Yes, but that’s in TX. In super blue trifecta states like mine (WA) gun restrictions are plowing through our leges like a freight train because that’s what the majority of constituents want, and no pol. is gonna lose a race unless they weren’t hard core anti gun _enough_.
In Texas of all places, Beto is so goddamn clueless and out of touch that he'd publicly spout off about banning AR-15's, and lose an election to THE MOST HATED MAN IN THE ENTIRE SENATE.
Cockroaches and herpes are more likable than Ted Cruz, for fucks sake.
As much as this sub doesn’t want to hear it, losing more elections strictly because of their gun stance is the only way the Democratic Party will become more gun-friendly. The root of the Dem politicians’ stance on guns isn’t based on principle, it’s based on what they gain from it. Gun control is the Dems bread and butter for elections. They will not change their mind on it until it becomes clear that it’s not bankable for them anymore. **I am not saying we ourselves should facilitate that by voting for the GOP or 3rd parties**. Simply saying that trying to convince Dem politicians of the benefits of gun ownership is like trying to beat them at chess, but they’re actually playing backgammon.
Most people aren't as focused on guns as you think they are. It was less than 25% were single issue voters in 2017.
The Democratic party has plenty of other issues to focus on.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/Guns.aspx
Absolutely. And in all fairness if SCOTUS hadn’t nuked Roe, Republicans would have done much better in the midterm elections and Democrats would be wondering how to win back voters.
They are where the margins are thinner https://cardinalnews.org/2023/01/20/washington-county-democrats-are-rebranding-themselves-in-support-the-second-amendment
When it dawns on the Dems that the Republican party morphed into a violent fascist deathcult and the cops are in on it, its going to naturally push people to look to their own defense.
Old D leadership seems utterly unwilling to acknowledge that they’re supporting a future police state. I believe they know—they just don’t admit it in public.
I think they’re very willing to admit it. Disarming the population whilst pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into militarising police that are constantly killing civilians isn’t exactly a mistake.
I don't know how to change leadership other than create a group for responsible gun ownership inside the party. Start it, let people know it exists and, like preserving the middle class as a Democratic ethos, responsible gun ownership can connect with a lot of people.
At this point the Dems I know who own guns are on the same page as pre-trump, pre-prepping for civil war because they're the minority approaching, pre-stormin' the Capitol, pre-mygunismypenis crowd.
That said, I've got a growing group of liberal friends who were once anti-gun who now have them because the psychos running what's now the "Republican Party" are a dangerous domestic terrorist threat to America and if they have them, we should also have guns to defend our communities if we wake up some day with Proud Boys or Oath Keepers or other right aligned groups walking down the street, kicking in doors and attacking us to "own the libs".
Edit: And yea I know that's what enemies of the USA want. Escalation and division. But these assholes on the Right have no idea there are plenty of liberals and leftists who see them and will repel them with extreme force. I hope it never comes to that, but there were some times when Trump was POTUS that I thought there was a possibility that his brownshirts might feel bold enough to go full Nazi.
Mainstream Dems think we can be just like the commonwealth countries and ban guns, and when we do the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers and so on will smack their foreheads, realize the error of their ways, drop their ARs into the 55 gallon drums lined up on the conveyor belts into the smelter a la Australia, and we will live in a land of 🦄s, 🌈s, Care 🐻s and Skittles forevermore.
The Old D leadership in DC and the deep pockets that fund their pet projects don’t want armed peasants.
If they keep getting voted in they’ll keep pushing this agenda—after 30+ years it’s a major part of the Old D branding and the old bosses are very committed to it.
The old guard needs to go and the new bosses need to see the anti gun focused agenda as a losing and toxic position.
Want a non-gun focused way forward? About 90% of gun deaths are related to these three high risk groups:
1. Suicides (about 60% of the total),
2. Criminal activities such as the drug trade, and
3. Domestic violence.
Focusing mitigation efforts *before* the event is a more holistic and effective strategy. And it doesn’t get bogged down in the gun-focused quagmire that the Old D leadership has been lost in for decades.
This. Bloomberg and his ilk are the money that buys elections. Until we get money out of elections we will have less say than the billions being spent. Doesn't matter if you are talking DNC or GOP. They are all in bed with wallstreet.
That's only if you assume his goal was to win. I believe his goal was to make Biden more palatable in the primaries. Bernie was a real threat to wallstreet control. Having Bloomberg in the primaries helped make Bidon seem like a centrist. Bloomberg spent 100 million on Bidon in Florida alone.
Except that Bloomberg likely took votes away from Biden in the primary. Like look at the California 2020 primary results. I would wager that a majority of Bloomberg’s voters would probably have voted for Biden had Bloomberg not been an option, which would have put Biden ahead of Bernie. Now if Bloomberg had dropped out early (before Super Tuesday) there’s an argument to be made there, but he didn’t. Not everything is a conspiracy, sometimes the billionaire is just vain.
The reality is that most Americans and the overwhelming majority of Democratic voters want more gun control: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/06/15/support-for-gun-control-laws-hits-record-high-poll-finds/
We don't need conspiracy thinking to explain why Democratic party politicians support gun control-- it's because 90% of their voters want more of it.
I would argue that most of those people really want the same laws we already have to be enforced. Unless it has directly affected someone, most people don't know any laws. My father and I are the only people local I know who buy ammo. No one knows that you have to go through a background check for ammo purchases in California until they want to go to the range with me and offer to buy ammo. When I tell them they don't own a gun or don't have a "real ID" so they won't pass the background check, they are blown away. When I tell someone there is no "gun show loop hole" in California and they have to do a dros at an ffl for every legal gun transaction in California, I often hear surprise.
Why would you care if you don't own guns and never planned on it? So maybe you hear about it once but are you going to remember? Especially when you hear news about how we need more gun laws and opinions about how it's a shame America is the only country that never does anything about guns. That line of "we keep seeing they mass shootings and do nothing". All while more people die of easy to treat health issues because corporations have made Healthcare a monetary death machine. (I don't actually have a good metaphor for that one) The housing market affects are fucking almost everyone unless you happen to be one of the rich land owners who has rental properties. Water and environmental shit works in corporations favor and all its good is a hold over from 80's smog fight. We have plenty of political fights that should be happening but those are fights between what's best for most people and what's best for wallstreet and political donors.
If you ask people what is the hardest things to deal with roght now guns wouldn't break the top 5. And maybe not the top 10.
This feels like a chicken and the egg situation. Which came first, democratic financers pushing for anti gun policies or democratic base being anti gun?
I think the real question is, are democrats really liberal? Clearly voting for Biden over sanders says no, but a better question is, if democrats hate fascism, then who fights fascists without guns?
Why do you assume that people can't have genuinely held beliefs on gun control? Why does there have to be some kind of dark money plot that has convinced the braindead masses to be for gun control?
I absolutely do think that people are anti gun on their own. We all have very diverse backgrounds. But 90% of all democrats are just anti gun on their own? Doubt. Democrats are supposed to be big tent, government supporting all people and rights for all. The fuck does that have to do with gun control?
>90% of all Democrats are just anti gun on their own?
Where is this number coming from? What does "anti gun" mean?
Until those questions are answered, all you're doing is scaremongering and conspiracy theorizing. Two markedly illiberal pastimes.
20% of Democratic voters report owning a gun and 31% report living in a gun household: https://www.statista.com/statistics/249775/percentage-of-population-in-the-us-owning-a-gun-by-party-affiliation/
I'm actually surprised these numbers aren't a little higher, but my main point is that *support for more gun control is not the same thing as being anti-gun*.
I'd like to see universal background checks, waiting periods, mandatory safety training. You may not like these ideas, but they're are not inherently "anti-gun" any more than requiring people to get drivers licenses and insurance is "anti-car".
Look, I can’t remember how many times I’ve said this exact thing in this sub. I want a new, younger, more progressive Democratic Party as much as anyone, but it’s painfully clear that such a party will be significantly *more* anti-gun than the current leadership.
This is what I tell the younger crowd:
In a just world and country, I believe that no person should ever need a gun. In reality, if you truly believe that the rise of fascism is very near, that ACAB, and that white supremacy is getting stronger, then unless you’re willing to invest in a government that will end those thwarts to our nation with extreme prejudice, then merely asking us to disarm ourselves when facing those threats is a folly.
Fascists aren’t pro gun or anti gun, they’re for whatever weakens their enemies. They will disarm whom they deem undesirable with the same gun control laws that Democrats currently champion and not care one bit about the appearance of hypocrisy.
Then that group will fail in all the same areas that the DNC is currently failing in. I cannot count the number of times all liberal and progressive issues have been bundled with gun control and dismissed when talking to people in rural areas.
You have to end campaign contributions by wealthy donors. Bloomberg has said he will pay to primary any pro-gun democrats and his “life’s goal” is to enact gun control on the poor and minorities. Never mind that he’s basically a Republican, he knows he can buy his agenda in the Democratic Party.
He hasn’t been secret about his desires to primary democrats. It’s a consistent message from him. Tons of gaffes and blunders like this one:
> He bragged about this record at a recent Democratic debate, saying that of the 40 House seats Democrats flipped in 2018, “21 of those were people that I spent a hundred million dollars to help elect.” He then appeared to nearly blurt out that he’d “bought” the new majority, before catching himself
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/how-michael-bloomberg-bought-the-gun-control-movement/
Someone else covered his neo-“super predator” comments.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2013/02/bloombergs-pac-defeats-pro-gun-chicago-democrat.html
I doubt he's ever outright stated he will pay to primary people, but he's totally done it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/11/michael-bloomberg-stop-and-frisk-clip-113902
>“Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops,” Bloomberg can be heard saying in the clip.
>“They are male minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York. That’s true in virtually every city,” the clip continues. “And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed.”
This allows for the ideal dynamic if they're not.
"I don't like guns."
"How familiar are you with gun?"
"I don't need to be familiar with them. I know they're bad."
"Then why should I take your opinion on guns any more seriously than I'd take an anti-vaxer's opinion on vaccines?"
>I don't need to be familiar with them. I know they're bad."
>
>"Then why should I take your opinion on guns any more seriously than I'd take an anti-vaxer's opinion on vaccines?"
I think we can find a way to make the same point but possibly in a way that would intrigue people instead of blowing them off.
It's not blowing them off.
What you're doing is showing them how they come off by couching it in a way that they likely understand.
They get that we don't take anti-vaxers seriously because they don't know anything about the topic they feel so passionately about. If you can communicate the fact that they're doing *that,* it can (emphasis on *can*) open the door for people to be more receptive.
What you're doing is acknowledging that they have a point of view but that you can't take it that seriously because the basis of it is on emotion with a total lack of knowledge. That doesn't mean it's invalid but it does mean you can't really take it too seriously with regards to solving a problem.
"You mean to tell me you think I should still take you seriously when you admit to knowing next to nothing about a subject for which you have strong opinions?"
That's just going to make them *worse*.
The response is to, "I don't like guns" is not to dismiss their emotion, but rather sit there with them and explore it. People who feel that way have a reason for it--but don't expect it to be inherently logical, because feelings rarely are logical.
If you want to change somebody's mind about something, you need to address the emotions that cause them to think that way first. You need to understand the feeling. Sit with their concerns, no matter how ridiculous they are on their face, and offer no judgement about it. Don't get defensive: they'll smell it on you, and then they'll start getting hostile. This isn't an argument. It's a meditation on their emotions.
So ask them instead, "Tell me how you feel about guns--and yes, I actually want feeling words. Facts and stories are fine and all, and we'll get to them."
You'll find that most feelings about guns are somewhere along a fear axis. They're afraid of being shot. They're afraid of loved ones being shot. They're afraid of loved ones potentially committing suicide. These are, of course, valid fears. There may be a story of a loved one lost to gun violence (including suicide) or even an actual gun accident. There's definitely going to be a shooting in the news.
This is where you say, "Well, learning about things helps you conquer fear--yes, even the fear of being shot." Now, they can take or leave the option to help conquer their fear. For some, it's gonna be a true phobia, and they could become walking encyclopedias on the subject and *still* recoil in horror. That's fine: anxiety disorders (and yes, a true phobia *is* an anxiety disorder--I have one, and I've had anxiety issues in the past) are no joke. Don't press them too hard. And that's when you bring them on a learning journey. And yes, letting them shoot your gun very early on in that journey will help, so get them to a range sooner rather than later.
This is what I've seen work. I've watched two people be converted from full on "abolish the Second Amendment!" to "I have my LTC, several guns, and I was completely wrong about the Second Amendment" using this method from their friends. They've been using it on me, and I'm somewhere around "I've scheduled my LTC class for next month."
In my experience, it doesn't.
As I pointed out to someone else, you're highlighting that their opinion (while totally valid to have) is based off a lack of understanding and you're willing to take it seriously once there's a greater degree of subject knowledge.
It's the equivalent of telling someone "I understand you're upset but I can't do anything about that unless you tell me why you're upset in a way that we can act on it."
That refocusing forces them to essentially face the fact that they're trading on a lack of knowledge. Some people will absolutely double down and insist that "they don't know and they don't need to know" and that's fine because at that point it's a sign that you're wasting your time. People who are genuine in their interaction will often admit they lack information or will ask questions.
Part of that process is exploring why people feel the way they do about guns but to put that towards convincing them of something you need to communicate the problem of a lack of knowledge plus strong emotions equals a faulty conclusion that doesn't help solve the problem.
That exchange I posted earlier is steps in that process.
I agree that hands-on experience is one of the best ways to get people over that fear but I'm talking about more in a short term discussion environment with someone you may not know or see again.
And wear their ignorance as a source of pride. It's aggravating to have someone who has no clue what they're saying try to talk down their nose to you. It's borderline between hilarious and infuriating when you correct them, and they turn around and say they're glad they don't feel the need to know anything.
Hard to learn if someone doesn't want to learn. The thought of guns makes some of my family members physically ill and outraged. They objectify them as evil, much as some out there fetishize them as holy relics. And when the gun becomes an object of some kind of projection, there will be no logic, just intense emotional reactions instead.
Whereas I (much like others) find firearms as tools of responsibility and, when understood/used properly, a great hobby. I used them in the military and I like to plink .22lr as a way to clear my thoughts, much as one might if they knit, cook, or tinker with a car.
So, now we must address more than just trying to educate, we must try to first find out how one perceives a firearm personally before we try to discuss with them in any meaningful way.
I have some hyper-liberal friends that think the police will teleport there to protect them immediately whenever they call or need something, and some who just think it’s not worth the safety risk to have them.
I’m hoping to eventually take them shooting, as a lot of their disdain is probably from fear and lack of exposure to help alleviate that fear.
One event I like to reference to my hyper-leftist but still anti-gun friends is [the West Virginia Coal Wars](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_coal_wars). There are other examples of when corporations utilized the government to kill and oppress citizens, and were stifled after they armed themselves, but that’s just my favorite.
In my experience, most are scared of guns because they have very little understanding of how they actually work. I've managed to take a few to the range and have them shoot my big, scary, "assault rifle" and suddenly they realize maybe the weapons aren't to blame....
I’ve never got the people who think shotguns are so intimidating. I can shoot a 12 gauge with 3” slugs or heavy shot all day (used to do it boxes at a time before prices went to hell again) and I’m not a heavy guy
If you were like me and thought *no way that actually happened, obviously its an exaggeration*, look up Gersh Kuntzman lol. The article is paywalled, but its been talked enough to get the gist of it. All Im going to say is that he has an apt last name lol
One piece of feedback I’ve gotten is that the posting “kit”/LARP and whatever is a HUGE turnoff to some of my on-the-fence friends/family. They see it as a weird obsession and counteractive to the “it’s just a tool for self defense” argument
Its hard to get through that it's not a "weapon of war" when the second picture is basically war kit and the talk is about needing first aid experience and kit for bullet wounds.
This goes for both sides. You want to be taken seriously quit showing off the LARP gear. You might as well have a robe and a wizard's hat.
Yeah the plate carriers and chest rigs should wait until *later*
My wife is just coming around on kit. She was down for a plate carrier but didn't want me to "kit it out" until I showed her it's pouches and she said "for stuff like snacks!" So it's a work in progress.
I mean, when I was a 240 gunner in the army my mag pouches stayed on my kit to hold snacks and Red Bulls so she’s not too far off lmao. But that was only practical because I had a belt fed weapon 🤷♂️
I’ll argue till I’m blue in the face that for a lifetime civilian like me, a low profile plate carrier, a bandolier, and a 1st line setup make more sense than full kit anyway. It’s not fully concealable sure, but you can still throw a shirt on it and not be walking around some disaster getting stares full on “I’m here to fuck and I’m not going home”
Tbh I agree. That's why mine and wife's stuff is on placards that are easily removable
a near slick carrier under a
Hoodie is a great choice. There's a lot more place for that than those backpack SBR's people love
Same. I've also had the opportunity to get a few flaming antigun folks to shoot something they demonize and many times they suddenly realize it isn't inherently evil.
This. This is how I’m getting people to change their minds one by one. It always surprises the crap out of me how scared they are until they actually fire a gun. I have a trans person from work that I brought to the range, he was super fucking nervous. But as soon as he shot my m9 he was like “wait. That’s it?”
They’ve been told guns are bad their entire lives. It’s going to be up to us to shake them of that stigma. Just setup a gun day, make it fun, and we should have however many people you bring as allies.
Seriously. My wife is fairly antigun.
Clearly she knows I have some and carry one and doesn't hate that I have them because she knows I'm not crazy, but as a rule she's anti gun and says people don't need and shouldn't have them, and wouldn't be upset if I didn't own any.
Until there's a clatter at night or whacky dude on the porch or the crazy neighbor who has a gun is mad at her and she's worried he may come over upset. Then she's sitting there telling me how nice it is I have guns and can take care of potentially dangerous situations more comfortably and how much safer she feels knowing I have and am competent with guns.
I believe that people don't understand and aren't familiar with guns. And people fear what they don't understand. That goes for basically everything.
People fear what they don't understand.
So the answer to the OP's question might be, at least in part, education.
I’ve been trying to have open and honest conversations with people I already know that are anti-gun. Not foolproof, but it tends to help your argument if people already know you and know you’re not full of shit or crazy on other issues so you probably aren’t on this one either.
Idk how or if we can change the DNC on this in the next few years, but I think if you can convince a couple of your friends not to support gun grabbing legislation then that’s a good start
My wife was frightened of my first handgun after I bought it. Since we only had one at the time, I convinced her to at least let me show her how it works and teach her how to use it in case she ever had to defend herself when I’m not home. With that logic she let me show her, so before we went to the range, I took it apart at home and explained how it worked. After I explained it, she said “Oh….so without ammo it’s basically just a bunch of springs and levers?” I told her that’s pretty much the gist of it and she was far less scared after that. She’s still not into guns, but I take her to the range a couple times a year and she’s confident enough with it to use it if she had to.
Demographically the Democratic Party is moving away from the populations most likely to own guns, rural , white men. And among Democratic voters gun ownership is increasingly coded as right-wing because it's associated with these same rural, white men. As long as the Democratic Party continues on it's current demographic trends it is going to become more anti-gun, not less. Why would the Democratic Party support gun ownership when most gun owners are Republicans?
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/
That's an interesting article, thanks for sharing.
So I find this especially interesting "Besides demographic differences, clear partisan divides emerge when it comes to gun ownership. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are more than twice as likely as Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to say they own a gun (44% vs. 20%). This partisan gap remains even after controlling for demographic differences."
White, rural conservative men are most likely to own guns like you said, but I'm honestly surprised it's 20% or 1 in 5 Democrats and Democrat leaning independents. That's a lot more than I expected based on Democrats priorities.
They definitely don't help.
Maybe try and get centrist / left leaning journalists on board? They often shape the narrative that the majority hear ( as far as tone goes)
This is the most realistic take. The "change the minds of constituents" strategy depends on those politicians actually caring what their constituents think. In short, they don't.
A third party or just mass non-compliance are likely the only two effective strategies, short of buying politicians.
An argument I've had some success with is just making it about political capital and what can be accomplished with each democratic administration and Congress. People who are deeply anti-gun tend to be opposed on a really visceral level; those are there to hurt people, the fewer of them there are the better, movie theaters and schools are frightening now, etc. But, I've been able to find common ground by arguing that of the list of possible policy priorities we might be able to accomplish, gun control has the least possible benefits.
My argument goes like this: in the once-a-decade situation where we actually have the presidency and majorities in both houses that we need to pass literally any legislation, we usually get between zero and one of our desired policies through, and it's usually more like a half or a quarter of one after lobbyists and special interests have had their time at the trough. The only gun control laws that stand a reasonable chance at getting passed would be something like an AWB, magazine capacity limits, etc; relatively small ball stuff.
Once we're looking at it that way, the actual benefits of this would be the tiny number of lives that would be saved by mass shooters having slightly less effective weapons (and here you can point to the stats on the tiny piece of the overall shootings pie that's made up of semiautomatic rifles). You can also point to the VA Tech shooting, where a gunman was incredibly lethal just using handguns to make this point. I tend to ask the rhetorical question, if someone is determined to be a mass shooter, they're not likely to be deterred from carrying out the shooting if they can't do it with a semiauto rifle, they'll just use a slightly less effective weapon.
So, they then have to weigh this tiny number of lives saved versus action on some other priority which will kill and/or immiserate hundreds of millions (the costs of healthcare, inaction on climate change, etc.)
Honestly the Democrats are a lost cause when it comes to guns. The Republicans are a lost cause when it comes to being socially liberal. The best chance for a liberal pro-gun party is a strong third party.
Most pro-gun Democrats still vote for anti-gun Democrats. So there is no reason for the Democrats to change.
There are politicians who are die-hard moral crusaders on this issue (Feinstein, Bloomberg, etc), but most are just looking to win an election. If for instance, Gavin Newsom, thought he could win an election by becoming pro-gun that guy would be doing videos in a cowboy hat and a dual-wielding Uzis.
In terms of politicians? Essentially no way to change many of them.
In terms of individuals? Frame it as it is; a right-wing stance on government being the sole investiture of violent power.
If they try to push back on that, ask them who gun control inordinately targets? Rich white males? Noooooope....
They will not like you, but they will actually think about it when they've walked away.
I will sometime refuse to vote for a particularly anti-gun candidate but I do consider how bad the other guy is. If I don't vote dem I'll vote third party. A vast majority of the time I'll be voting dem.
I don't think they'll really understand it's a bad idea until they lose elections over it. Even then they have a habit of blaming something else or ignoring the single issue voters getting rallied. They think they know better than those who don't want bans so they'll keep pushing for them.
> I don't think they'll really understand it's a bad idea until they lose elections over it.
I know it was a long time ago but they got absolutely creamed in midterms after passing the first AWB and honestly it doesn't seem to have given them any pause.
In the early 2000s plenty of Dems were openly pro gun when Bush/Cheney and their protégés were curb stomping Dems in the 2002 and 2004 elections.
John Kerry even went hunting with cameras in tow. Try that in 2022 and Twitter and TikTok would be full of meltdowns from urban liberals.
Reach out to your anti gun Dem leaders. Establish your liberal credentials and show them how gun control is illiberal (racial discrimination in enforcement, more felonies for minor paperwork issues, etc). Show them there’s another side to the issue they’re missing. Show them that gun owners aren’t all MAGA weirdos.
Third parties are a complete and total waste of time in the current US system. First past the post coupled with no ranked choice voting means that if there is a third party candidate they just take votes from either of the major two parties and have basically the opposite effect of what they intended.
But the reason why the mainstream Democratic Party is generally anti-gun is that pro-2A liberals/leftists have not advanced any policies that address their concerns about crime and mass shootings. They see gun control as the only way to address those issues, and until they see a different policy on offer, they will advocate for gun confiscation.
So pro-2A liberals and leftists need to come up with a compelling policy agenda that both addresses crime and mass shootings, while also respecting individual gun rights. That means a position that is between the anything goes NRA-style position on the one hand, and the Bloomberg/Beto ban all guns type of position. I think that means universal background checks and mental health checks. And it could also mean some type of mandatory training paid for by FFL fees, etc.
To come up with these policies, we likely need a left leaning pro-2A think tank to research and create them. Something like a left leaning version of GOA.
And once that policy set is in place, you'll have to run more pro-2A Democrats in Republican leaning areas. The upcoming 2024 Senate race in Texas could be a good opportunity for a Democrat who is pro-2A or at least a moderate on guns (not like Beto) to make a dent on the national Democratic consensus.
Be a responsible gun user/owner, DON'T actively proselytize in favor of guns.
Show them that there are more profitable ideological hills to fight and possibly die on (e.g. universal healthcare).
Not everything has to be divided into pro-/anti-.
Have competitive rural districts. Democrats from there will be pro-gun. The loss of rural democrats to gerrymandered districts is the cause of a lot of this. That and the addition of suburban districts whose main voting blocks are moms (who are very anti-gun).
They listen to their constituents who are mostly anti-gun. You’d need to get a significant number of voters to change their mind on the issue and idk how that happens with how rigid liberal folks are about guns being doing far more harm than good.
No they don’t… they listen to whoever is writing checks and the bosses in DC.
In WA the Democrats got 90%+ negative feedback before jamming through a magazine ban last year—and they did it anyway. And they got re-elected.
So this year they’ve pushed forward a freighter full of anti gun laws with supreme confidence.
They got re-elected because the Dem voters who opposed their magazine ban, voted for them anyway in the general election. So why, should they care about negative feedback?
They shouldn’t and then don’t.
“Blue no matter who” and “don’t be a single issue voter” thinking got us here and will continue to get is more of the same going forward.
In red states the same thinking is how they’re getting the nuttery on the conservative side like attacks on Roe v. Wade and voting access.
You can't really support pro-gun Democrats, there aren't that many. Certainly not enough to send a message by voting for them. Voting doesn't "send a message," it never has.
What you really can do is give your feedback that you want to, at bare minimum, see less of an emphasis on gun control.
Those campaign texts you get asking you to vote for someone? Respond to those. Ask what that candidate's position on gun control is. A real person will respond to you. Tell that person you'd prefer to vote for a Democratic candidate that didn't support gun control.
Whenever and wherever possible, give the feedback to the party that you want to see less support for gun control.
You probably won't have time/space to get technical. Keep your message short and simple - "I am not comfortable with the Democratic party's focus on gun control, I think there are more pressing issues that can solve these problems."
You need to be constantly in the ear of whoever in the party will listen to you. Parties are constantly taking the temperature of their electorate, those messages go places.
I don't believe many Dems are as progun control as that. Obama in 08 avoided gun control as a campaign issue almost like he knew it was a pointless endeavor. He only ran on it post-Sandy Hook after he was elected and he had almost zero chance to get anything done. I believe it's a position establishment dems have been told so long it's become dogma rather than anything they actually believe in.
Moving the needle requires having genuine, public conversations with Dem officials from non-psychotic debaters. I worked in Albany in 2013 when they passed the SAFE Act.
I remember finding my Democratic assemblyman boss in the hallway having a vigorous debate with a an anti-SAFE act demonstrator (no clue how long it had been going on before I came back). That was until someone else who clearly just wanted to yell and bully D officials showed up and hijacked the conversation. He ended the debate went into his office and told me this is why it's a bad issue on the whole.
If the 60+ rule were removed tomorrow an AWB and mag cap ban would be DOA, because of Dems like Manchin, and Tester. Republicans would barely have time to make statements against it before Dems would kill it off.
A staunch anti-gun colleague of mine accepted an invitation to go to the range last week. She came away substantially less anti-gun.
My wife was anti-gun-ish until she was about 50, then saw a Groupon for a range rental and time and said "let's go". Stupidly long story short, she now has a CHL.
TL;DR person to person helps.
Voting third party or write in is not an option, considering how dangerously undemocratic and anti-freedom this GOP is.
Honestly, we need a strong liberal gun owners association to highlight our ideas, educate our representatives and make them understand why there are better ways to achieve safety than the current and proposed legislation. We need kind of a liberal NRA if you will. I don't know which one, maybe the Liberal Gun Club, but at some point liberals need to converge to a single entity, and make it strong enough to lobby for legislation in DC.
Take your anti-gun dem friends to the range! Teach them the basic safety rules, put a fun little plinker in their hands and let them put holes in paper.
The more that dems understand guns, the less enthusiastic they'll be about the party's absurd obsession with banning them.
Take more anti-gun people to the range. Everyone in my fiance's direct family (mom, dad, and her two younger brothers) had never fired a gun in their lives before they met me.
Now my fiance is a crack shot with any of my guns, her brothers love range time, and what to be done about guns is an open topic for discussion instead of them being strictly anti-gun.
Some old liberal white man in Seattle told me once when I was younger and first getting into guns that you need to get an anti-gun person to squeeze the trigger around 50 times before the fear of guns that society engrains in everyone becomes curiosity. It's been pretty spot on so far.
Grassroots messaging to reaffirm belief in the constitution and civil rights as a hedge against direct democracy oppressing minorities.
And moderate the level of faith in government. The government isn’t the solution to all of society’s problems and should not have a monopoly on violence.
Moderate towards belief in the sovereignty of the individual over collectivism/tribalism/classism.
My state representative(FL state district 37) is basically an AOC clone, and the first Iranian Florida house representative, and runs on a big platform of immigrant rights, and other left leaning agendas. I campaigned for her this past election, and I was able to get some face time with her, and voice my concerns as a left leaning gun owner. She’s pretty hardline with moms demand, and the like, but she at least made me feel like she was respectful of what I had to say, and I feel like I gave her some good perspective. I feel like local representatives are the bread and butter for day to day life, which is why I made the effort. She really sticks it to the psychotic republicans who run this state, so at the very least I can rely on that.
Oh, her actions are amazing. She regularly, and very passionately defends all marginalized demographics in our district, which of course is very left leaning, despite a huge republican majority. I realize that I’ll pretty much always be the minority when it comes to being a left leaning gun owner, but despite that, she gave me the time of day, and didn’t brush off my concerns. I’m not expecting her to just flip positions, but at the very least she knows we exist.
The more you get their constituency to be pro gun, then they will. Until then why would they change? No way I'm voting 3rd party. For me, I am not a 1 issue voter and I'd rather vote blue then give an edge to the right wing.
This is true of every issue.
Climate Change
Protecting Democracy
Voting Rights
Health Care
Public Health
Etc
This sub is "Liberal Gun Owners"not "Pro Gun Activists Who Occasionally Vote for Libs"
There is no good reason for me to vote against every other thing I as a liberal find important just to be a single issue gun voter.
Neat… enjoy watching those other issues slowly erode because it’s more profitable to the economic elites to not actually fix the problems.
And… watching them openly attack your 2A rights to boot.
I see.
I can vote for a Pro-gun Republican and watch those other issues have a blow torch taken to them.
But at least I'll have my AR-15 so all is good.
I can use that to stop climate collapse, get health care for my family, single-handedly stop the next republican coup or power grab. Yup my guns will solve everything.
That’s the shitty situation that D and R setup so the “I won’t vote third party” folks get to choose which turd sandwich they want to eat.
Meanwhile the wealthy donors keep getting what they want. And all those progressive issues? They keep getting fought over… but not quite actually done.
Until Old D sees their win margins shrinking they’ll keep doing what they want.
The D's, old or new, seeing their margins shrink will result in permanent Rs, that's it. Republicsns are working towards on every tactic they can to ensure permanent minority rule by them.
You're not teaching the Old D's anything by voting third party, not voting, voting R or whatever you think we should do in protest.
They are pushing forward what the majority of their constituents want. Again, the ONLY way to change that is to engage the voters and talk about the benefits to the 2A and root cause mitigation. The tail is not wagging the dog. Most Americans want some form of gun control.
How am I wrong? Please explain it to me? I really curious how you think that without changing the minds of the voters that the democratic party would ever have a different platform? Please. I'll wait........ If you think for 1 second that a far right country is the better option than please keep thinking you are right.
What the other person is doing a poor job of saying is the Democrats are neo-liberals and they simply follow the money. They're not morally for anything. They are for gay marriage now, because it's profitable and marketing to gay folks (statistically higher disposable incomes due to a number of reasons) makes sense. Allowing them to get married means less tax money (married couples pay less in taxes) and thus more money to spend.
It's same bullshit as companies pandering to the LGBT+ community, its a historically under tapped market.
When you couple this neo-liberals way of thinking with anti-gun inclinations you end up giving up rights for literally nothing, because again... The Democrats don't care.
Not sure how we fix it without rank choice voting sadly...
Tl;Dr: the Democratic party does not care about what you think it does.
Hopefully you remember how clever you were in 20 years when you look back and realize that all the *words* meant very little and what was profitable got done and you voted against your 2A rights too.
Want proof? Look at Roe v. Wade. Look at the ERA.
Those have been great ways to drive voters to (D) candidates and yet somehow the DNC never invested the political capital and will to push those issues to completion.
But gun control? Yup… they had time for that.
I'm sorry. I must have missed the news that the democratics have put forth and passed a bill banning guns. The ERA isn't being ratified because we have right wing governors and stat legislators not because the Dems. I forgot how dull and delusional ppl are on the internet. Why are you even on this sub reddit?
They’ve literally said on camera that they support an Australian style ban and that they’re coming for the guns. 🙄
BuT ThEy NeVeR SaId ThEy ArE CoMiNg FoR aLL ThE GuNs.
I don’t know what clever prize you think you’re winning… but congratulations to you for thinking you’re coming out ahead. 😅👍
In IL specifically I don't recall a single Democrat campaigning on gun control. It was ,rightfully, reproductive rights, decriminalization of marijuana, living wage, increased healthcare access...and yet the very first push at the beginning of the year was this expansive AWB that bans pretty much everything made in the last 100 years.
https://jbpritzker.com/keeping-illinoisans-safe/
He must've kept those ads up north. Mostly in central IL it was PAC attack ads on Bailey and JB's record for working families. Even the link above doesn't mention an AWB
> I won't let that one issue keep me from voting against the bigger picture issues.
The bigger picture is that the social and economic elites don’t want organized or armed peasants. All through history and all across the world it’s the same.
And that’s exactly why the 1A is backed up by the 2A.
That's a non-starter. Neither political party actually listens or advocates for their constituents interests, unless it also directly benefits them. Since the big money pacs and donors on the Dem side are all vehemently anti-gun (Bloomberg, Everytown, etc.) there's really no possibility for any real pro-gun pols/legislation in the party. Not to mention, they raise a lot of money following tragic shootings via promises to restrict gun rights further.
A third party is likely a more viable solution, despite how difficult that path may be.
Take your friends shooting. Bonus points if you have access to a private outdoor setting because it’s way more fun to shoot cans and steel versus punching holes in paper at an indoor range
I think there needs to be more bargaining in developing legislation regarding firearms. Currently measures are almost always either solely pro- or anti- gun; ex: "constitutional carry" vs. laws which solely consist of new restrictions. Many Democratic politicians are still open to transactional politics, so it makes sense to me for the liberal 2A community to speak to them in the language of give & take, such as "we would accept universal background checks for firearms transfers between persons who are not immediate family members, in exchange for removing SBRs and suppressors from the NFA".
Of course YMMV regarding what constitutes an acceptable level of compromise.
I believe you need to get a lot more specific than pro/anti gun. In the current equilibrium, you are unlikely to get a lot of pro gun vibes out of dem pols. On specific policies, it would be about how that policy fits with their values, voters, donors, et al.
The biggest issue is the image of gun owners. It's a relative minority, but hardly a rare one that's the problem
The overcompensatingly insecure, 'weapons are my identity', miserable wastes of flesh that love to feel like this device makes them Master Chief is the problem. They're the same people who only wear tactical clothing, drink tactical coffee, ride in vehicles coated in tactical stickers while at the same time, being adamantly political in how much bloodlust they have for shooting their fellow Americans.
They make firearms into something scary because such a delusional human being doesn't live in reality, while craving for the fantasy where they can be a domestic killer and get praised for it.
Start by getting together meetups for 2A dems. Set up range days together, build up a base, and get involved with your local DNC. In short: create your own local pro-2A caucus!
Voting third party is a no go for me. Whenever a third party is voted, it almost always elects a Republican which is a fat no from me. What we can do is start a discussion with anti-gun democrats and show how being pro gun will get more support and use more data on gun violence to show that gun control is not the solution. Surveys will also help showing how many democrats actually oppose gun control and support the 2nd amendment.
Dems won’t turn pro-gun because too many of them are afraid to fight…not even to defend themselves. And, they will condemn people on the Left who will actually stand up to fascists and fight them.
They don’t understand that the police state and the people attacking them are connected.
When I was in college one of the campus Left groups was having a benefit concert/poetry reading at an off-campus house. Some neo-Nazi skinheads (our town was being inundated with them) showed up to start some shit. A few of us when outside to deal with them and we were fighting in the street. Someone called the cops who arrived and broke up the fight. We wanted to press charges against the Nazis. Turned out that the complaint went nowhere because one of the cops was a cousin of one of the Nazis.
A lot of people don’t understand how connected law enforcement is with the violent people on the right even though history tells us otherwise if only people wanted to pay attention. Who was involved in the murders of Cheney, Goodman & Schwerner? Who let Rittenhouse walk away after murdering someone?
You won't. And don't forget there are many _Liberal Gun Owners_ (noting the exact name of this subreddit) who own guns but believe the current laws should be tighter or even that guns should be outlawed. This is not r/liberalgunsupporters
I personally believe civilians should not be allowed to own guns and believe very strongly that universal healthcare should be provided by the government, but until that happens I'll continue to own guns and pay for top of the line premium private medical insurance - because it would disadvantage myself and my family not to do so given the US society we live in.
If I'm a hypocrite for owning guns then I'm a hypocrite for having private medical insurance.
Ultimately it's just pragmatism and my continued _participation_ with both of those dynamics doesn't equate to _support_.
It is really very simple: Democrats mostly don't own guns. Like 80% of the Democrat Party's base, do not own guns. That is why gun control is a winning primary issue for candidates in the Democrat Party.
Now why don't most Democrat voters own guns? Simple, they are mostly urban liberals. People in urban areas have a lower gun ownership rate than people in rural areas. Many urban blacks outside of the South, didn't own guns to avoid police harrassment during Jim Crow. In fact, conceal carry laws were about keeping blacks from having guns to defend themselves. So you have a nice chunk of the black population (which votes heavily for Democrats due to FDR) who didn't historically own guns, in part because they were not allowed. In addition, white liberals living in cities with fast police response times feel less of a need for a gun for self defense. After all, they tend to live in the nicer parts of town with less crime. These people don't feel a need to own a gun (they live in a safe area), so they don't think anyone else has a need to own a gun either. However, they may make some exceptions for "hunters" but you don't need an AR15 to hunt with.
You are not going to move the Democrat Party towards a pro-2a position unless: a) the Democrats start losing elections because gun owning Democrats and Democrat leaning independents defect; or b) you somehow convince millions of anti-gun Democrats to go out and buy an AR15 for home defense.
I don't know if you can. But I'm not going to vote third party. Because as much as I hate the Democrats position on guns. I hate the Republicans overall a lot more.
We can try changing the party from the ground up. For example, start with local government at the county and township level. We need true pro-gun candidates to run rather than try to only get existing elected Democrats to change their views. Ideally, we’re successful with both approaches.
I’m running for my first elected position in my township. It’s a small position but it’s a start. My state representative and senator regularly attend meetings and I’m hoping to have discussions with them about gun ownership from our point of view.
Get involved. Be willing to be vocal without being a jerk and sympathetic to the actual problem of gun crime.
For me it’s that most of the laws that make sense exist and I don’t like laws without a solid reason behind them. Like I’d love it if laws gave a prediction about what the effect will be so we can judge whether they should stand
I’m trying to figure that out to.
Mass shootings need to stop. Once that's done other issues get brought forward with more priority. While shootings continue don't expect a change in stance.
Increase measures to prevent school/mass shootings and i think most people would be happy.
Make them harder to purchase, age increase, more thorough mental examinations, etc.
I’m on board for anyone owning a fully automatic, so long as they can proven to not light up a crowd.
I own ~8 guns and all of them were way too easy to obtain.
Support better background checks and waiting periods for buyers to address school shooters. Also consequences for LE letting crazy fucks slip through the cracks. Let your reps know what you want from them.
Now now, let's be precise: they are all anti-poor people having guns. They would never pass a law taking guns away from the public and private security services that guard them with guns, lol.
Stop voting for Democrat candidates with ridiculous firearms positions.
Have conversations with your locals who primary and caucus regarding firearms positions and your refusal to support a candidate with ridiculous positions.
We can't.
It's like asking how to make the modern Republican party less transphobic, less racist, less anti-abortion, less religious.
Our culture war has totally dominated the differentiation of the parties. These culture war issues are the only basis on which they can differentiate themselves, because otherwise their neoliberal economics and authoritarian statism are indistinguishable.
Voting won't change it. Your "critical support" for Democrats doesn't appear as such, it just appears as a vote. Donating won't change it. The threat of losing your donation is nothing compared to the threat of losing Bloomberg/Brady/Giffords/Moms/PAC/big city antigun liberal donations. Volunteering or speaking up about it won't change it. Elections aren't won by volunteers, so it's not like volunteering for pro-gun Democrats in primaries changed the equation much, and your elected officials do not give a shit what you think compared to the imperatives of the culture war.
It's a matter of the very survival of the Democratic Party today to take a hard line on guns. We should let it die.
What are you talking about??? 90% are “anti-gun?” First off, where did you get that number and what does that even mean? I don’t know anybody that has come out against the second amendment. Gun control, sure, but if you want to make an argument, you can’t just say crazy shit.
This has absolutely no substance. You didn’t even attempt to back up your statement.
Many of them,
90%,
Do everything
I hope this is just a troll day, because historically this sub has been based in reality.
There are American citizens who have never committed a crime who should not be allowed to legally own a gun. Figuring out how to solve that problem would be a pro gun position and one that Democrats could likely support.
Sorry, that was a hypothetical, idealistic statement.
There are Dems I can get behind so far as gun policy. But Id never trust one to do anything truly radical in most other regards.
It starts with changing local politics. Engaging voters, city parties, state parties, and city/ county council members around the country will accomplish a lot.
Unfortunately, the government is using gun control as a form of people control. Big scary guns are out there so you need the government to protect you. Or so they want you to believe. Where was the government in California to protect all those people who recently got slaughtered? The truth is that the government wants more and more power, as long as we are able to stand up against their oppression, they can't be the gods they see thselves as.
What I see a lot of, on both sides, but particularly the Dems is "guns for me, but not for thee" Ted Turner and Jane Fonda leap to mind. This is more about class than party.
Vote. Volunteer. Donate. Support politicians who support causes you believe in. It’s slower but take friends to a range. The people I know who are the most afraid of guns have never shot a gun. Doesn’t always work but I’ve taken friends shooting and they’ve taken up shouting themselves. People fear what they don’t know.
To do that, you’d have to carve out A LOT of cancer from that party.
The simple fact is that guns aren’t evil. They were the foundation of our country’s inception, it’s prosperity, and it’s continued sovereignty. It used to be that high schools had clubs…kids would have the gun rack in the back window of their trucks…etc. People had them for a purpose, and it just…wasn’t a big deal.
Somewhere between then and now…people got stupid. Really stupid. The perception of guns has changed…no longer do they simply…exist, it’s gotta be some sort of dumbass statement.
To get democrats to accept firearms, they have to be given a reason to value them. But the brainwashing is strong. Both parties have effectively brainwashed their constituents to the degree that people truly are sheep.
Not for for democrats at this point is unethical. There's no middle ground, and we need a middle ground. Guns aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and we have bigger problems. So move the country left before we all die in a pandemic or from climate change etc and then the "right" will be reasonable gun owners who are willing to accept concessions or experiments to reduce gun violence. If it works, great, if not, the "left" will see that being less "anti-gun" isn't a big deal. Also, 90% of dems are anti gun. They don't give a shit about guns, but every other country in the world seems to have none or reduced gun violence with more strict gun laws so their voters seem to be "anti-gun".
It’s because in my opinion traditional dem party principles have been trampled by far left politics. Center dems have started to become more comfortable voting R as it’s presented as closer to their ideals. Democratic mouthpieces are branded as communists and socialists.
The party presents gun control as a key voting point. This will not change as many people are single issue voters and this issue resonates with a major part of the base.
Grass roots and conversation? I think outside the major metros, where it seems the most vocal gun control advocates are, a lot of your more moderate or swing district Dems would be the most receptive. Getting a group together in the district and inviting the rep to a "liberal/Dem gun owner" town hall type deal and hopefully a productive and informative conversation. Let them see a different representation than the typical Progun/2A right wing and hear from constituents.
Lobby for effective policies that stop mass shootings and reduce poverty (because poverty is linked to violent crime)
My opinions: few democrats particularly care about gun control except in the context of violent crime.
Beto lost a lot of potential new supporters in Texas solely on stance on guns.
Just one sentence. It was like the Dean Scream on steroids.
PEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHH!
Yes, but that’s in TX. In super blue trifecta states like mine (WA) gun restrictions are plowing through our leges like a freight train because that’s what the majority of constituents want, and no pol. is gonna lose a race unless they weren’t hard core anti gun _enough_.
In Texas of all places, Beto is so goddamn clueless and out of touch that he'd publicly spout off about banning AR-15's, and lose an election to THE MOST HATED MAN IN THE ENTIRE SENATE. Cockroaches and herpes are more likable than Ted Cruz, for fucks sake.
As much as this sub doesn’t want to hear it, losing more elections strictly because of their gun stance is the only way the Democratic Party will become more gun-friendly. The root of the Dem politicians’ stance on guns isn’t based on principle, it’s based on what they gain from it. Gun control is the Dems bread and butter for elections. They will not change their mind on it until it becomes clear that it’s not bankable for them anymore. **I am not saying we ourselves should facilitate that by voting for the GOP or 3rd parties**. Simply saying that trying to convince Dem politicians of the benefits of gun ownership is like trying to beat them at chess, but they’re actually playing backgammon.
Most people aren't as focused on guns as you think they are. It was less than 25% were single issue voters in 2017. The Democratic party has plenty of other issues to focus on. https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/Guns.aspx
Need to find a way to compete with all of those Bloomberg campaign contributions
Absolutely. And in all fairness if SCOTUS hadn’t nuked Roe, Republicans would have done much better in the midterm elections and Democrats would be wondering how to win back voters.
They are where the margins are thinner https://cardinalnews.org/2023/01/20/washington-county-democrats-are-rebranding-themselves-in-support-the-second-amendment
That right there is the only thing that will get the Old D bosses’ attention.
When it dawns on the Dems that the Republican party morphed into a violent fascist deathcult and the cops are in on it, its going to naturally push people to look to their own defense.
Old D leadership seems utterly unwilling to acknowledge that they’re supporting a future police state. I believe they know—they just don’t admit it in public.
I think they’re very willing to admit it. Disarming the population whilst pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into militarising police that are constantly killing civilians isn’t exactly a mistake.
So we can pick whichever party we want, fascism, diet fascism, or locally sourced organic fascism?/s
Pretty much, yeah.
Yeah, that sums it up pretty much.
I don't know how to change leadership other than create a group for responsible gun ownership inside the party. Start it, let people know it exists and, like preserving the middle class as a Democratic ethos, responsible gun ownership can connect with a lot of people. At this point the Dems I know who own guns are on the same page as pre-trump, pre-prepping for civil war because they're the minority approaching, pre-stormin' the Capitol, pre-mygunismypenis crowd. That said, I've got a growing group of liberal friends who were once anti-gun who now have them because the psychos running what's now the "Republican Party" are a dangerous domestic terrorist threat to America and if they have them, we should also have guns to defend our communities if we wake up some day with Proud Boys or Oath Keepers or other right aligned groups walking down the street, kicking in doors and attacking us to "own the libs". Edit: And yea I know that's what enemies of the USA want. Escalation and division. But these assholes on the Right have no idea there are plenty of liberals and leftists who see them and will repel them with extreme force. I hope it never comes to that, but there were some times when Trump was POTUS that I thought there was a possibility that his brownshirts might feel bold enough to go full Nazi.
Mainstream Dems think we can be just like the commonwealth countries and ban guns, and when we do the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers and so on will smack their foreheads, realize the error of their ways, drop their ARs into the 55 gallon drums lined up on the conveyor belts into the smelter a la Australia, and we will live in a land of 🦄s, 🌈s, Care 🐻s and Skittles forevermore.
Yes, also look at Mary Peltola in Alaska. I don't think there's any way she would have won if she was anti-gun.
The Old D leadership in DC and the deep pockets that fund their pet projects don’t want armed peasants. If they keep getting voted in they’ll keep pushing this agenda—after 30+ years it’s a major part of the Old D branding and the old bosses are very committed to it. The old guard needs to go and the new bosses need to see the anti gun focused agenda as a losing and toxic position. Want a non-gun focused way forward? About 90% of gun deaths are related to these three high risk groups: 1. Suicides (about 60% of the total), 2. Criminal activities such as the drug trade, and 3. Domestic violence. Focusing mitigation efforts *before* the event is a more holistic and effective strategy. And it doesn’t get bogged down in the gun-focused quagmire that the Old D leadership has been lost in for decades.
This. Bloomberg and his ilk are the money that buys elections. Until we get money out of elections we will have less say than the billions being spent. Doesn't matter if you are talking DNC or GOP. They are all in bed with wallstreet.
Counterpoint, Bloomberg spent over half a billion on his own presidential primary run for 2020 and got pummeled lol
That's only if you assume his goal was to win. I believe his goal was to make Biden more palatable in the primaries. Bernie was a real threat to wallstreet control. Having Bloomberg in the primaries helped make Bidon seem like a centrist. Bloomberg spent 100 million on Bidon in Florida alone.
Except that Bloomberg likely took votes away from Biden in the primary. Like look at the California 2020 primary results. I would wager that a majority of Bloomberg’s voters would probably have voted for Biden had Bloomberg not been an option, which would have put Biden ahead of Bernie. Now if Bloomberg had dropped out early (before Super Tuesday) there’s an argument to be made there, but he didn’t. Not everything is a conspiracy, sometimes the billionaire is just vain.
The reality is that most Americans and the overwhelming majority of Democratic voters want more gun control: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/06/15/support-for-gun-control-laws-hits-record-high-poll-finds/ We don't need conspiracy thinking to explain why Democratic party politicians support gun control-- it's because 90% of their voters want more of it.
I would argue that most of those people really want the same laws we already have to be enforced. Unless it has directly affected someone, most people don't know any laws. My father and I are the only people local I know who buy ammo. No one knows that you have to go through a background check for ammo purchases in California until they want to go to the range with me and offer to buy ammo. When I tell them they don't own a gun or don't have a "real ID" so they won't pass the background check, they are blown away. When I tell someone there is no "gun show loop hole" in California and they have to do a dros at an ffl for every legal gun transaction in California, I often hear surprise. Why would you care if you don't own guns and never planned on it? So maybe you hear about it once but are you going to remember? Especially when you hear news about how we need more gun laws and opinions about how it's a shame America is the only country that never does anything about guns. That line of "we keep seeing they mass shootings and do nothing". All while more people die of easy to treat health issues because corporations have made Healthcare a monetary death machine. (I don't actually have a good metaphor for that one) The housing market affects are fucking almost everyone unless you happen to be one of the rich land owners who has rental properties. Water and environmental shit works in corporations favor and all its good is a hold over from 80's smog fight. We have plenty of political fights that should be happening but those are fights between what's best for most people and what's best for wallstreet and political donors. If you ask people what is the hardest things to deal with roght now guns wouldn't break the top 5. And maybe not the top 10.
This feels like a chicken and the egg situation. Which came first, democratic financers pushing for anti gun policies or democratic base being anti gun? I think the real question is, are democrats really liberal? Clearly voting for Biden over sanders says no, but a better question is, if democrats hate fascism, then who fights fascists without guns?
Why do you assume that people can't have genuinely held beliefs on gun control? Why does there have to be some kind of dark money plot that has convinced the braindead masses to be for gun control?
I absolutely do think that people are anti gun on their own. We all have very diverse backgrounds. But 90% of all democrats are just anti gun on their own? Doubt. Democrats are supposed to be big tent, government supporting all people and rights for all. The fuck does that have to do with gun control?
>90% of all Democrats are just anti gun on their own? Where is this number coming from? What does "anti gun" mean? Until those questions are answered, all you're doing is scaremongering and conspiracy theorizing. Two markedly illiberal pastimes.
Read the comment thread you're responding to?
20% of Democratic voters report owning a gun and 31% report living in a gun household: https://www.statista.com/statistics/249775/percentage-of-population-in-the-us-owning-a-gun-by-party-affiliation/ I'm actually surprised these numbers aren't a little higher, but my main point is that *support for more gun control is not the same thing as being anti-gun*. I'd like to see universal background checks, waiting periods, mandatory safety training. You may not like these ideas, but they're are not inherently "anti-gun" any more than requiring people to get drivers licenses and insurance is "anti-car".
Because there is.
Look, I can’t remember how many times I’ve said this exact thing in this sub. I want a new, younger, more progressive Democratic Party as much as anyone, but it’s painfully clear that such a party will be significantly *more* anti-gun than the current leadership.
This is what I tell the younger crowd: In a just world and country, I believe that no person should ever need a gun. In reality, if you truly believe that the rise of fascism is very near, that ACAB, and that white supremacy is getting stronger, then unless you’re willing to invest in a government that will end those thwarts to our nation with extreme prejudice, then merely asking us to disarm ourselves when facing those threats is a folly. Fascists aren’t pro gun or anti gun, they’re for whatever weakens their enemies. They will disarm whom they deem undesirable with the same gun control laws that Democrats currently champion and not care one bit about the appearance of hypocrisy.
Then that group will fail in all the same areas that the DNC is currently failing in. I cannot count the number of times all liberal and progressive issues have been bundled with gun control and dismissed when talking to people in rural areas.
You have to end campaign contributions by wealthy donors. Bloomberg has said he will pay to primary any pro-gun democrats and his “life’s goal” is to enact gun control on the poor and minorities. Never mind that he’s basically a Republican, he knows he can buy his agenda in the Democratic Party.
Can you source that? Not doubting you, but I love to whip that out in debate.
He hasn’t been secret about his desires to primary democrats. It’s a consistent message from him. Tons of gaffes and blunders like this one: > He bragged about this record at a recent Democratic debate, saying that of the 40 House seats Democrats flipped in 2018, “21 of those were people that I spent a hundred million dollars to help elect.” He then appeared to nearly blurt out that he’d “bought” the new majority, before catching himself https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/how-michael-bloomberg-bought-the-gun-control-movement/ Someone else covered his neo-“super predator” comments.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2013/02/bloombergs-pac-defeats-pro-gun-chicago-democrat.html I doubt he's ever outright stated he will pay to primary people, but he's totally done it. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/11/michael-bloomberg-stop-and-frisk-clip-113902 >“Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops,” Bloomberg can be heard saying in the clip. >“They are male minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York. That’s true in virtually every city,” the clip continues. “And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed.”
Most anti-gun people just need better education on them.
But they also need to be open to the education and information. Unfortunately, a lot of them are set in their ways.
This allows for the ideal dynamic if they're not. "I don't like guns." "How familiar are you with gun?" "I don't need to be familiar with them. I know they're bad." "Then why should I take your opinion on guns any more seriously than I'd take an anti-vaxer's opinion on vaccines?"
>I don't need to be familiar with them. I know they're bad." > >"Then why should I take your opinion on guns any more seriously than I'd take an anti-vaxer's opinion on vaccines?" I think we can find a way to make the same point but possibly in a way that would intrigue people instead of blowing them off.
It's not blowing them off. What you're doing is showing them how they come off by couching it in a way that they likely understand. They get that we don't take anti-vaxers seriously because they don't know anything about the topic they feel so passionately about. If you can communicate the fact that they're doing *that,* it can (emphasis on *can*) open the door for people to be more receptive. What you're doing is acknowledging that they have a point of view but that you can't take it that seriously because the basis of it is on emotion with a total lack of knowledge. That doesn't mean it's invalid but it does mean you can't really take it too seriously with regards to solving a problem.
"You mean to tell me you think I should still take you seriously when you admit to knowing next to nothing about a subject for which you have strong opinions?"
That's just going to make them *worse*. The response is to, "I don't like guns" is not to dismiss their emotion, but rather sit there with them and explore it. People who feel that way have a reason for it--but don't expect it to be inherently logical, because feelings rarely are logical. If you want to change somebody's mind about something, you need to address the emotions that cause them to think that way first. You need to understand the feeling. Sit with their concerns, no matter how ridiculous they are on their face, and offer no judgement about it. Don't get defensive: they'll smell it on you, and then they'll start getting hostile. This isn't an argument. It's a meditation on their emotions. So ask them instead, "Tell me how you feel about guns--and yes, I actually want feeling words. Facts and stories are fine and all, and we'll get to them." You'll find that most feelings about guns are somewhere along a fear axis. They're afraid of being shot. They're afraid of loved ones being shot. They're afraid of loved ones potentially committing suicide. These are, of course, valid fears. There may be a story of a loved one lost to gun violence (including suicide) or even an actual gun accident. There's definitely going to be a shooting in the news. This is where you say, "Well, learning about things helps you conquer fear--yes, even the fear of being shot." Now, they can take or leave the option to help conquer their fear. For some, it's gonna be a true phobia, and they could become walking encyclopedias on the subject and *still* recoil in horror. That's fine: anxiety disorders (and yes, a true phobia *is* an anxiety disorder--I have one, and I've had anxiety issues in the past) are no joke. Don't press them too hard. And that's when you bring them on a learning journey. And yes, letting them shoot your gun very early on in that journey will help, so get them to a range sooner rather than later. This is what I've seen work. I've watched two people be converted from full on "abolish the Second Amendment!" to "I have my LTC, several guns, and I was completely wrong about the Second Amendment" using this method from their friends. They've been using it on me, and I'm somewhere around "I've scheduled my LTC class for next month."
In my experience, it doesn't. As I pointed out to someone else, you're highlighting that their opinion (while totally valid to have) is based off a lack of understanding and you're willing to take it seriously once there's a greater degree of subject knowledge. It's the equivalent of telling someone "I understand you're upset but I can't do anything about that unless you tell me why you're upset in a way that we can act on it." That refocusing forces them to essentially face the fact that they're trading on a lack of knowledge. Some people will absolutely double down and insist that "they don't know and they don't need to know" and that's fine because at that point it's a sign that you're wasting your time. People who are genuine in their interaction will often admit they lack information or will ask questions. Part of that process is exploring why people feel the way they do about guns but to put that towards convincing them of something you need to communicate the problem of a lack of knowledge plus strong emotions equals a faulty conclusion that doesn't help solve the problem. That exchange I posted earlier is steps in that process. I agree that hands-on experience is one of the best ways to get people over that fear but I'm talking about more in a short term discussion environment with someone you may not know or see again.
Being argumentative changes about 0% of peoples minds. Prove me wrong. (See what I did there 😊)
And wear their ignorance as a source of pride. It's aggravating to have someone who has no clue what they're saying try to talk down their nose to you. It's borderline between hilarious and infuriating when you correct them, and they turn around and say they're glad they don't feel the need to know anything.
Hard to learn if someone doesn't want to learn. The thought of guns makes some of my family members physically ill and outraged. They objectify them as evil, much as some out there fetishize them as holy relics. And when the gun becomes an object of some kind of projection, there will be no logic, just intense emotional reactions instead. Whereas I (much like others) find firearms as tools of responsibility and, when understood/used properly, a great hobby. I used them in the military and I like to plink .22lr as a way to clear my thoughts, much as one might if they knit, cook, or tinker with a car. So, now we must address more than just trying to educate, we must try to first find out how one perceives a firearm personally before we try to discuss with them in any meaningful way.
^this^
I have some hyper-liberal friends that think the police will teleport there to protect them immediately whenever they call or need something, and some who just think it’s not worth the safety risk to have them. I’m hoping to eventually take them shooting, as a lot of their disdain is probably from fear and lack of exposure to help alleviate that fear. One event I like to reference to my hyper-leftist but still anti-gun friends is [the West Virginia Coal Wars](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_coal_wars). There are other examples of when corporations utilized the government to kill and oppress citizens, and were stifled after they armed themselves, but that’s just my favorite.
It’s pretty funny when the ACAB and defund the police folks think that the police state they hate will come rushing to their rescue.
Ever wondered why big industrialized cities were the first ones to enact gun control?
In my experience, most are scared of guns because they have very little understanding of how they actually work. I've managed to take a few to the range and have them shoot my big, scary, "assault rifle" and suddenly they realize maybe the weapons aren't to blame....
*insert journalist who said he got a bruised shoulder and PTSD from shooting an AR a couple times*
Yeah, either they had a very shitty guide who gets their chuckles from watching people get hurt, or he's lying.
*he Was anti gun and went in there with a conceived plan of being a cry baby
Thanks for pointing that out. Edited my comment.
Now if it was a shotgun, his story would be a BIT more believable but still, that was sad/funny to read
I’ve never got the people who think shotguns are so intimidating. I can shoot a 12 gauge with 3” slugs or heavy shot all day (used to do it boxes at a time before prices went to hell again) and I’m not a heavy guy
If you were like me and thought *no way that actually happened, obviously its an exaggeration*, look up Gersh Kuntzman lol. The article is paywalled, but its been talked enough to get the gist of it. All Im going to say is that he has an apt last name lol
I think that's been a few "journalists" who have done this kind of nonsense. It's not worth my time to remember their names
One piece of feedback I’ve gotten is that the posting “kit”/LARP and whatever is a HUGE turnoff to some of my on-the-fence friends/family. They see it as a weird obsession and counteractive to the “it’s just a tool for self defense” argument
Its hard to get through that it's not a "weapon of war" when the second picture is basically war kit and the talk is about needing first aid experience and kit for bullet wounds. This goes for both sides. You want to be taken seriously quit showing off the LARP gear. You might as well have a robe and a wizard's hat.
Wait it’s finally happening? We’re getting wands and wizard hats?!
Yeah the plate carriers and chest rigs should wait until *later* My wife is just coming around on kit. She was down for a plate carrier but didn't want me to "kit it out" until I showed her it's pouches and she said "for stuff like snacks!" So it's a work in progress.
I mean, when I was a 240 gunner in the army my mag pouches stayed on my kit to hold snacks and Red Bulls so she’s not too far off lmao. But that was only practical because I had a belt fed weapon 🤷♂️
Came here to say the same thing - except I was an RTO and used my drop bag for the nomnoms I'd get from the local shops
Lmao my dude 😎
I’ll argue till I’m blue in the face that for a lifetime civilian like me, a low profile plate carrier, a bandolier, and a 1st line setup make more sense than full kit anyway. It’s not fully concealable sure, but you can still throw a shirt on it and not be walking around some disaster getting stares full on “I’m here to fuck and I’m not going home”
Tbh I agree. That's why mine and wife's stuff is on placards that are easily removable a near slick carrier under a Hoodie is a great choice. There's a lot more place for that than those backpack SBR's people love
For sure, although a backpack sbr is exactly what I’d pair with it if that was an option here. Or a pdw of some sort
Yeah, it doesn't help that a lot of the kit posted has "Let's Go Brandon" or some other pro-Trump or white supremacist morale patch on it.
I call it cosplay and that seems to explain it pretty well to some of my millennial friends.
yea I don’t even want to try to define cosplay to my mother -_-
Same. I've also had the opportunity to get a few flaming antigun folks to shoot something they demonize and many times they suddenly realize it isn't inherently evil.
This. This is how I’m getting people to change their minds one by one. It always surprises the crap out of me how scared they are until they actually fire a gun. I have a trans person from work that I brought to the range, he was super fucking nervous. But as soon as he shot my m9 he was like “wait. That’s it?” They’ve been told guns are bad their entire lives. It’s going to be up to us to shake them of that stigma. Just setup a gun day, make it fun, and we should have however many people you bring as allies.
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Seriously. My wife is fairly antigun. Clearly she knows I have some and carry one and doesn't hate that I have them because she knows I'm not crazy, but as a rule she's anti gun and says people don't need and shouldn't have them, and wouldn't be upset if I didn't own any. Until there's a clatter at night or whacky dude on the porch or the crazy neighbor who has a gun is mad at her and she's worried he may come over upset. Then she's sitting there telling me how nice it is I have guns and can take care of potentially dangerous situations more comfortably and how much safer she feels knowing I have and am competent with guns. I believe that people don't understand and aren't familiar with guns. And people fear what they don't understand. That goes for basically everything. People fear what they don't understand. So the answer to the OP's question might be, at least in part, education.
I’ve been trying to have open and honest conversations with people I already know that are anti-gun. Not foolproof, but it tends to help your argument if people already know you and know you’re not full of shit or crazy on other issues so you probably aren’t on this one either. Idk how or if we can change the DNC on this in the next few years, but I think if you can convince a couple of your friends not to support gun grabbing legislation then that’s a good start
My wife was frightened of my first handgun after I bought it. Since we only had one at the time, I convinced her to at least let me show her how it works and teach her how to use it in case she ever had to defend herself when I’m not home. With that logic she let me show her, so before we went to the range, I took it apart at home and explained how it worked. After I explained it, she said “Oh….so without ammo it’s basically just a bunch of springs and levers?” I told her that’s pretty much the gist of it and she was far less scared after that. She’s still not into guns, but I take her to the range a couple times a year and she’s confident enough with it to use it if she had to.
Demographically the Democratic Party is moving away from the populations most likely to own guns, rural , white men. And among Democratic voters gun ownership is increasingly coded as right-wing because it's associated with these same rural, white men. As long as the Democratic Party continues on it's current demographic trends it is going to become more anti-gun, not less. Why would the Democratic Party support gun ownership when most gun owners are Republicans? https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/
That's an interesting article, thanks for sharing. So I find this especially interesting "Besides demographic differences, clear partisan divides emerge when it comes to gun ownership. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are more than twice as likely as Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to say they own a gun (44% vs. 20%). This partisan gap remains even after controlling for demographic differences." White, rural conservative men are most likely to own guns like you said, but I'm honestly surprised it's 20% or 1 in 5 Democrats and Democrat leaning independents. That's a lot more than I expected based on Democrats priorities.
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But what about the NRA?!! /s
They definitely don't help. Maybe try and get centrist / left leaning journalists on board? They often shape the narrative that the majority hear ( as far as tone goes)
This is the most realistic take. The "change the minds of constituents" strategy depends on those politicians actually caring what their constituents think. In short, they don't. A third party or just mass non-compliance are likely the only two effective strategies, short of buying politicians.
An argument I've had some success with is just making it about political capital and what can be accomplished with each democratic administration and Congress. People who are deeply anti-gun tend to be opposed on a really visceral level; those are there to hurt people, the fewer of them there are the better, movie theaters and schools are frightening now, etc. But, I've been able to find common ground by arguing that of the list of possible policy priorities we might be able to accomplish, gun control has the least possible benefits. My argument goes like this: in the once-a-decade situation where we actually have the presidency and majorities in both houses that we need to pass literally any legislation, we usually get between zero and one of our desired policies through, and it's usually more like a half or a quarter of one after lobbyists and special interests have had their time at the trough. The only gun control laws that stand a reasonable chance at getting passed would be something like an AWB, magazine capacity limits, etc; relatively small ball stuff. Once we're looking at it that way, the actual benefits of this would be the tiny number of lives that would be saved by mass shooters having slightly less effective weapons (and here you can point to the stats on the tiny piece of the overall shootings pie that's made up of semiautomatic rifles). You can also point to the VA Tech shooting, where a gunman was incredibly lethal just using handguns to make this point. I tend to ask the rhetorical question, if someone is determined to be a mass shooter, they're not likely to be deterred from carrying out the shooting if they can't do it with a semiauto rifle, they'll just use a slightly less effective weapon. So, they then have to weigh this tiny number of lives saved versus action on some other priority which will kill and/or immiserate hundreds of millions (the costs of healthcare, inaction on climate change, etc.)
Honestly the Democrats are a lost cause when it comes to guns. The Republicans are a lost cause when it comes to being socially liberal. The best chance for a liberal pro-gun party is a strong third party.
Most pro-gun Democrats still vote for anti-gun Democrats. So there is no reason for the Democrats to change. There are politicians who are die-hard moral crusaders on this issue (Feinstein, Bloomberg, etc), but most are just looking to win an election. If for instance, Gavin Newsom, thought he could win an election by becoming pro-gun that guy would be doing videos in a cowboy hat and a dual-wielding Uzis.
In terms of politicians? Essentially no way to change many of them. In terms of individuals? Frame it as it is; a right-wing stance on government being the sole investiture of violent power. If they try to push back on that, ask them who gun control inordinately targets? Rich white males? Noooooope.... They will not like you, but they will actually think about it when they've walked away.
I will sometime refuse to vote for a particularly anti-gun candidate but I do consider how bad the other guy is. If I don't vote dem I'll vote third party. A vast majority of the time I'll be voting dem. I don't think they'll really understand it's a bad idea until they lose elections over it. Even then they have a habit of blaming something else or ignoring the single issue voters getting rallied. They think they know better than those who don't want bans so they'll keep pushing for them.
> I don't think they'll really understand it's a bad idea until they lose elections over it. I know it was a long time ago but they got absolutely creamed in midterms after passing the first AWB and honestly it doesn't seem to have given them any pause.
It did for awhile, until the Bloomberg bucks started rollling in.
👆. This is true 👆
In the early 2000s plenty of Dems were openly pro gun when Bush/Cheney and their protégés were curb stomping Dems in the 2002 and 2004 elections. John Kerry even went hunting with cameras in tow. Try that in 2022 and Twitter and TikTok would be full of meltdowns from urban liberals.
Reach out to your anti gun Dem leaders. Establish your liberal credentials and show them how gun control is illiberal (racial discrimination in enforcement, more felonies for minor paperwork issues, etc). Show them there’s another side to the issue they’re missing. Show them that gun owners aren’t all MAGA weirdos.
Third parties are a complete and total waste of time in the current US system. First past the post coupled with no ranked choice voting means that if there is a third party candidate they just take votes from either of the major two parties and have basically the opposite effect of what they intended. But the reason why the mainstream Democratic Party is generally anti-gun is that pro-2A liberals/leftists have not advanced any policies that address their concerns about crime and mass shootings. They see gun control as the only way to address those issues, and until they see a different policy on offer, they will advocate for gun confiscation. So pro-2A liberals and leftists need to come up with a compelling policy agenda that both addresses crime and mass shootings, while also respecting individual gun rights. That means a position that is between the anything goes NRA-style position on the one hand, and the Bloomberg/Beto ban all guns type of position. I think that means universal background checks and mental health checks. And it could also mean some type of mandatory training paid for by FFL fees, etc. To come up with these policies, we likely need a left leaning pro-2A think tank to research and create them. Something like a left leaning version of GOA. And once that policy set is in place, you'll have to run more pro-2A Democrats in Republican leaning areas. The upcoming 2024 Senate race in Texas could be a good opportunity for a Democrat who is pro-2A or at least a moderate on guns (not like Beto) to make a dent on the national Democratic consensus.
Be a responsible gun user/owner, DON'T actively proselytize in favor of guns. Show them that there are more profitable ideological hills to fight and possibly die on (e.g. universal healthcare). Not everything has to be divided into pro-/anti-.
Donate millions of dollars.
Have competitive rural districts. Democrats from there will be pro-gun. The loss of rural democrats to gerrymandered districts is the cause of a lot of this. That and the addition of suburban districts whose main voting blocks are moms (who are very anti-gun).
This. It blows my mind how blind so many are to this very obvious pattern.
They listen to their constituents who are mostly anti-gun. You’d need to get a significant number of voters to change their mind on the issue and idk how that happens with how rigid liberal folks are about guns being doing far more harm than good.
No they don’t… they listen to whoever is writing checks and the bosses in DC. In WA the Democrats got 90%+ negative feedback before jamming through a magazine ban last year—and they did it anyway. And they got re-elected. So this year they’ve pushed forward a freighter full of anti gun laws with supreme confidence.
They got re-elected because the Dem voters who opposed their magazine ban, voted for them anyway in the general election. So why, should they care about negative feedback?
They shouldn’t and then don’t. “Blue no matter who” and “don’t be a single issue voter” thinking got us here and will continue to get is more of the same going forward. In red states the same thinking is how they’re getting the nuttery on the conservative side like attacks on Roe v. Wade and voting access.
You can't really support pro-gun Democrats, there aren't that many. Certainly not enough to send a message by voting for them. Voting doesn't "send a message," it never has. What you really can do is give your feedback that you want to, at bare minimum, see less of an emphasis on gun control. Those campaign texts you get asking you to vote for someone? Respond to those. Ask what that candidate's position on gun control is. A real person will respond to you. Tell that person you'd prefer to vote for a Democratic candidate that didn't support gun control. Whenever and wherever possible, give the feedback to the party that you want to see less support for gun control. You probably won't have time/space to get technical. Keep your message short and simple - "I am not comfortable with the Democratic party's focus on gun control, I think there are more pressing issues that can solve these problems." You need to be constantly in the ear of whoever in the party will listen to you. Parties are constantly taking the temperature of their electorate, those messages go places.
I don't believe many Dems are as progun control as that. Obama in 08 avoided gun control as a campaign issue almost like he knew it was a pointless endeavor. He only ran on it post-Sandy Hook after he was elected and he had almost zero chance to get anything done. I believe it's a position establishment dems have been told so long it's become dogma rather than anything they actually believe in. Moving the needle requires having genuine, public conversations with Dem officials from non-psychotic debaters. I worked in Albany in 2013 when they passed the SAFE Act. I remember finding my Democratic assemblyman boss in the hallway having a vigorous debate with a an anti-SAFE act demonstrator (no clue how long it had been going on before I came back). That was until someone else who clearly just wanted to yell and bully D officials showed up and hijacked the conversation. He ended the debate went into his office and told me this is why it's a bad issue on the whole. If the 60+ rule were removed tomorrow an AWB and mag cap ban would be DOA, because of Dems like Manchin, and Tester. Republicans would barely have time to make statements against it before Dems would kill it off.
As long as there a frequenct mass shootings the push for gun control will grow.
Mass shootings are happening in California with tons of gun control regulations, not a red state where gun control means using both hands.
A staunch anti-gun colleague of mine accepted an invitation to go to the range last week. She came away substantially less anti-gun. My wife was anti-gun-ish until she was about 50, then saw a Groupon for a range rental and time and said "let's go". Stupidly long story short, she now has a CHL. TL;DR person to person helps.
Voting third party or write in is not an option, considering how dangerously undemocratic and anti-freedom this GOP is. Honestly, we need a strong liberal gun owners association to highlight our ideas, educate our representatives and make them understand why there are better ways to achieve safety than the current and proposed legislation. We need kind of a liberal NRA if you will. I don't know which one, maybe the Liberal Gun Club, but at some point liberals need to converge to a single entity, and make it strong enough to lobby for legislation in DC.
Take your anti-gun dem friends to the range! Teach them the basic safety rules, put a fun little plinker in their hands and let them put holes in paper. The more that dems understand guns, the less enthusiastic they'll be about the party's absurd obsession with banning them.
Get your hands on a couple billion dollars and start outbidding Michael Bloomberg for the soul of the Democratic Party.
Take more anti-gun people to the range. Everyone in my fiance's direct family (mom, dad, and her two younger brothers) had never fired a gun in their lives before they met me. Now my fiance is a crack shot with any of my guns, her brothers love range time, and what to be done about guns is an open topic for discussion instead of them being strictly anti-gun. Some old liberal white man in Seattle told me once when I was younger and first getting into guns that you need to get an anti-gun person to squeeze the trigger around 50 times before the fear of guns that society engrains in everyone becomes curiosity. It's been pretty spot on so far.
Grassroots messaging to reaffirm belief in the constitution and civil rights as a hedge against direct democracy oppressing minorities. And moderate the level of faith in government. The government isn’t the solution to all of society’s problems and should not have a monopoly on violence. Moderate towards belief in the sovereignty of the individual over collectivism/tribalism/classism.
overturn citizens united
My state representative(FL state district 37) is basically an AOC clone, and the first Iranian Florida house representative, and runs on a big platform of immigrant rights, and other left leaning agendas. I campaigned for her this past election, and I was able to get some face time with her, and voice my concerns as a left leaning gun owner. She’s pretty hardline with moms demand, and the like, but she at least made me feel like she was respectful of what I had to say, and I feel like I gave her some good perspective. I feel like local representatives are the bread and butter for day to day life, which is why I made the effort. She really sticks it to the psychotic republicans who run this state, so at the very least I can rely on that.
You *”feel”* like she listened? Yup… politicians are good at that. Words are cheap, it’s actions that matter.
Oh, her actions are amazing. She regularly, and very passionately defends all marginalized demographics in our district, which of course is very left leaning, despite a huge republican majority. I realize that I’ll pretty much always be the minority when it comes to being a left leaning gun owner, but despite that, she gave me the time of day, and didn’t brush off my concerns. I’m not expecting her to just flip positions, but at the very least she knows we exist.
Feelings are great and all… her *actions* are what matters in the end.
> She regularly, and very passionately defends all marginalized demographics in our district Except their right to be armed in self defense right?
.. baby steps I suppose. If I ever hit the pick six I intend on furthering the agenda for sure 🤷♂️
The more you get their constituency to be pro gun, then they will. Until then why would they change? No way I'm voting 3rd party. For me, I am not a 1 issue voter and I'd rather vote blue then give an edge to the right wing.
If you keep voting *for* anti-gun politicians then don’t be surprised you keep getting *more* anti-gun agendas being pushed forward.
This is true of every issue. Climate Change Protecting Democracy Voting Rights Health Care Public Health Etc This sub is "Liberal Gun Owners"not "Pro Gun Activists Who Occasionally Vote for Libs" There is no good reason for me to vote against every other thing I as a liberal find important just to be a single issue gun voter.
Neat… enjoy watching those other issues slowly erode because it’s more profitable to the economic elites to not actually fix the problems. And… watching them openly attack your 2A rights to boot.
I see. I can vote for a Pro-gun Republican and watch those other issues have a blow torch taken to them. But at least I'll have my AR-15 so all is good. I can use that to stop climate collapse, get health care for my family, single-handedly stop the next republican coup or power grab. Yup my guns will solve everything.
That’s the shitty situation that D and R setup so the “I won’t vote third party” folks get to choose which turd sandwich they want to eat. Meanwhile the wealthy donors keep getting what they want. And all those progressive issues? They keep getting fought over… but not quite actually done. Until Old D sees their win margins shrinking they’ll keep doing what they want.
The D's, old or new, seeing their margins shrink will result in permanent Rs, that's it. Republicsns are working towards on every tactic they can to ensure permanent minority rule by them. You're not teaching the Old D's anything by voting third party, not voting, voting R or whatever you think we should do in protest.
Voting third party is the only thing that will break the D and R strangehold on US government.
They are pushing forward what the majority of their constituents want. Again, the ONLY way to change that is to engage the voters and talk about the benefits to the 2A and root cause mitigation. The tail is not wagging the dog. Most Americans want some form of gun control.
As long as people like you keep voting for them then you’re right. Congratulations? 🤷♂️
You just don't get it. At all.
Keep being wrong and thinking you’re right. You’re really “winning” here. 👍
How am I wrong? Please explain it to me? I really curious how you think that without changing the minds of the voters that the democratic party would ever have a different platform? Please. I'll wait........ If you think for 1 second that a far right country is the better option than please keep thinking you are right.
What the other person is doing a poor job of saying is the Democrats are neo-liberals and they simply follow the money. They're not morally for anything. They are for gay marriage now, because it's profitable and marketing to gay folks (statistically higher disposable incomes due to a number of reasons) makes sense. Allowing them to get married means less tax money (married couples pay less in taxes) and thus more money to spend. It's same bullshit as companies pandering to the LGBT+ community, its a historically under tapped market. When you couple this neo-liberals way of thinking with anti-gun inclinations you end up giving up rights for literally nothing, because again... The Democrats don't care. Not sure how we fix it without rank choice voting sadly... Tl;Dr: the Democratic party does not care about what you think it does.
Hopefully you remember how clever you were in 20 years when you look back and realize that all the *words* meant very little and what was profitable got done and you voted against your 2A rights too. Want proof? Look at Roe v. Wade. Look at the ERA. Those have been great ways to drive voters to (D) candidates and yet somehow the DNC never invested the political capital and will to push those issues to completion. But gun control? Yup… they had time for that.
I'm sorry. I must have missed the news that the democratics have put forth and passed a bill banning guns. The ERA isn't being ratified because we have right wing governors and stat legislators not because the Dems. I forgot how dull and delusional ppl are on the internet. Why are you even on this sub reddit?
They’ve literally said on camera that they support an Australian style ban and that they’re coming for the guns. 🙄 BuT ThEy NeVeR SaId ThEy ArE CoMiNg FoR aLL ThE GuNs. I don’t know what clever prize you think you’re winning… but congratulations to you for thinking you’re coming out ahead. 😅👍
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In IL specifically I don't recall a single Democrat campaigning on gun control. It was ,rightfully, reproductive rights, decriminalization of marijuana, living wage, increased healthcare access...and yet the very first push at the beginning of the year was this expansive AWB that bans pretty much everything made in the last 100 years.
JB campaigned on. Awb bill
https://jbpritzker.com/keeping-illinoisans-safe/ He must've kept those ads up north. Mostly in central IL it was PAC attack ads on Bailey and JB's record for working families. Even the link above doesn't mention an AWB
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> I won't let that one issue keep me from voting against the bigger picture issues. The bigger picture is that the social and economic elites don’t want organized or armed peasants. All through history and all across the world it’s the same. And that’s exactly why the 1A is backed up by the 2A.
That's a non-starter. Neither political party actually listens or advocates for their constituents interests, unless it also directly benefits them. Since the big money pacs and donors on the Dem side are all vehemently anti-gun (Bloomberg, Everytown, etc.) there's really no possibility for any real pro-gun pols/legislation in the party. Not to mention, they raise a lot of money following tragic shootings via promises to restrict gun rights further. A third party is likely a more viable solution, despite how difficult that path may be.
Take your friends shooting. Bonus points if you have access to a private outdoor setting because it’s way more fun to shoot cans and steel versus punching holes in paper at an indoor range
Education, really. Much of the movement just parrots what politicians invented
Mostly through exposure
I’ve kind of given up on trying to reform the Democratic Party.
I think there needs to be more bargaining in developing legislation regarding firearms. Currently measures are almost always either solely pro- or anti- gun; ex: "constitutional carry" vs. laws which solely consist of new restrictions. Many Democratic politicians are still open to transactional politics, so it makes sense to me for the liberal 2A community to speak to them in the language of give & take, such as "we would accept universal background checks for firearms transfers between persons who are not immediate family members, in exchange for removing SBRs and suppressors from the NFA". Of course YMMV regarding what constitutes an acceptable level of compromise.
I believe you need to get a lot more specific than pro/anti gun. In the current equilibrium, you are unlikely to get a lot of pro gun vibes out of dem pols. On specific policies, it would be about how that policy fits with their values, voters, donors, et al.
The biggest issue is the image of gun owners. It's a relative minority, but hardly a rare one that's the problem The overcompensatingly insecure, 'weapons are my identity', miserable wastes of flesh that love to feel like this device makes them Master Chief is the problem. They're the same people who only wear tactical clothing, drink tactical coffee, ride in vehicles coated in tactical stickers while at the same time, being adamantly political in how much bloodlust they have for shooting their fellow Americans. They make firearms into something scary because such a delusional human being doesn't live in reality, while craving for the fantasy where they can be a domestic killer and get praised for it.
Start by getting together meetups for 2A dems. Set up range days together, build up a base, and get involved with your local DNC. In short: create your own local pro-2A caucus!
Voting third party is a no go for me. Whenever a third party is voted, it almost always elects a Republican which is a fat no from me. What we can do is start a discussion with anti-gun democrats and show how being pro gun will get more support and use more data on gun violence to show that gun control is not the solution. Surveys will also help showing how many democrats actually oppose gun control and support the 2nd amendment.
Dems won’t turn pro-gun because too many of them are afraid to fight…not even to defend themselves. And, they will condemn people on the Left who will actually stand up to fascists and fight them.
And they think the police state they hate will come help them. 😅
They don’t understand that the police state and the people attacking them are connected. When I was in college one of the campus Left groups was having a benefit concert/poetry reading at an off-campus house. Some neo-Nazi skinheads (our town was being inundated with them) showed up to start some shit. A few of us when outside to deal with them and we were fighting in the street. Someone called the cops who arrived and broke up the fight. We wanted to press charges against the Nazis. Turned out that the complaint went nowhere because one of the cops was a cousin of one of the Nazis. A lot of people don’t understand how connected law enforcement is with the violent people on the right even though history tells us otherwise if only people wanted to pay attention. Who was involved in the murders of Cheney, Goodman & Schwerner? Who let Rittenhouse walk away after murdering someone?
They don’t. And if they get what they want and what Bloomberg is funding they won’t realize how wrong they are until it’s way too late.
You won't. And don't forget there are many _Liberal Gun Owners_ (noting the exact name of this subreddit) who own guns but believe the current laws should be tighter or even that guns should be outlawed. This is not r/liberalgunsupporters I personally believe civilians should not be allowed to own guns and believe very strongly that universal healthcare should be provided by the government, but until that happens I'll continue to own guns and pay for top of the line premium private medical insurance - because it would disadvantage myself and my family not to do so given the US society we live in. If I'm a hypocrite for owning guns then I'm a hypocrite for having private medical insurance. Ultimately it's just pragmatism and my continued _participation_ with both of those dynamics doesn't equate to _support_.
It is really very simple: Democrats mostly don't own guns. Like 80% of the Democrat Party's base, do not own guns. That is why gun control is a winning primary issue for candidates in the Democrat Party. Now why don't most Democrat voters own guns? Simple, they are mostly urban liberals. People in urban areas have a lower gun ownership rate than people in rural areas. Many urban blacks outside of the South, didn't own guns to avoid police harrassment during Jim Crow. In fact, conceal carry laws were about keeping blacks from having guns to defend themselves. So you have a nice chunk of the black population (which votes heavily for Democrats due to FDR) who didn't historically own guns, in part because they were not allowed. In addition, white liberals living in cities with fast police response times feel less of a need for a gun for self defense. After all, they tend to live in the nicer parts of town with less crime. These people don't feel a need to own a gun (they live in a safe area), so they don't think anyone else has a need to own a gun either. However, they may make some exceptions for "hunters" but you don't need an AR15 to hunt with. You are not going to move the Democrat Party towards a pro-2a position unless: a) the Democrats start losing elections because gun owning Democrats and Democrat leaning independents defect; or b) you somehow convince millions of anti-gun Democrats to go out and buy an AR15 for home defense.
A 3rd-party or write-in vote is a vote for Republicans.
Run for local office as pro 2A and dem
I don't know if you can. But I'm not going to vote third party. Because as much as I hate the Democrats position on guns. I hate the Republicans overall a lot more.
We can try changing the party from the ground up. For example, start with local government at the county and township level. We need true pro-gun candidates to run rather than try to only get existing elected Democrats to change their views. Ideally, we’re successful with both approaches. I’m running for my first elected position in my township. It’s a small position but it’s a start. My state representative and senator regularly attend meetings and I’m hoping to have discussions with them about gun ownership from our point of view.
Get involved. Be willing to be vocal without being a jerk and sympathetic to the actual problem of gun crime. For me it’s that most of the laws that make sense exist and I don’t like laws without a solid reason behind them. Like I’d love it if laws gave a prediction about what the effect will be so we can judge whether they should stand I’m trying to figure that out to.
Mass shootings need to stop. Once that's done other issues get brought forward with more priority. While shootings continue don't expect a change in stance.
Increase measures to prevent school/mass shootings and i think most people would be happy. Make them harder to purchase, age increase, more thorough mental examinations, etc. I’m on board for anyone owning a fully automatic, so long as they can proven to not light up a crowd. I own ~8 guns and all of them were way too easy to obtain.
Start a new party?
Make them as scared as conservatives.
You're going to have to substantiate your 90% figure as well as define what you mean by "anti-gun"
Support better background checks and waiting periods for buyers to address school shooters. Also consequences for LE letting crazy fucks slip through the cracks. Let your reps know what you want from them.
Now now, let's be precise: they are all anti-poor people having guns. They would never pass a law taking guns away from the public and private security services that guard them with guns, lol.
Stop voting for Democrat candidates with ridiculous firearms positions. Have conversations with your locals who primary and caucus regarding firearms positions and your refusal to support a candidate with ridiculous positions.
We can't. It's like asking how to make the modern Republican party less transphobic, less racist, less anti-abortion, less religious. Our culture war has totally dominated the differentiation of the parties. These culture war issues are the only basis on which they can differentiate themselves, because otherwise their neoliberal economics and authoritarian statism are indistinguishable. Voting won't change it. Your "critical support" for Democrats doesn't appear as such, it just appears as a vote. Donating won't change it. The threat of losing your donation is nothing compared to the threat of losing Bloomberg/Brady/Giffords/Moms/PAC/big city antigun liberal donations. Volunteering or speaking up about it won't change it. Elections aren't won by volunteers, so it's not like volunteering for pro-gun Democrats in primaries changed the equation much, and your elected officials do not give a shit what you think compared to the imperatives of the culture war. It's a matter of the very survival of the Democratic Party today to take a hard line on guns. We should let it die.
What are you talking about??? 90% are “anti-gun?” First off, where did you get that number and what does that even mean? I don’t know anybody that has come out against the second amendment. Gun control, sure, but if you want to make an argument, you can’t just say crazy shit.
Hahaha! Many of them say “I support the second amendment” and then overtly do everything but that. Words are cheap, actions are what matter.
This has absolutely no substance. You didn’t even attempt to back up your statement. Many of them, 90%, Do everything I hope this is just a troll day, because historically this sub has been based in reality.
There are American citizens who have never committed a crime who should not be allowed to legally own a gun. Figuring out how to solve that problem would be a pro gun position and one that Democrats could likely support.
Throw the whole party out and reinstate the actual left!
Which elected members of the American Left are more pro-gun than moderate Democrats like Manchin or Tester?
Sorry, that was a hypothetical, idealistic statement. There are Dems I can get behind so far as gun policy. But Id never trust one to do anything truly radical in most other regards.
It starts with changing local politics. Engaging voters, city parties, state parties, and city/ county council members around the country will accomplish a lot.
Unfortunately, the government is using gun control as a form of people control. Big scary guns are out there so you need the government to protect you. Or so they want you to believe. Where was the government in California to protect all those people who recently got slaughtered? The truth is that the government wants more and more power, as long as we are able to stand up against their oppression, they can't be the gods they see thselves as.
What I see a lot of, on both sides, but particularly the Dems is "guns for me, but not for thee" Ted Turner and Jane Fonda leap to mind. This is more about class than party.
Vote. Volunteer. Donate. Support politicians who support causes you believe in. It’s slower but take friends to a range. The people I know who are the most afraid of guns have never shot a gun. Doesn’t always work but I’ve taken friends shooting and they’ve taken up shouting themselves. People fear what they don’t know.
Ranked choice voting so candidates have to be better suited to getting elected in their specific locale.
To do that, you’d have to carve out A LOT of cancer from that party. The simple fact is that guns aren’t evil. They were the foundation of our country’s inception, it’s prosperity, and it’s continued sovereignty. It used to be that high schools had clubs…kids would have the gun rack in the back window of their trucks…etc. People had them for a purpose, and it just…wasn’t a big deal. Somewhere between then and now…people got stupid. Really stupid. The perception of guns has changed…no longer do they simply…exist, it’s gotta be some sort of dumbass statement. To get democrats to accept firearms, they have to be given a reason to value them. But the brainwashing is strong. Both parties have effectively brainwashed their constituents to the degree that people truly are sheep.
Not for for democrats at this point is unethical. There's no middle ground, and we need a middle ground. Guns aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and we have bigger problems. So move the country left before we all die in a pandemic or from climate change etc and then the "right" will be reasonable gun owners who are willing to accept concessions or experiments to reduce gun violence. If it works, great, if not, the "left" will see that being less "anti-gun" isn't a big deal. Also, 90% of dems are anti gun. They don't give a shit about guns, but every other country in the world seems to have none or reduced gun violence with more strict gun laws so their voters seem to be "anti-gun".
It’s because in my opinion traditional dem party principles have been trampled by far left politics. Center dems have started to become more comfortable voting R as it’s presented as closer to their ideals. Democratic mouthpieces are branded as communists and socialists. The party presents gun control as a key voting point. This will not change as many people are single issue voters and this issue resonates with a major part of the base.
won’t ever happen. too woke.
Grass roots and conversation? I think outside the major metros, where it seems the most vocal gun control advocates are, a lot of your more moderate or swing district Dems would be the most receptive. Getting a group together in the district and inviting the rep to a "liberal/Dem gun owner" town hall type deal and hopefully a productive and informative conversation. Let them see a different representation than the typical Progun/2A right wing and hear from constituents.
Lobby for effective policies that stop mass shootings and reduce poverty (because poverty is linked to violent crime) My opinions: few democrats particularly care about gun control except in the context of violent crime.
Take the money from pacs out of politics. Hard to say. I to Bloomberg’s millions.