Why Liberals *Should* Love the 2nd Amendment

[Suvorov]

I can agree that the term is widely mis-used, but I should point out that I think that it's possible to want to build a healthy society and a functional government without that pursuit automatically devolving into an Orwellian nightmare too. I think it would be fair to say that the intention of most liberals is to create an open, egalitarian, free and just society where the maximum percentage of the population is socially and politically empowered and enfranchised. That gets expressed different ways, some of which I disagree with vehemently. I haven't ever heard anyone, anywhere, in any of my personal, professional or scholastic pursuits push for absolute authoritarian government control. The soviety union certainly did it, but no one I know wants anything like that here. If anything, they fear fascist, jingoistic "jack booted thugs" from the right. It's ironic that we conjure the same images to scare ourselves into fearing and reviling our fellows.

Most of the revolutionaries in 1917 Russia never imagined Lenin and Stalin's final product either (read Darkness at Noon), but the fact is that history has constantly proven that when you allow ambitious men to create massive governments, what you get is an Orwellian nightmare.

I haven't run into too much from the left that involves limiting speech or expression (unless you're talking about overturning People's United?). I'm curious as to what you mean?

Consistently in High School and College. While I will grant you that I had some very good professors who were "liberals" and who encouraged free exchange of ideas as long as they could be backed up, I had others that would prohibit anything that would challenge their brainwashing. The media runs far more slanted and uniformed pieces about guns than I can keep up with.

Anyway, looking to the comments section of any given website for rational and even-handed discourse is like expecting a meth addled howler monkey to give a dissertation on philosophy. Both of the major parties suffer from gross hypocrisies.

Our two party system needs to go. American political thought is far more complex than either party would have us believe. It's in their best interests to maintain existing power structures, but those power structures restrain effective political expression.

Here is where we will both agree. The Conservative/Liberal paradigm is inaccurate and inconsistent. While I may still be registered a Republican, I certainly no longer consider myself a Republican for a variety of reasons. I am however now more than ever a single issue voter largely, and that single issue is guns, and I am seeing far more attacks coming from the left than the right.

[Nik the Greek]

Kalifornia, Chicago, with layovers in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

What do these states all have in common other than draconian gun laws?

Hell, in the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia we are in a death struggle right not to be able to keep are all ready morbidly neutered ARs. I can assure you that the congressman leading this attack does not have an R after his name.

The war is still burning hot my friend.

Yep, SB249 looms on the horizon. The struggle is far from over.

http://stopsb249.org/

I will never accuse either the democrats or the republicans in the CA state legislature of being intelligent or effective. Our state congress mirrors our national congress in un-adulterated awfulness.

The media runs far more slanted and uniformed pieces about guns than I can keep up with.

Truth. And stories about guns used for self defense never get national attention.

The anti-gun push on the left is easily one of the ridiculously irrational, poorly researched positions that anyone liberal adopts. The problem is that that Brady campaign made very good propaganda. It referenced EU states that had tight gun control and suffered comparatively low crime rates. It references mistakes our nation made early on regarding interpreting the 2nd Amendment as referring to sporting firearms. To someone who hasn't been exposed to detailed information from gun supporters, it seems compelling.

Of course, now we have stats that show, convincingly, that more guns do NOT equal more crime - but these weren't available during those big Brady pushes. There's a good chance that increases in gun ownership help reduce crime, though that hasn't as yet been proven. Correlation does not imply causation, alas, no one really knows why crime rates in the US are dropping. To really shift the Left on American gun ownership, more studies are needed, from sources that at least appear relatively neutral.

[derekb]

Yep, SB249 looms on the horizon. The struggle is far from over.

http://stopsb249.org/

Does anyone else think the video on their front page is maybe not the best approach to informing folks who don't already have an opinion?

[Nik the Greek]

Does anyone else think the video on their front page is maybe not the best approach to informing folks who don't already have an opinion?

Probably not. It's a stupid premise. I think bullet buttons are bullshit. We should have access to the same tools the rest of the country has access to, so presenting them in a negative light is less than clever.

It's still the easiest way to link interested parties who might want to help stop the law.

[derekb]

Probably not. It's a stupid premise. I think bullet buttons are bullshit. We should have access to the same tools the rest of the country has access to.

It's still the easiest way to link interested parties who might want to help stop the law.

I guess my concern is that he's trying to say 'look at how not-dangerous this gun this law would ban is, especially when I compare it to this other gun I could totally still have!'

That seems... counterproductive.

[Nik the Greek]

I guess my concern is that he's trying to say 'look at how not-dangerous this gun this law would ban is, especially when I compare it to this other gun I could totally still have!'

That seems... counterproductive.

Agreed. If I were anti-gun and watching, I'd probably be thinking "Wtf? Why can you have any of those?".

Gun rights supporters are all too often their own worst enemies. Fortunately, it's likely that only those who are already interested in stopping passage of the law will ever see the site.

Still, seems that the messaging could be managed better. I don't know who's in charge over there.

[cclaxton]

Kalifornia, Chicago, with layovers in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

What do these states all have in common other than draconian gun laws?

Hell, in the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia we are in a death struggle right now to be able to keep are already morbidly neutered ARs. I can assure you that the congressman leading this attack does not have an R after his name.

The war is still burning hot my friend.

Those States will eventually change. It will take time to pull down 40 years of severe gun restrictions, but it will happen and is happening. There may be some holdouts, such as NYC and Chicago and LA, but the principle of being able to defend yourself is has already won over 72% of Americans and that cuts into Democratic and Liberal populations.

But it will take work to get them overturned. Maryland is close, NJ has a gun-friendly governor, and California has the majority on its side. I think the key is win over the Democratic representatives, as we have seen in the House where 65 Democrats joined Republicans and wouldn't revive the assault weapons ban. The NRA writes of three Democratic Governors who signed gun-friendly legislation. I think we have to be careful not to direct our fire at potential gun-friendly Democrats and Liberals.

CC

[TCinVA]

NJ has a gun-friendly governor

...and still has a bunch of severely gun-unfriendly laws on the books that aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

"Gun friendly" has to mean more than someone not actively in the effort to ban more stuff at the moment.

[Chuck Haggard]

I really enjoy hitting "liberals" with the facts ref the history of gun control in the US, that it is in a vile and racist thing, started to keep guns out of the "wrong" hands, those hands being blacks in the sought and the Italians and Irish in NYC.

The cognitive dissonance hitting them in the face is fun to watch.

[cclaxton]

I really enjoy hitting "liberals" with the facts ref the history of gun control in the US, that it is in a vile and racist thing, started to keep guns out of the "wrong" hands, those hands being blacks in the sought and the Italians and Irish in NYC.

The cognitive dissonance hitting them in the face is fun to watch.

I suggest the goal should be to win them over, not punch them out.
CC