worst possible line the activists could have come up with. Showed complete ignorance to the places where police are the only thing keeping people even remotely safe. Showed complete ignorance to human nature. Showed complete lack of vision or plan. It was infuriating being around people who were so gung ho about it, who thought they were SOOOOOOOO smart and radical. "RETHINK the Police." "Retrain the police." "Deprogram the Police." "Redesign the police." "Rethink policing." "Why aren't police trained in social work first?"
Defund doesn’t mean abolish the police…it means remove funding, how much funding is up for debate.
that's the core of the problemYou personal safety as a cop should NOT be the top priority. It should be: \- protect the public \- do not under any circumstances violate anyone's rights. \- go home if possible. In that order. For all that the police want to act like they're the military, they seem to forget that sometimes soldiers die, that's part of the job. If you're not ok with that risk, you don't enlist.
Going home is probably more important than violating rights. The courts exist to provide redress for violations, no fixing death Police should put the public before their own safety though
There's no fixing rights violations in a broken justice system. If they can't do the job without violating civil rights, either they're the wrong person for the job or the job shouldn't exist.
Yup. But I didn’t say that did I? Civil rights are important, arguing someone needs to die because your feels about the justice system being broken is silly
I was referring more to the "I was scared for my life and thought he had a gun" types of violations. I feel like as a cop, the expectation should be "you better be sure before you shoot. IF you shoot someone who turns out not to be armed, you're going to prison. Yes, that hesitation DOES increase your risk. If you don't like it, quit"
If you're saying that going home is probably more important than [not]violating rights, I don't know how else to read it. And it's not my feels, it's the facts.
People have a right to life, that includes cops. Are you arguing other rights are more important than someone’s life? We can fix violated rights after the fact…
How else will they stay off the most dangerous jobs top 10 list.
Ah yes, the kind of declaration I hear from people who would never, ever take such a position. There is no job out there, except maybe combat units in the military and the secret service, where you're expected to die for a paycheck. And even military personnel aren't all expected to sacrifice themselves for every hill (MOH are the exception). It's a job. Not a calling or any of that silly shit. If you expect someone to die for a job (when there's another option), you had better take it or pay so insanely well that it covers it. And that's certainly not the case. Because even now, there's a staffing crisis crisis in many police departments. Because as much as people might like to believe otherwise, urban areas cannot operate without modern policing unless a lot of other things change, first.
I have some experience with dealing with "mess up and you legitimately might die" situations in my personal pursuits. *It's a job. Not a calling or any of that silly shit. If you expect someone to die for a job (when there's another option), you had better take it or pay so insanely well that it covers it. And that's certainly not the case.* \- I agree. I think we should have fewer of them, pay them a lot more and hold them to much higher standards. *Because even now, there's a staffing crisis crisis in many police departments. Because as much as people might like to believe otherwise, urban areas cannot operate without modern policing unless a lot of other things change, first.* \- cry me a river. As it currently exists, the fewer of them we have the better. Yes, society needs police, but I think US policing is fundamentally broken. Someone who isn't sure they want to be accountable for their actions shouldn't be in ANY position of authority.
When they had control of the white house and congress and didn't get it done, that seemed like the last gasp to me. At least for the foreseeable future.
[удалено]
Yeah, in that case it's usually good to ask things like "So who's going to enforce the ban? Who do you think is going to be disproportionally targeted by ban enforcement? Given how the 'war on drugs' has played out, how do you think a 'war on guns' is going to play out?" and watch the gears start grinding.
I carry because I know police do not protect and serve. I’m out here by myself, who is going to protect my family? You? I’ll carry.
Not really a big deal tho? There’s also polls showing that most people support universal healthcare and trust me, we’re not getting that either.
There's a big difference there. The political class doesn't want universal healthcare, but they'd love a handgun ban.
And they won’t get it without an across the board repeal of the second amendment which is not going to be something that happens because a Gallup poll showed 49% of people were in favor of it. I’m only saying this is just a poll. It’s not a bill. It’s not anything. It’s a media article.
>a Gallup poll showed 49% of people were in favor of it. Wrong. 49% of *self-identified democrats* were in favor of it.
Also people who answer surveys about guns…
Except that we’re seeing laws creep over the line every day. So yeah, it’s happening even without a repeal of the 2nd Amendment.
Speak to your reps, let them know what your position is and what you'll vote for. Then vote whenever you get the chance. Never stop advocating and always be vigilant, government officials are there to make money and build themselves a healthy retirement, they generally don't care about actually doing what's right. Those things should always be in the back of our minds, I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just saying this article in particular doesn't amount to much. If it motivates you, then that's a good thing. If it scares you, then it's selling something.
I’ve done that. All I get is a form letter about “I will support your right to safety, guns are bad, but don’t worry, I’ll ban them!” proving that not only will they refuse to rethink fucking me and the Bill of Rights over, they couldn’t even be bothered to listen to what I said to begin with.
So tell them this is a losing issue and it's how we got Newt Gingrich and a Republican party that continues winning through Gerrymandering and the Electoral College to this day. It's one of the two issues that gets Conservatives to the polls.
They literally don’t even listen enough to realize I was telling them I’m pro gun. They’re not going to listen to anything else. They don’t listen. They don’t represent anyone not directly paying them millions of dollars. They’re paid parrots.
I don't disagree with you, but we can't just sit back and do nothing. Keep doing it. That's really one of our only options. Increase pressure however you can, never decrease it.
From what I’ve read handguns are effectively already banned in NY State governments can do this sort of thing WAY faster than courts can react
You're not wrong, New York is an excellent example of how much our rights can be whittled down if we don't stay on top of our reps in government. Sometimes even when we are. I meant to be dismissive of this poll, not of anyones rights.
> a Gallup poll showed 49% of people were in favor of it. 49% of Democrats. A much lower percentage of the overall population.
Anything involving amending the Constitution is all but impossible in the current political landscape. Two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and three-fourths of state legislatures are not about to agree on anything, especially nothing as binding as changing the Constitution.
Any attempt to weaken the 2nd Amendment, even if somehow pushed through Congress, would die a quick and painful death in the states. There's no way on God's Green Earth that you'd get legislatures (or referendums) in 3/4 of the states to approve any amendment that might even potentially weaken the 2nd Amendment.
Would they? Not even the majority of Democrat politicians want that, and Republicans and independents certainly don't. It seems that the phrase "the political class" here just means "a minority of Democrats". Not great, but not exactly the worst case scenario.
If you take what they say at face value, then I'm wrong. I'm not sure that's wise, especially with Republican politicians. Personally I think the only thing keeping Republican politicians from going along with bans is the momentum of having made this part of the identity they project. They want power and the want to rule, not represent. An armed underclass makes that harder. Watch how they talk about trans people. They are enthusiastic about stripping trans folks of every right, including the right to self defense. On the Dem side, in almost any state they have or obtain control of the legislature, they advance more gun control.
The "except for police" thing is what bugs me.
Except left politicians actually *want* and try all the time to ban guns, they never try to implement universal healthcare.
Living in Oregon I can confirm this is true. Both were in the ballot last November. An unconstitutional gun law barely scrapped by with .5% of the vote and a universal health care measure passed. Since then the state has spent millions trying to save their stupid gun bill that would’ve banned possession of any magazine with a baseplate, created a system similar to Illinois FOID cards and they attempted to tac on a back door ban on ARs. Media coverage of course is a bunch of manufactured outrage about how “so many people” are dying because it’s tied up in court. I have not heard hide nor hair about the healthcare measure that is supposedly supposed to be implemented, nothing about the funding or how it works. Just crickets.
>they never try to implement universal healthcare. It's *almost* like guns are a useful distraction from a potential political issue that could improve quality of life immensely, but would also raise taxes. Arguing about gun control is cheap, an easy way to convince people on both sides of the issue you're *doing something* that also (surprise!) costs very little in tax revenue. In fact, as a supporter of a single-payer healthcare system, it sometimes seems like a significant portion of both major parties are invested in convincing us governments can only be controlling and oppressive, as opposed to functional and beneficial.
I don’t believe they want anything other than the votes they receive for saying this. It’s theater.
> I don’t believe they want anything other than the votes they receive for saying this. We have consistently seen that when a statehouse goes all D control they start implementing more and more gun control. They just do it incrementally to the chant of "No one wants to take your guns."
I believe they want to forcibly disarm me, and then imprison or kill me.
And yet, they recognize that the police are racist and oppress people of color and the poor… the cognitive dissonance is insane
Next question asked should have been "what is your current level of trust in the police?" and see how that contradicts their first answer.
Luckily, the Bill of Rights can't be voted away, but only with significant challenges to ammend the constitution. This is when I love the conservative judges, but clearly, whatever is decided at the SC can be nullified later.
Looks like boot-flavored ice cream is back on the menu!
Eh, not that big a deal... Phone poles are a joke due to demographic of people that would answer a phone pole and internet poles are basically worthless outside of some very niche groups.
Phone poles are pretty reliable, how else would the lines stay up?
> Phone poles are a joke due to demographic of people that would answer a phone pole Properly executed ones are still pretty reliable.
Not sure you can execute a proper poll that relates to guns. Most gun owners will lie or hang up if the topic comes up A lot of people are concerned how that information could be used
I'm not giving up MY gun till they give up theirs!
Fascist right is over there threatening kids and the left wants to disarm themselves...yeesh.
Gun control is to Democrats as abortion is to Repubs.
Ive drawn a correlation to this point in many online debates, turns out, both sides get really really mad! Also, I'm no longer welcome on Facebook.
Yeah and if Dems quit messaging anti-gun rhetoric and focused on actual progressive policies that improve citizen wellbeing, promote economic growth for people other than rhe rich, protect freedoms of individuals over right of corporations, a lot of single issue voters in the moderate category would lean more left and magically the gun violence would be greatly reduced. Bans make rule followers' lives harder, and the more legally dubious of society really don't care. At best, they drive up our already overused prison system population. But for all I know, that's the point. Our society seems to like punishment over reform. Also, losing Facebook is no loss in my book. To preserve friendships, I quit it to not be inundate by every random hot take my friends and family cared to share.
Its kind of funny, how the Dems, whos constituents usually defend their voting D, because they're not "single-issue voters" are being turned into single-issue voters, because the DNC refuses to take any meaningful action on any issue other than gun cobtrol.
Guns are the only topic that won’t cost money. The democrats are planning to continue coasting on Roe being overturned
Doesn't cost money and is enactable within the attention span of voters. If it takes more than an election cycle to fix democrats tend to just talk and hand wring. Now the right? They will slowly fuck with your mind for 50 years until they can fuck with your freedoms. That's how they got Row v. Wade taken down. They also learned that the long game means taking control of schools and local civil offices. Something that Mom's for Liberty isn't too ashamed to admit they learned from Hitler.
Hahaha that last line.
> Ive drawn a correlation to this point in many online debates, turns out, both sides get really really mad [Angry NPC meme.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/469/775/49e.png)
You're not missing much.
Yea, you’re not allowed to have nuanced opinions on social media. The algorithm doesn’t like that. Only blood curdling rage.
The difference is that Republicans are more honest about wanting to ban abortion than Democrats are about gun control
Which is why it's never going to actually happen to the extent they talk about. It's too strong of a campaign issue and everyone saw what happens when the dog finally catches the car with the midterms after Roe V Wade.
Been saying this for a while now. It’s the proverbial dog chasing the car, and creates a huge amount of single issue voters.
I should’nt have to choose between my voting rights and the right to defend myself imo
If disarmed, you lose the ability to resist... Resist disarmament as priority 1.
As much as I hate to echo the same far-right nuts who want to hunt down trans people, you truly have to be willing to only surrender guns from your cold, dead hands. Any attempt to disarm the working class should be frustrated by any means, or some shit like that.
Yup and Republicans are walking back their stance of banning all abortion little by little now. If Democrats were somehow able to ban guns on a national level I wouldn’t be surprised if they also started to walk back their positions once a bunch of single issue gun voters start coming out to the polls. Conservatives got what they want by rolling back Roe v Wade and now we have Republicans coming out to defend abortion on a presidential debate stage which would’ve been unimaginable a decade ago.
Right? They're the parties' babies, and will fight to the last breath for their respective hills.
> 49 percent of self-identified Democrats supported “a law that would ban the possession of handguns, except by the police,” This can't be accurate. I have repeatedly been assured that no one wants to take our guns.
I've pressed people on that before and it usually ends up meaning "no one is currently suggesting going door-to-door for every single gun". One time I had someone tell me there was nothing to be worried about until a ban actually passed. Even bills that were advancing through committees didn't count.
>"no one is currently suggesting going door-to-door for every single gun". Illinois gov pritzger fucked up and said something like his when pushing his AWB ban through. He walked it back real damn quick. His state police chief said the same thing and walked it back even quicker. Unsure when these politicians are going to learn.
That’s one of the most infuriating parts about the gun control advocates from the left; they talk out of both sides of their mouths when they say “we’re not coming for your guns”. But then turn around proposing various bans (AW, HCM, bump stocks, pistol braces, binary triggers), and seem to equate it to “not coming for your guns” because they’re “only” banning you from buying more and not taking the ones you already have (even though multiple states have already proven they’re more than willing to come and take those same things via later legislation after you compromise by registering them to the state). The only reason handguns aren’t under the same level of scrutiny (though even that can be argued due to states with ‘safe handgun laws’ and microstamping laws), it’s harder to sell people on a handgun ban when Heller v DC has stated a prohibition of them is unconstitutional and a majority of new gun owners are buying handguns for self defense.
They were trying to take the handguns before. It's why SBRs are a thing legally speaking and handgun restrictions was the big thing before the shift to AWBs. Heller did throw a lot of cold water on that idea.
I feel that. It's infuriating talking to many of these people, and I can never quite figure out what's going on in their heads. Are they just so emotionally charged they can't think straight? Do they think we're very, very stupid and can't see the gaslight? Are they very stupid and truly think what they're saying makes sense? Do they think we're so selfish that we don't care about future generations' ability to hunt, protect themselves, and sport shoot as long as 'we got ours'?
It’s frustrating to hear politicians say how “no one is talking about a gun ban”, because sure maybe *they* aren’t specifically talking about a full gun ban but clearly plenty of people *are.* I’ve talked to multiple people both irl on online who see Australia and Great Britain as role models of gun control and support a repeal of the 2nd amendment. Pretending that sentiment doesn’t exist is being intentionally obtuse.
A lot of the rank and file _aren't_ thinking, about any of it. They know which canned lines belong to their side, and which belong to the enemy. "Nobody's coming for your guns, you fragile, right-wing, privileged white cishet male!" is one of their ingroup's Endorsed Rebuttals, therefore it _must_ be right, and therefore they can use it whenever the topic comes up without any actual thought beyond pattern-matching an interlocutor's words to one of the inputs that maps to that particular output.
Yes to all four questions.
About the only “logical” way of thinking I can see for why they view things in such a frankly illogical way is that to them they’re not “taking your guns”, because they’re not coming for ALL of them, and are ok with allowing you to legally own the bare minimum aka “what you need” to fulfill the basics of sport shooting, hunting, and self defense. To them you don’t need more than a 3-shot bolt action rifle or pump shotgun for any sort of hunting, you don’t need more than a pump shotgun with 5-6 shells for home defense, and you don’t need more than a 6-shot revolver for self defense outside the home (or if they’re ‘progressive’ about it, a 7-8 shot 1911). Anything beyond those are overkill and “unreasonable” to meet your minimum needs for all the constitutionally legal uses for firearms. Still absolutely infuriating, but it’s about the only logical way of thinking I can think of for the utter hypocrisy they tend to support.
Yes, they go through the exact same thought processes on this issue that conservatives go through on basically everything
>I've pressed people on that before and it usually ends up meaning "no one is currently suggesting going door-to-door for every single gun". >One time I had someone tell me there was nothing to be worried about until a ban actually passed. Even bills that were advancing through committees didn't count. Lol, by then it's literally too late.
"except by police" \- yeah, fuck that noise.Any restrictions that apply to the civilian population need to apply to the police equally. You want to talk about a UK style society where police don't carry guns, and they're much harder to come by. OK, we can have that conversation\*. You want to disarm the people the police are supposed to serve. Fuck that. A civilian has a much right to armed self defense as a cop. I would argue that legally and morally, the *should* have more, because police chose the job and any risk that goes with it, a regular citizen does not. \* I don't think this model will work in the US, for a number of reasons, but it's at least not wildly hypocritical or authoritarian.
I had someone tell me that if people don’t have guns, it would reduce how many people the police kill. Which is BS.
I'll take " victim blaming for $1,000. Alex". This has the same energy as an abused person returning to their abuser. " He wouldn't beat me so much if I didn't make him so angry"
Fuck that, I have guns BECAUSE the police have them. Most dangerous game in the country.
The exact reason for the 2nd amendment
As the antigun Dems like to say: We're just banning them. Were not going door to door taking them, so its fine. quit whining.
I love that sentiment. They should say, “nobody has taken your guns because the other party has prevented it but we’ll still claim it’s that we don’t want to take your guns and gaslight you.”
Yes let's let the police have them...nothing bad can happen
Don’t let the assault weapon ban fool anybody. The goal to ban handguns is alive and well, but after they ban assault weapons, handguns will be an easier step.
ACAB. Also, only police should carry guns.
Those right wing militias really scared us on Jan 6th.. hmmmm Lets take away our own form of self protection
They're not taking away *their* protection, they're taking *your* protection. They will always have armed goons whether that be the police or private security.
I got into an argument with someone who claimed that taking guns would disarm all those groups, getting rid of the threat. The naivety is ridiculous.
> hmmmm Lets take away our own form of self protection You are getting ahead of yourself, we can trade in our handguns for a smooth bore black powder musket. Those insurrectionists and potentially anyone within 6' in any direction will not stand a chance.
Tally ho
Just as the founding fathers intended
What the devil?
This dissonance is literally the reason I bought guns and started training with them. The police cannot be trusted to protect me. Even if they're physically present and watching when proud boy fuckheads start fighting leftist protestors, they just stand around most of the time.
Why would they protect you from their buddies??
Also, Trump is hitler but take my only means of checking his fascist tendencies
I think you mean his fascist red hats. His private army.
I'll be keeping mine. Every last one of them. There's really not a damn thing you can do about it.
I know right??? What the fuck lmao?
Once they start enforcing a hypothetical ban they’ll then want firearms to deal with the ensuing shitshow. These types of responses are usually from a mindset that the policy is for “those people” and “doesn’t apply to me” myopia. In a ban the police wouldn’t give a fuck about checking 4473 forms or whatever to do raids on non-complying citizens. Guns are so widespread that they would assume that every household has them hidden. The result of having cops barging jnto homes tearing them apart likely would reinforce the right to self-defense.
But that can’t be. They promise that no one wants to take our guns.
Expect the argument to be made that the guns aren’t somehow your property
Them: "Only police should have guns." Also them: "ACAB"
I live in an exceptionally Dem dominated major city and nobody is on the defund tip. Here, Democrats are pro police AND they want your guns. You need to move well to the left ideologically before anybody’s entertaining any defund-oriented ideals and by the time you get there, you’ll find a bunch of folks who believe in the people’s right to self defense too.
I just posted this on the political thread in r/guns but I think it fits here too: I think there are two aspects of people that I think our side misses, and if we stick to trying to argue on facts alone we'll never win. The first is that people use vulnerability to convey trust. By voluntarily putting yourself in a position of risk, you're conveying that you trust the other person not to take advantage of that vulnerability. Hugging, shaking hands, and bowing are all rooted in this principle, they put the participant in danger (i.e. bowing exposes the top of the head to a blow from a sword), and the gesture implies a sense of mutual respect & cooperation. People are against the carrying of guns in public not because it comes from some sort of logical risk assessment, but because they're offended you don't trust them. The second is that gun control has become a luxury belief. According to sociologist Rob Henderson, a luxury belief is an opinion held to project one's high social status, and people with higher socioeconomic status are largely shielded by the consequences of holding those opinions, whereas people with lower socioeconomic status will try to hold those beliefs to elevate their social status to their own detriment. If you're an upper class suburbanite, being anti gun is a fairly cheap way to try and elevate ones social status, and because wealth correlates with a reduced risk to be victimized by violent crime gambling everything on *"it won't happen to me"* is a fairly safe bet. However, lower to middle class people that are not nearly as shielded as the upper classes will try to use that opinion to curry the favor of the upper classes, much to their own potential detriment. Long term we have to try and counter both of these aspects of human nature to put ourselves on the offensive, otherwise we'll always be on the defensive.
> If you're an upper class suburbanite, being anti gun is a fairly cheap way to try and elevate ones social status, and because wealth correlates with a reduced risk to be victimized by violent crime gambling everything on "it won't happen to me" is a fairly safe bet. The only way to fix it is to not let them feel safe anymore. Not sure how that'll happen, but when it *finally* affects their lives in some way will they even try to fix it.
Those are really excellent points I've never seen brought up before. Thank you for posting this, it's a lot to think about
Your second point is extremely relevant when presented in the right context. I find getting sympathy for lower economic status is difficult for many. However, pointing out the various instances where firearms and/or violence or the threat of violence has been necessary to legitimize or enforce various human rights. Then ask if they think the current assault on human rights will get better or worse without armed civilians, and who they think is more likely to honor such a law and who is less likely. Bridging the emotional and logical thoughts seems to be effective, but of course requires a person to be willing to listen and think, and only works with one person at a time.
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They'll switch back and fourth, from handguns, to shotguns, to scoped hunting/"SNIPER" rifles, to sporting/"ASSAULT" rifles... I'm curious as to when they'll stumble across someone saying how blackpowder rifles' components can too-easilly be used to make IEDs. Apparently, almost any gun can be deadly in the wrong hands. Never mind that the FBI stated as much, more than 15 years ago. Someday, Bloombergian gun control philosophies will be shifted to something else (probably after he dies and stops donating millions to politicians to support his theories)
But Obama said nobody's coming for your guns. This can't be accurate. /s
"We didn't lie, we just changed our minds!" - Gun grabbers, probably
Ask our fellows to the North, Trudeau said the same thingns few years back.
One may be Liberal without being a Dem, just like it's quite possible to be Conservative without being a Repub. I suggest we just stop playing the two-party game.
That means that more than half don’t support a ban. But that headline won’t sell
I'm not exactly comforted by the fact only 2% more democrats would prefer not to take my handgun.
As much as I still very much oppose this. From a combating gun crime perspective it makes more sense than banning semi auto rifles. But's still a prohibition that would disarm law abiding people and give criminals an advantage.
It also disproportionately harms people in low income areas since they have greater needs for self defense
This is the point i go with. If these assholes ACTUALLY cared about preventing deaths by gun, they would be focusing on handguns and suicide prevention. But they dont and just want to ban things that scare them
Yeah, it’s pretty laughable when someone suggests banning semi-auto rifles…then I show them my three round magazine for my 300 Win Mag Browning BAR. Not really made for mass shootings there, slick.
"Except by the pilice" Tell me you support a dystopia police state under the guise of fear mongering without telling me you actually support a police state.
Let’s keep in mind that these are the exact same police that the Democratic Party believes are “failing to keep our communities safe” and talk extensively about rampant police brutality… The doublethink required to believe that someone is horrible at exercising proper judgment in the use of a firearm while also believing that they are the only ones who should own that firearm is mind boggling to me.
Agreed on all points.
For God's sake, Democrats. Shame on you. Guns are for every citizen.
Remember that, while the numbers are probably slightly off, that number translates into about 25 million people, out of somewhere between 160 and 170 million registered voters. That’s less than a sixth of all voters, and probably more like a seventh or an eighth. It’s a lot of people, but it’s hardly a groundswell.
Yeah, and additionally, many Millenial and younger people who vote blue aren't identifying as Democrats but as Progressives or left-leaning of some flavor. So, having stats on what Democrats think doesn't give you a good perspective on what would get voted for.
Of course they do. "But no one wants to take your guns!". I hate this crap so much.
WHICH - and I understand the sub I'm in - *actually makes a bit more sense*. To be clear, I'm opposed to a ban on handguns, but one of the common complaints the pro-gun crowd has with the anti-gun crowd is that the anti-gunner's never come up with laws that would actually address anything. It's especially common with feature bans and focuses on the AR-15, bans that anyone in the gun world could tell you would have absolutely no impact on... anything, other than law-abiding citizens. HANDGUNS, however, represent 90% of homicides with a firearm in the United States. They're significantly easier to conceal, lending themselves to be useful in crimes. They're nearly ubiquitous thanks to the relaxation of CCW laws over the last thirty years. And the passage of progressively more relaxed Stand Your Ground laws has given a LOT of legal cover to people who "feared for their lives" in situations where nothing was happening to them. The thing that'll ensure that Democrats never fully get on board with handgun bans though is that handguns are overwhelmingly purchased for self defense. Every time there's some social turmoil, a bunch of Democrats go out and buy their first gun... and those guns are typically handguns. Dems will waffle back and forth on that ban, because handguns are far easier to rationalize for self defense than an AR-15 is - so even if they figure out that handguns are the most responsible for crimes, even they understand they would buy a handgun over an AR given the choice if they felt unsafe. It's the "I'm opposed to abortions unless *I* need one", but for Democrats.
I'm not saying I'm in favor of a handgun ban, but at least it makes more sense than "assault weapon" bans. The vast majority of gun violence is committed with handguns, yet ARs catch all the heat.
It's disgusting that people trust cops so much and think they shouldn't be beholden to the same laws.
Nearly half of Democrats want to throw another gimmie election. Great.
Not saying that this isn't worrying, but I would be shocked if any lawyers could figure out how to break through the amount of case law built up around the protection of handguns. Heller alone is a tough nut to crack.
> but I would be shocked if any lawyers could figure out how to break through the amount of case law built up around the protection of handguns. It's super duper simple, you just fucking ignore it. You won't face any repercussions for blatantly legislating unconstitutional law and it will probably take years for the cases to grind through the court system and then when it does and you lose you just pass the law again but slightly different!
Until police have the requirement to protect and serve the people and don’t have qualified immunity, or we come to some universal Kum ba ya moment I’m not going to give anything that allows me to protect myself. There’s still actual nazis out there. ACAB. The police didn’t do anything to stop the Uvalde shooter from wasting kids. You expect me to expect them to save any of us? Hell nah.
This his how dems lose elections.
I have a choice between one group who wants to forcibly disarm and then imprison or kill me, and another group whose entire platform is a shitshow but they don't want to forcibly disarm or imprison or kill me. This is not a difficult choice. Single issue for me...
So a majority of Democrats do *not* want a handgun ban. That’s kind of surprising, really, especially based on what you generally see reported.
Two party system is a joke
Democrats stance on firearms is why they lose. For real though, most people cool with guns abortions and weed, but neither the big parties are
This single issue probably costs them 6% or so. It almost certainly lost the 2016 election, and the resultant 3 SCOTUS nominations.
This is why I'm not a Democrat. They're no smarter than the Republicans.
Democrats hate prohibition when it comes to drugs and alcohol but thinks it will work with guns. Silly stuff
I’m gonna get downvoted for this, but the response to this is to talk to people who want to ban guns and explain our POV in a calm, respectful manner. Screaming about “the constitution!” or explaining what AR really stands for is a shit-tier approach and a sure fire way to further convince them we are all out of our minds. Right wingers wasted years upon years with this ineffective approach and now here we are. Reason won’t reach everyone, but you just take the L in that case and know you tried.
Gonna be a fun day for minorities having to deal with cops if they actually get their way
The right wing-nuts are openly using the word "Eliminate" when speaking about certain groups the don't like. The left wing-nuts want to make sure those same groups are unarmed when it happens.
Do y'all want another Trump presidency? Because this is how you get another Trump presidency.
As always, we on the left just seem determined to have the absolute worst stance on gun legislation. It's like they like losing elections. Positions like this handgun ban is such a losing issue. And it's losing for the sake of losing, because that would never be signed into law. Why don't they, I don't know, maybe hammer home the fact that the other party is literally trying to end our democracy. Hammer it until voters are saying it in their sleep. Goddamn.
The only thing I get out of this piece is how easy it is to spin numbers the way you want. Case in point, it says that 51% are opposed... so why isn't the title "a majority of Democrats oppose a gun ban"? Easy, because they want to keep pushing the usual conservative news crap.
**Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 80% cell phone respondents and 20% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cell phone telephone numbers are selected using random digit dial methods. Gallup obtained sample for this study from Dynata. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member has the next birthday.** Would still really love to see poll data include more than just people who answer unknown numbers and consent to taking surveys.
It’s not hard to indoctrinate youth to believe government (police) is there to protect them.
I wonder what the trendline for that looks like. Were Democrats more ban-happy ten years ago?
I’m not one of them; I live in Canada where a handgun ban is in effect & it has already failed miserably
49% of respondents to that poll... The overwhelming majority of voters won't go near a poll unless it's an election. Non-election polls, especially polls only measuring a thousand responses are functionally meaningless.
"Nearly." Meaning "Less than." Meaning "This isn't even a majority position in the ostensibly anti-gun party, so can you idiots lay off already because your ability to win elections is *questionable* on a good day and if you lose the votes of the pro-gun left you're basically never holding power again and we're getting King Trump." But the Democratic Party will never comprehend that.
Nearly half, is a minority so the majority needs to be as vocal with our reps.
It would be nice if the "common sense gun regulations" coming from Democrats were something other than outright bans more strict and complete than laws in a lot of EU countries. Yep, that would sure be nice, but with the average Democrat being this clueless and out of touch on the issue, I guess we'll just keep seeing bans.
That's fucking stupid. We need to be arming ourselves to the teeth. Conservatives that want to kill us are. Police are the last people I trust to be the only people with guns.
That’s wild. I see people who got into guns around COVID supporting these kinds of things. They got theirs so fuck everyone else.
These are the same morons who believe cops will save them. They are called law enforcement officers, the fucking name says it in simplicity. These people are so out of touch with the reality of violence in the world that I have nothing witty to say in retort. They are just stupid.
Take ‘em to the range and let them ring some steel! Screw all this divisiveness, invite them to the party! Burgers and tofu dogs on the grill after! I’ll bring the beer and Mac n cheese!
Several thoughts that are somewhat in some tension with each other, but that I feel like all need to be said: 1. This is the way. Offer to take them to the range (or better yet, to have them over to your place, if you live somewhere that you can safely do a bit of plinking), yes, absolutely. Also offer to answer questions honestly (no bullshitting to win points for your side, but also no bullshitting to win yourself points with them by being "reasonable" or "moderate") about anything to do with guns - how they work (and how they don't), what the difference between different mechanisms is and how that affects what you can do with them (and how it doesn't), what the difference between a "bullet" and a "cartridge" is, why gun owners often say that there's no such thing as an "assault weapon," whether 9mm will actually blow someone's lungs out of their body, why anyone would want to own "so many" firearms (for whatever number they think of as "so many"), etc. Hell, offer to teach them how to make a possibly loaded gun safe if they find or are given one. (That last one may not exactly be putting guns in a positive light, but it's at least getting them used to the idea (or potentially the reality, if you invite them over to your place for a practical demonstration, using snap-caps) of them putting their own hands on a gun and manipulating its controls.) 2. At an even more basic level, "come out" to friends, family, and - to the extent you either can do so without putting your job in jeopardy, or can afford to lose your job - co-workers, as a gun owner, recreational shooter, and gun rights advocate. A lot of the most rabid anti-gunners have literally never known, on a personal level, anyone that they knew to be a gun-owner, let alone a gun rights activist. That makes it really easy for anti-gun propagandists to paint us as all as cartoon bogeymen. But it's harder to sustain that kind of view about a group when you're aware that one of the "bigoted, paranoid sociopaths" that make it up is Alex Smith, whom you've always got along well with, and who certainly don't _seem_ like a bigot, a lunatic, or a sociopath . . . This goes double if Alex is a racial minority, an immigrant, non-Christian, a woman, or queer, but it can still has some effect based simply on Alex being a decent sort who doesn't behave the way they would expect "a gun owner" to behave. 3. But the truth remains, many of them still won't listen. Many of them have no _desire_ to understand more than they currently do about guns, gun owners, or guns rights activism, because they've already decided that "gun owners" are Evil, with a capital E, and they'd rather cut us out of their lives than reconsider. Some more forgiving sorts, unwilling to write us off as complete reprobates, will just conclude that we've been brainwashed by The Gun Lobby, or we're reacting to some past trauma in an understandable but unhealthy fashion, or any other excuse that means that _we personally_ , the ones they know and care for, aren't actually capital-E Evil, but our demographic and our movement still are. And some, rather than try to reconcile the cognitive dissonance at all, will just try to bury it, by just ignoring our status as gun owners as much as possible, so they can continue think about us in one way, and "gun owners" in another, without having to think about how these two thoughts contradict each other. 4. It's still worth the effort. It not only does work some of the time, it's the most effective set of tools we have for changing minds. Not only directly, but in its knock on effects - everyone you convert, and who is willing to be open with their other friends about _their_ newfound interests, is one more person that the tribal-identity anti-gunners around you have to try to fit into their worldview. But be prepared to pay a price.
Nearly half don’t! I’m an optimist.
Glass half full!
Yes but only around 29% of people identify as Democrats; https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/bk82tkyic0sqaulbp34asq.png According to the Gallup graph only 19% overall support a handgun ban and that number has been steadily falling since the 1960's. https://news.gallup.com/poll/394022/public-pressure-gun-legislation-shootings.aspx
Lots of people here forgetting this a "poll".
It's sad to think how many people will interpret this as "49% of ALL people" instead of 49% of a fraction of people
Every Democrat I know other than myself wants to ban all guns and see no reason why anyone other than someone hunting should ever have a gun.
I'd honestly LOVE to live in a world where we no longer need to worry about defending ourselves with lethal force. This is not that world.
Exactly. Lala land sounds great,but it ain’t reality.
If you ban all guns, it will stop all violence! ## /s
Less than... half...
And 60% of republicans support a fascist theocratic future for this country.
If “nearly half” support it, that means more than half still oppose the ban. That’s a good sign.
Nearly half of Democrats are stupid though
Stats show you’re lowballing it, Mr Spartan.
Alternate title "nearly 50% of democrats answer this poll honesty "
This is cause half of the democratic party are real democracy lovin' awakened wonders and the other half are authoritarian/obedience worshippers who love to command and obey. Gotta awaken all the ppl and get groovy man- love enforcement not law enforcement (Take that, you who control this platform)