4 ms·

I've never understood the fear of the left taking away the second amendment. All my coastal elite progressive friends enjoy going to shooting ranges and at wors

I've never understood the fear of the left taking away the second amendment. All my coastal elite progressive friends enjoy going to shooting ranges and at worst want thorough background checks and possibly a ban on high capacity magazines. Post-Trump, many progressive people of color are arming themselves out of fear of white nationalists. None of them want a gun ban.

rdl 10y ago
People who are "2A voters" don't even consider the status quo to be acceptable -- they want HPA (removal of suppressors from NFA); probably a removal of SBR/SBS (treat them like handguns), repeal of Hughes and 922(r), and potentially nationwide reciprocity and potentially pre-emption. They also want reinforcement in SCOTUS decisions of 2A as an "individual right" vs. a "collective right" (which is why I don't support ACLU, incidentally, despite otherwise strongly agreeing with their positions.) Hillary specifically was pushing for an "assault weapons ban" in multiple speeches, and magazine capacity bans, under the phrase "common-sense gun regulations." Who knows what actually would have come to pass, but she was definitely not going to put pro-2A justices into SCOTUS or expand 2A protections.
- sseagull 10y ago
  I'm pretty liberal and (used to be) a gun owner. I can see supporting those things (I personally would like nationwide reciprocity [0]). It's just very hard for me to understand how this issue (or others like abortion) would be above all others. You are voting for a government with a tremendous amount of power and responsibility (military and defense, infrastructure, running a huge economy, world trade, healthcare, etc). I just can't imagine voting based on a single issue like the 2nd amendment while ignoring all the others. I respect your opinion, and I know you are not alone. It's just hard for me to understand it, that's all. [0] I've always wondered what would happen if democrats adopted this into their platform, maybe in exchange for universal background checks.
  - rdl 10y ago
    I wouldn't want Trump as dictator but believe institutions and laws constrain what he can do in most of the other areas where I disagree with him; improving 2A rights is more complex and discretionary. (I'd be supportive of both some kind of pre-purchase background check AND of some way to trace a physical gun used in a crime to a registered owner provided it also did NOT build a registry of all guns owned by a given owner, or a way to identify that a given person was an owner of guns or not. There are some technical ways to implement this, especially the latter. There have been technical improvements to NICS over the past few months which have made it both more efficient AND more accurate; there's a lot of potential to improve the existing background checks used for all sales via dealers, and once it gets good enough, it's a lot easier to provide access to it for private party transfers as well. If I were in a state where I could privately sell a gun to someone w/o going through an FFL, I'd be uncomfortable selling to anyone I didn't know personally, and given that I know how hard it is to validate physical credentials well without checking a centralized database, even something like LE ID wouldn't be as comforting as being able to make a NICS check. Outside of known-person transfers, I'd generally rather just spend the $10-25 to let an FFL handle the transfer for me, although this is already legally required in WA state.)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - christophilus 10y ago
    My mom voted for Trump because of the abortion issue. The reason it's above all others in her mind is that she literally views it the way we view the holocaust. (e.g. "Millions of people have died because of pro-choice policies.") So, whether or not you agree with her, you can see that there is some logic to making that issue a high priority if she views it that way. "Hitler's really got a great economic package, has better public experience than his opponent, is better all across the board, and is in favor of the extermination of a bunch of helpless people." In my mom's case, she'd be Democrat, except for this one issue. She's pro Syrian refugee, pro immigration, against capital punishment, etc.
    - cr0sh 10y ago
cr0sh 10y ago
For myself, the only good thing I could think of when Trump won was the idea that maybe finally, we could purchase more .22 ammo at a decent price, without "one-box-per-customer" restrictions or such. /yeah, I know such restrictions happened mainly because so many "gun-nuts" just couldn't stop buying, fearful that their guns and ammo were going to be taken away by Obama - I've read blogs of such people who perfectly know this to be the case, yet it continued. Gun store owners and manufacturers smile when a liberal is "in charge", because they know sales will go thru the roof - always does.

rdl 10y ago

People who are "2A voters" don't even consider the status quo to be acceptable -- they want HPA (removal of suppressors from NFA); probably a removal of SBR/SBS (treat them like handguns), repeal of Hughes and 922(r), and potentially nationwide reciprocity and potentially pre-emption. They also want reinforcement in SCOTUS decisions of 2A as an "individual right" vs. a "collective right" (which is why I don't support ACLU, incidentally, despite otherwise strongly agreeing with their positions.) Hillary specifically was pushing for an "assault weapons ban" in multiple speeches, and magazine capacity bans, under the phrase "common-sense gun regulations." Who knows what actually would have come to pass, but she was definitely not going to put pro-2A justices into SCOTUS or expand 2A protections.

sseagull 10y ago
I'm pretty liberal and (used to be) a gun owner. I can see supporting those things (I personally would like nationwide reciprocity [0]). It's just very hard for me to understand how this issue (or others like abortion) would be above all others. You are voting for a government with a tremendous amount of power and responsibility (military and defense, infrastructure, running a huge economy, world trade, healthcare, etc). I just can't imagine voting based on a single issue like the 2nd amendment while ignoring all the others. I respect your opinion, and I know you are not alone. It's just hard for me to understand it, that's all. [0] I've always wondered what would happen if democrats adopted this into their platform, maybe in exchange for universal background checks.
- rdl 10y ago
  I wouldn't want Trump as dictator but believe institutions and laws constrain what he can do in most of the other areas where I disagree with him; improving 2A rights is more complex and discretionary. (I'd be supportive of both some kind of pre-purchase background check AND of some way to trace a physical gun used in a crime to a registered owner provided it also did NOT build a registry of all guns owned by a given owner, or a way to identify that a given person was an owner of guns or not. There are some technical ways to implement this, especially the latter. There have been technical improvements to NICS over the past few months which have made it both more efficient AND more accurate; there's a lot of potential to improve the existing background checks used for all sales via dealers, and once it gets good enough, it's a lot easier to provide access to it for private party transfers as well. If I were in a state where I could privately sell a gun to someone w/o going through an FFL, I'd be uncomfortable selling to anyone I didn't know personally, and given that I know how hard it is to validate physical credentials well without checking a centralized database, even something like LE ID wouldn't be as comforting as being able to make a NICS check. Outside of known-person transfers, I'd generally rather just spend the $10-25 to let an FFL handle the transfer for me, although this is already legally required in WA state.)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- christophilus 10y ago
  My mom voted for Trump because of the abortion issue. The reason it's above all others in her mind is that she literally views it the way we view the holocaust. (e.g. "Millions of people have died because of pro-choice policies.") So, whether or not you agree with her, you can see that there is some logic to making that issue a high priority if she views it that way. "Hitler's really got a great economic package, has better public experience than his opponent, is better all across the board, and is in favor of the extermination of a bunch of helpless people." In my mom's case, she'd be Democrat, except for this one issue. She's pro Syrian refugee, pro immigration, against capital punishment, etc.
  - cr0sh 10y ago

cr0sh 10y ago

For myself, the only good thing I could think of when Trump won was the idea that maybe finally, we could purchase more .22 ammo at a decent price, without "one-box-per-customer" restrictions or such. /yeah, I know such restrictions happened mainly because so many "gun-nuts" just couldn't stop buying, fearful that their guns and ammo were going to be taken away by Obama - I've read blogs of such people who perfectly know this to be the case, yet it continued. Gun store owners and manufacturers smile when a liberal is "in charge", because they know sales will go thru the roof - always does.