That our non-gun homicide rate is higher than various European countries' TOTAL homicide rate.

We have inherent, persistent social problems that cannot even start to be solved with Republicans running things, yet us Democrats choose an alleged solution to the problem that a) won't work, and b) keeps us out of power because it motives gun owners more than non-gun-owners.

And your assumption is that every gun homicide avoided is a homicide avoided; when we know that's not true.

Maybe, if the gun-control people are right, then every two or three for gun homicides avoided translates into a single non-gun homicide. That still means our rates are significantly higher than the European countries.

We need to move more towards European, Canadian, Japanese, and Taiwanese style social programs. In our own way, of course, but we need to get off our asses.

The social package is whatever we decide it is. And if we persist in making ineffective proposals that are only red meat to the culture war part of the social package, then the social package will remain where it is: dreamland.

We are not Europe. We are America. If we can institute some European-style social programs here in America, it will be American versions.

Enhanced child care has nothing to do with and is not dependent on banning assault weapons. Medicare for all has nothing to do with and is not dependent on banning 11-plus capacity magazines. Raising taxes on the rich has nothing to do with and is not dependent on whether semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines are allowed to have zero, one, or two protruding pistol grips.

It's a false dichotomy. The only way they are linked is that Democrats have to be in power to achieve these goals, because for goddamn sure the Republicans aren't.

And I know, and you should know, that far more lives will be saved with Medicare for all than with a ban on semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines that have a pistol grip.

I am part of the we.

And considering YOUR version of the social package is pretty much always DOA, it's time for a change.

Fix society, and the crime and violence goes down inherently.

Don't fix society, and you can have as many hardware-based attempts to reduce crime and violence as you want, it won't work.

You and your side need to admit your way isn't working. It's neither advancing a progressive social package NOR lowering crime and violence. The former is because it results in fucking conservatives running things, and the latter is because of the former.

...firearm laws need to be arrived at by consensus. I know very well the odious task it will be for the Democrats involved to achieve that. Working with some Republicans is like being hip deep in a cesspool.

I realize that the total lack of gun availability doesn't mean in every case that each single murder will never happen. Some won't and some will.

The current virus crisis is a problem that will be solved in the shorter term. The virus problem is ours to beat into submission with the power of the majority party. Guns are another story. Start an assault weapon mandatory buyback and see where things go the next time there is no majority to maintain control by Democrats. How many programs could be crippled in 4 short years?

Politics is about compromise which leads to progress. That means not accepting what can't be tolerated while still making some progress. There's not always a place for idealists in this process. Even one enduring step forward is better than three giant leaps that are undone in less than a decade.

I used to be a Republican. Now I hate the majority of them but I'm also seeing that what I thought was a Republican doesn't really exist any more. Maybe it never did and I was just being a sap that accepted a lie. I really don't know. I do know that the kind of people that Republicans elect today for the most part have no business being in government or in any office of public trust.

I have a friend who told me about how his family rented from this slumlord who wormed his way into being president. It's sickening. Maybe a lot of Democrats find the idea of dealing with them at all just repulsive. They are repulsive a lot of them. They've been on a downward spiral for a long time but they're still around. I'm just thinking they're not going away fast. At least I wear a mask when I talk to them.

During the Eisenhower Era. Well there are always a few nuts in any party (Joe McCarthy, John Birch) but during the inter-war years and the Cold War there was some acknowledgement that if America was going to prevent a Communist revolution, America had to throw a bone to the poor once in a while.

Now they're camping out in Daley Plaza waiting for a 104-year old-man who's been dead for 58 years to come out of hiding and announce that his son, a man who's been dead for 22 years, is going to be Trump's vice-presidential pick in 2024.

These people are at minimum disturbed.

I think it was in the 80's when they bonded at the hip with the religious zealots. People who think they are doing the will of God can't be bargained with, because God is absolute, omnipotent, omniscient, etc. The parties used to have people that would overlap, so if there was a certain bill on a certain topic that came to a vote, most of Party A and some of Party B would vote for it. Later, a bill on another, different topic would come up for it and most of Party B would vote for it and some of Party A would vote for it, but the people that voted against the first bill would not be the same as the people that voted for the second bill.

Now, there is virtually no overlap and the parties are expected to vote in lockstep with their majority leader, and the Hastert Rule prevents the minority from accomplishing almost anything even if the majority of the house wants something.

One common objective of both parties, as I've observed, is frustrating any actions of the other party.

Also, unfortunately, some folks approach some aspects of policy as if they are religious beliefs. Their beliefs are unmoved by logic, proven facts or evidence. For example, there are some who love the idea of UBCs but in return will never accept having suppressors removed from the NFA.

What's this a man dead 22 years? Maybe I'm out of touch with crazier Rs.

I could get behind that. Can't even get one here in IL.

dscntnt:In the UK the homicide rate (homicides per 100,000 population) for 2018 is 1.2 by all means including firearms.
In the US the homicide rate (homicides per 100,000 population) for 2018 is 1.47 excluding all firearm deaths.*

dscntnt cont'd: Excluding homicide by firearms the US has a hire rate of death than the UK does from all means including firearms. Extrapolating here I project that if there were no guns in the US and nothing changed in the UK, our homicide rate would be over 20% higher than than theirs.

A 'hire' rate? still working on your GED are you? Well, you get half a point, you got it right later on the paragraph.

What kind of simplistic nonsense do you put out? Perhaps you are wanting to say that of the ~4.5 firearm homicide rate for 2018, about 15,000 it seems which you exclude, they would translate into a lesser amount but sizable fraction of firearm murder which, added to the 1.47 rate, would jack a gunless US up to maybe 2 to 3 times more homicides than in gunless UK. Duh.
What exactly do you think you proved with this exercise in nonsense? Trying to suppress the awful effects of guns in america? and your reply pal blaming the gun problem on democrats gun control approach - no can't be the guns - another nut job opinion.

In 2018, there were 5.9 deaths by homicide per 100,000 of the population in the United States.
ttps://www.statista.com/statistics/187592/death...

Firearms were involved in 77% of murders for which data was available in 2020, up from 73% in 2019,
The U.S. murder rate rose 30% between 2019 and 2020 {under Trump}– the largest single-year increase in more than a century, according to data published this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The findings align with a separate tabulation of the nation’s murder rate published in September by the FBI.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-know-about-the-increase-in-u-s-murders-in-2020/

The 45,222 total gun deaths in 2020 were by far the most on record, representing a 14% increase from the year before, a 25% increase from five years earlier and a 43% increase from a decade prior.

Gun murders, in particular, have climbed sharply in recent years. The 19,384 gun murders that took place in 2020 were the most since at least 1968, exceeding the previous peak of 18,253 recorded by the CDC in 1993. The 2020 total represented a 34% increase from the year before, a 49% increase over five years and a 75% increase over 10 years.

...all that stuff you wrote is nonsense.