Elephants and Jackasses...

This statement is bullshit. Apply that same logic to abortion. The tactics are the exact same these days. Hey we're not taking your guns we're just adding these hoops to jump through to make it safer (like say requiring an admitting doctor or double wide doors on the facility so crash carts move more freely, these are just common senseTM safety measures). Half of his proposals are just that. You wont need to ban guns when people are forced to rely on sparsely located heavily over priced gun stores for ammo instead of online convenience, or when gun manufacturers are sued into the dirt with lawsuits, or making the barrier for entry the fucking NFA, or slapping 25 dollars on all ammo purchases via a NICS background check (hello poll taxes!). The cultural fatigue will set in and people will just give up on dealing with the hassle of gun ownership. This is by design. The liberal creep on this is already happening on the state level in your dark blue states. The presidential candidate in a virtual binary system has them as planks he's running on? The question was why not vote for Biden? This is why.

 

I’d be more inclined to believe this if the evidence wasn’t so glaringly in the contrary. Gun control proponents rarely have any clue about the legislation their passing and much of the policy is based on superficial or arbitrarily-defined characteristics of specific firearms, which makes little sense. That does not engender trust across the isle for “reasonable” policy implementation. Every time 2A supporters concede on gun control legislation, there’s another one peaking around the corner and the benchmark gets readjusted. Any red flag law proposal, in particular, should be resoundingly ignored.

 

Pardon me if I don't think ready access to firearms is equivalent to ready access to health care. That's a ridiculous comparison.

I think, by and large, it's okay if gun ownership is not easy breezy.

And as I said, if single-issue voting is your thing, and that's why you're going to vote for Trump, I'm not ignorant to that. I just think it's stupid. The same way I'd think it were stupid if someone was single-issue voting for Trump because he supported something I approve of, like abortion rights.

I agree that policy implementations have been poor; generally targeted at public opinion ("look at how dangerous this weapon appears" or "this weapon was used in this way recently"). But as I said, if your (the royal "you") single-issue vote is causing you to vote for a horrible racist, I think you're making bad choices. There's more to the country and the office of the President than the support of your hobby.

 

I agree, in part. The only circumstance that this could conceivably make sense is places where firearm ownership is an essential part of life. Especially in communities that are heavily supported economically by hunting or have little-to-no public safety apparatus. Then it becomes more than just a hobby. Aside from those outlier circumstances, I'll never understand single-issue voting whatsoever.

 

Sure, that's a great point. In that case, the people have a significant personal investment in owning and using firearms, so some of the barriers that might be put in place like more comprehensive background checks, no exemptions in those checks on the secondhand market, or more meaningful education/licensing requirements would just be an integrated part of living in that kind of community. I would fully support local programs that would assist people in these processes (national programs would be fine but they're usually not tuned to support the individual communities as well).

I honestly believe one of the hurdles here has been the gun community's unwillingness to actually concede that more regulation is inevitable, and actually engage on the topic. And before anyone gets offended, I don't mean, "every individual in the community," I'm talking about the actual political bodies (e.g. NRA) and the overall community. This leaves dumb politicians doing dumb things like regulating based on appearance. Which, frankly, works to the NRA's advantage so I can see why they do it: they then get to point and say, "look at how dumb these people are." I just wish they'd get involved and lead the conversation. If people want to keep their guns, more comprehensive permitting and education is the path forward.

 

Yup. But I think the inherent unwillingness of 2A supporters to concede is related to the point I highlight above: that they think gun control advocates are not negotiating policy in good-faith, because there is a ton of circumstances where that suspicion becomes reality. I am especially close to this issue because this is exactly happens in my state all the time. The state AG has broad authority to do whatever she wants and can unilaterally institute policy. The office was given this authority on the premise that it would do so on a reasonable basis. The implementation has been anything but that. Now local police departments are empowered to pass/deny permit requests based on zero criteria other than their own feelings. People in the state didn't start giving a shit until the AG started applying that same practice to recreational marijuana use. So now you have town-to-town arbitrary gating requirements, a state permitting authority and constitutional right all in conflict with each other, and I'm fairly certain that is by design.

Its a complete mess. What needs to happen is there needs to be federal-level passage of gun permitting requirements that nullify all state-level laws and pass a constitutional sniff-test. Implement it, and leave it alone.

 

It has become a vicious cycle, for sure. Unfortunately, what you're citing isn't going to resolve itself until the industry actually helps to drive the policy and doesn't just criticize.

I mean, when you have the side who doesn't really care about or want guns at all being the only side to work on legislation, what do you expect? I'm not saying it's good, but it's pretty natural that they're going to err very far on the side of safety. Meanwhile, the only engagement from the other side is stuff like, "LOL! You don't even know the difference between a magazine and a clip! Don't talk to me about guns!"

It's just totally unproductive. You'll never satisfy the people who think guns should be banned, but at least the NRA throwing their weight behind a piece of real, meaningful permitting and education legislation would demonstrate that there's some humanity out there and not just the blind, "screw you, I keep my firearms no matter what the cost to anyone."

 

So the options are concede more of your liberty or else lose them all? Doesn’t sound like a fair trade to me. Don’t have to post the cake meme again. There is no good faith effort on the left to actually give concessions gun owners might want. Don’t see why giving anything up should be on the table if you’re getting nothing in return. Dixie is right a right lost is one impossible to regain. I’m not even an absolutist I’ve stated the trade offs I’d be willing to except but they’d be absolute poison pills to the left.

I’m not saying I’m going to even vote for trump. I’m just not voting for Biden.

 

Different points. If Biden decided to become pro choice how many single issue proaborts would sit this election even given the other option?

 

Show me that legislation, though. The NRA, as a lobbyist org, isn’t going to draft it. And if you’re expecting gun rights proponents to draft it and get the approval of the side that wants them banned anyway, that’s just not realistic. That’s been attempted at the state-level and was not successful.

“Hey cops, there’s this Asian guy down the street that looks like the Virginia Tech shooter and he has an NRA sticker on his car. Can you go check him out?”

 

I don't think I actually understand what you're saying here.

Nobody needs to give gun owners more rights. The carrot here is improved outcomes for society. Yes, to do that you trade off some of your current rights for a more regulated process. The unwillingness to acknowledge that this is a reasonable possibility is a problem. You say you're not an absolutist and then wave your hands about speculative "poison pills" in legislation that doesn't exist?

Did you mean to say, "If Biden decided to become pro life"?

And frankly "proaborts" is offensive and not conducive to a reasonable discussion on anything. Nobody is pro-abortion and anyone who uses that term isn't actually engaging in a conversation.

Two things: A) I stand by my point that single-issue voting is generally poor decision making (which Aetius echoed), and B) I stand by my point that comparing women's health care access to gun rights is asinine. So I don't understand your point here. Is your point that there are stupid democrats as well as stupid republicans? If so... uh, yes. Yes there are stupid people everywhere. Excellent detective work.

Of course they aren't. I'm saying they should, because I think there's some amount of inevitability to increased gun control and getting out in front of it would help ensure that the gun industry can help shape it.

 

No, that is how they work and that’s how their predecessors were used against minority communities. How you think they work is just how they’re sold. Even if that were the case, having a judge make those kinds of decisions is a terrifying prospect.