“Liberals” aren’t saying “give up your guns.” The democratic presidential nominee and vice president are literally both gun owners, and the presidential nominee said she’d shoot a home intruder to death less than a week ago. They’re saying something more like “restrict future purchases of particularly dangerous guns and get reasonable rules, regulations, and licensing in place for them like we do for cars.”
But I understand that doesn’t make for a good dramatic post.
Exactly right. Honestly at this point I think the Dems should just drop gun control entirely as an issue.
Let me preface this next section with the fact that I’ve been largely supportive of common sense gun control laws and think they would be a net positive. But give me a minute because this is a slightly more nuance point (the danger of bringing nuance to gun issues in America is apparent to me)
Why? Let’s say they were successful and made it harder to purchase guns that we categorize as especially dangerous.
- This country is already awash in guns. Unlike other nations that have disarmed, there is no appetite for any kind of gun but back or gun seizure program, those dangerous guns will get into the hands of people that want to do dangerous things with them.
- The less dangerous guns are still quite dangerous. Humans are creative, bump stocks, self modification of less dangerous guns, having a couple loaded guns, all ways to make less dangerous guns equally dangerous.
- There are enough pro gun Americans and money in the gun industry that every change will have loopholes you could drive a semi truck through
So the cost benefit just makes no sense. As a political issue the cost is enormous and the realistic potential benefit is basically nothing. I wish we had a population that cared more about this, but from a pragmatic point of view we simply don’t.
I think it was sandy hook that really cemented this for me. If a grade school full of children gets shot up and the reaction from a significant portion of the population is apathy or to double down on gun rights, that’s not an issue you are winning.
Look, if school children need to die so I can larp in my Meal-Team 6 outfit with my Gravy Seals friends, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to force them to make!
