FWIW, I think the gun issue is tied to "pandering to the base." I posit that the vast majority of gun killings are drug-trade related. Generally in the form o

FWIW, I think the gun issue is tied to "pandering to the base." I posit that the vast majority of gun killings are drug-trade related. Generally in the form of gang conflicts, like turf battles for distribution areas, maybe some for armed robbery for money to buy drugs. The base of the republican party could never accept that recreational drugs aren't inherently bad. So they can't point out the obvious (obvious to me at least) point that if they ended the war on drugs, the rate of gun violence would plummet. The base of the democratic party could never accept that guns aren't inherently bad. If they talked about decriminalization as a means to reducing gun violence that would weaken any arguments for the outright banning of guns. So neither party has incentive to fix the problem because their respective bases have idealogical beliefs that are simply not topics of debate.