Then, I think we have a pretty good chance at national gun laws.

But we won't necessarily like them.

ironically,
Bright

If we get a black and mexican and arab NRA going, guns will get banned quickly.

on the NRA board of directors than work on Huff Po's editorial staff. Also, one of the most respected, if not THE most respected, firearms trainer and expert is an Arab.

Yes yes and hell yes! guns for all races. The more the better.

nm

Everyplace is different. Nobody woukd vote for it up here, too much wilderness and booze

Last week was hunting season here and multiple times I heard the same refrain.

"Wisconsin had over 600,000 armed people walking around last week and nobody was killed"

In rural areas guns are tools, and anybody that tries to change that will be vilified. After Hillary praised Australia's gun control earlier this year, you would have been hard pressed to find anyone that didn't point out that the gun buyback was mandatory, and Australia "took the guns away".

It's an issue that costs us with swing voters and doesn't gain us anything, as most committed supporters of gun control would strongly lean Democrat anyway.

Fixing poverty, improving mental health care, and ending the drug war will do more to reduce gun violence than any gun law we might pass.

That being said, I still would like to see background checks and safe storage laws pushed. Even in my very conservative area those ideas don't get much opposition

To echo forthemiddle: I also heard many comments against Hillary's perceived support for Australian style gun control / bans.

Abandon what makes us Democrats.

to put it another way, is losing elections because of guns preferable to winning them because of economic policy?

The Third Way/DLC convinced Bill Clinton to go hard for gun bans as a way to look more "law-'n-order" to right-leaning authoritarians. Prior to that, it was primarily just a cultural divide between urban and suburban/rural.

John F. Kennedy was an avid target shooter who owned an AR-15 and a M1 Garand; Eleanor Roosevelt was also an accomplished target shooter with a concealed-carry permit. Both of them would probably be kicked out of the tent these days.

Do we really need a few more elementary school massacres? More nightclub slaughters?

Target shooting is not the problem.

We want common sense gun reform.

These days it's a core Democratic value.

Target shooting is not the problem.

We want common sense gun reform.

Do we really need a few more elementary school massacres? More nightclub slaughters?

Jesus!

You're opposed to the concept of gun reform, regardless of the proposals.

Shall we try some facts?

2016 Democratic Party Platform

Preventing Gun Violence

With 33,000 Americans dying every year, Democrats believe that we must finally take sensible action to address gun violence. While responsible gun ownership is part of the fabric of many communities, too many families in America have suffered from gun violence. We can respect the rights of responsible gun owners while keeping our communities safe. To build on the success of the lifesaving Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, we will expand and strengthen background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws; repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to revoke the dangerous legal immunity protections gun makers and sellers now enjoy; and keep weapons of war—such as assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines (LCAM's)—off our streets. We will fight back against attempts to make it harder for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to revoke federal licenses from law breaking gun dealers, and ensure guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists, intimate partner abusers, other violent criminals, and those with severe mental health issues. There is insufficient research on effective gun prevention policies, which is why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must have the resources it needs to study gun violence as a public health issue.

You certainly have a single-minded fixation on this.

Unexplainable and inexplicable.

Truly not a Democratic position, real or imaginary.

I live in NC, which you might notice just elected a Dem governor who is pro-choice on guns, but rejected an anti-gun candidate for president.

There are between two and three million owners of "assault weapons" or "high-capacity magazines" in North Carolina, many of whom are Dems and independents (as am I). What was Clinton's margin of loss in my state, again?

If you simply wish to kick gun owners out of the party and equate them with racists/bigots/nazis, that's your prerogative. I'm just pointing out that the single-minded fixation with criminalizing rifle handgrips and other such irrelevant miscellany *is* hurting the party outside of the little blue bubbles on the 2016 map, and it is helpful for all Dems (even those who don't personally like guns or gun ownership) to understand why and how.

This forum is called "2016 Postmortem". If you would like to point out how threatening gun owners was not an issue in my state, or MI, or PA this election, I'm listening.

then you should know "threatening gun owners" is bullshit, a rightwing NRA talking-point, and not worthy of discussion.

No exit polling data I am aware of even mentions this as a deciding factor anywhere in the US.

Thanks for ginnin' it up, though.

The NY SAFE Act makes possession of the most popular magazines in U.S. homes nationwide a Class D felony, comparable to rape. Ditto the most popular rifles in U.S. homes. Promising to take that bullshit nationwide, thereby criminalizing 60+ million peaceable citizens and subjecting them to life-destroying criminal penalties if they refuse to bow to your beliefs, is damn sure a threat. Ditto for those who promise to take CA/NJ/MD laws nationwide.

If you don't think it is an issue, you weren't paying attention to the 2014 Senate midterms, or the 2016 races (not just the Presidency, but downticket in swing states). The party leadership cloistered in their DC/NY/CA bubbles simply don't comprehend how this crap plays nationwide. Again, it's not the *only* issue where the party leadership has made some major missteps, but it is perhaps the most egregious.

The party ran a gun-control activist in fricking Montana in 2014, for Pete's sake; WTF were they thinking?

Banning cosmetic features? Banning the manufacturing of new large capacity magazines when billions are in civilian hands?

Keyword: gun.

Nice non answer though. Did not surprise me you fail to answer a simple question. Very typical i have found

It's a dog whistle. We all know it.

iron and steel mills in Pennsylvania. Most owned firearms and most owned them for hunting and home defense. Several used their firearms in legitimate self defense and to stand up to company thugs when the union movement was first starting.

Over the years the Democratic Praty has morphed into the Gun Control Party. While many gun owners do indeed support reasonable improvements to our NICS background check system and even for proper secure storage of firearms they do not support legislation such as gun bans and limits on the number of rounds a magazine can hold. Attempts to pass a new Federal Assualt Weapons Ban have caused a lot of gun owners to desert the Democratic Party.

I've enjoyed target shooting at a number of pistol ranges over the years. I find I am considered somewhat unique as I am a registered Democrat. You don't find many of us at gun ranges. The sad part is that many gun owners that I have met at the range said they could no longer vote for any Democrat at the local, state or national levels and while they don't always agree with the Republican Party they have become one issue voters.

Obviously continuing the effort to eventually pass gun laws like those in Great Britian is a lot like tilting at windmills. Unfortunately I fear not enough people at the highest levels of our party are willing to face the fact that when we push gun bans we effectively are shooting our party in the foot. It looks like the effort to pass draconian gun legislation will continue to cost us many close elections in the future. It may work great in the more liberal big cities but we need to pick up seats in the House and Senate from the more conservative areas of our nation.

I've lived in both urban and rural areas. Once an intruder set off the burglar alarm in our house in Tampa by trying the force a sliding glass door open. He continued the effort and was half way through the door when my daughter confronted him. He ran when she pointed a large caliber revolver at him and said, "If you go any further and enter this house I will shoot you." He ran. She then called the police and they arrived just a couple of minutes later but were unable to catch the man. If our home would have been in a rural area she would have had at least a half hour wait. Perhaps that is why people in the more rural areas of our nation value their gun rights.

Our county is very large and very rural. Response time easily can approach over one hour. Our Sheriff is very frank that you may be the first line of defense during that time.

arm themselves.

Its a very large county with a population of ~3,000
As a blessing, we have an extremly low crime rate.

crime can and does happen. If you are unlucky enough to find yourself in trouble an hour is a long time to wait for the police to show up.

I can't help but wonder if a more nuanced approach might work. Some strategy that draws a clear distinction between rural and urban gun owners, and makes crystal clear that the aim is not to take the guns out of the hands of hunters and sportspeople, but just to focus very specifically on urban gun owners.

How to do it while staying within the bounds of the constitution however, could be a very different story.

I meant to try and find a nuanced position that should play well, and then try and build a real clear and focused message around it. Sure the rEpubs are always going to lie their asses off and shout 'They want to take your guns!' every chance they get, but they do that anyway and will regardless of what we do.

Some back-of-the-envelope facts to inform said nuance:

-- The vast majority of gun owners are nonhunters (>80%).

-- The primary reason for gun ownership is defensive purposes; target shooting is in second place, with hunting a distant third.

-- Approximately twice as many Americans own "assault weapons" as hunt.

-- Approximately 3.5 to 4 times as many Americans own "high capacity magazines" as hunt.

-- The label "assault weapons" denotes the most popular centerfire rifles in U.S. homes, and the most popular target rifles in both sanctioned centerfire target competition and recreational target shooting.

-- Many states have *zero* rifle homicides in any given year, and the vast majority of states are in the single digits.

Murder, by State, Types of Weapons, 2015

[font face="courier new"]Total murders...................... 13,455
Handguns............................ 6,447 (47.9%)
Firearms (type unknown)............. 2,648 (19.7%)
Clubs, rope, fire, etc.............. 1,671 (12.4%)
Knives and other cutting weapons.... 1,544 (11.5%)
Hands, fists, feet.................... 624 (4.6%)
Shotguns.............................. 269 (2.0%)
Rifles................................ 252 (1.9%) [/font]

Lets look at Brady and AWB.

With the mass killing back then and the crime rate there was enough public sentiment to pass those.

However gun crime is way down and there is not the grassroots support for these issues.


We are still having mass shootings but with the overall chances of being shot going down so much compared to the past it gives gun grassroots the upper hand.

I think we should leave it alone.

The problem isn't urban target shooters or collectors, or someone realizing that when seconds count, the cops are minutes away. The problem is a few people with criminal records. It reminds me of a gang shootout in Toronto. One of the shooters was on parole for illegal gun possession. He was also charged with possessing a handgun without a PAL, not having it registered, and having full capacity magazines. The mayor, IIRC Bob Ford, thought the solution was to confiscate registered guns from licensed target shooters in the city.

Too many people know that we're telling stupid, obvious lies on this issue. Just farking drop it. It's an absolute KILLER, owing to the facts that.......

1) These rifles are not more lethal than other semi-auto rifles that fire .223/5.56 Nato ammunition.

2) They absolutely DO NOT fire said ammunition at a faster rate than other "acceptable" rifles.

3) They are rarely used to commit crime.

Contrary to what Rachel Maddow has hilariously claimed, you really can find the truth on gun-related issues on the internet. There's no such thing as a Super-Duper NRA Internet Truth Suppressor.

We need federal gun safety legislation. Support it. The more people come out openly about it, the more it becomes an accepted issue. And the vast number of Americans support such legislation.

What next? Want to disavow black and Latino Americans in order to win some more white working class votes? Bah humbug.

Instead of armchair criticizing how we should dismantle our positions to be more like Republicans, go out and convince more people to vote for those positions.

Most people don't have the slightest idea what current federal laws are. Like Bernie saying that we should ban automatic weapons and make straw purchasing a federal crime. Both of those have been the case for decades, the latter signed by LBJ as part of the Gun Control Act.

False choice. How are the interests of blacks and Latinos different than working class whites? The concerns of the working class, regardless of color, is the same. The concerns of a wealthy black is the same as a wealthy white. The interests of a working class black isn't that much different than a working class white. The division is really economic and urban vs rural, not race.

How do you convince people to do this? One thing we don't do is let racists like Symone Sanders get on CNN without being disavowed by us.

Popular or not we have segments of society that are living in fear of guns. It is the role of government to protect the people. The current gun situation in this country has left large swaths that need to be protected. With a failing mental health system it is a necessity in my opinion.

I do know it might not be helping us politically. I don't think that is how we should come to our decisions.

How about this instead. The NRA will love it. Let's start subsidizing gun purchase relevant to income. End the fear of guns by arming everyone. I'm sure that will work.

Stuff like AWB plays well with our base, but realistically it's never going to get passed again, and even when it was passed how many lives did it save?

Bigger issue is free flow of handguns. But as long as it's a wedge issue we're really never going to make headway on that.

I disagree with that. I believe hearts and minds are changed over time. Our foes are strong in this area. We are up against a lot.

"how can we help them without winning elections?"

We can and have won elections. We didn't just stop winning. Many Republican positions are less palatable to a strong majority of the country than our sensible ideas with respect to guns. They still win. I don't think the absolute nature of your statement stands up to scrutiny.

I don't think this is as far out of the norm as you are making it.

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/gun-violence-prevention/

Not coincidentally we won those years.

I think issues advocates have to move hearts and minds in rural and small town areas before the national party should stick its neck out yet again.

Clinton made a strong public stand on guns during the primary and the general election. Probably helped her in the primary, probably hurt her in the general.

From the link:

As senator, she co-sponsored and voted for legislation that would close the gun show loophole, voted against the dangerous immunity protections for gun dealers and manufacturers, and co-sponsored legislation to extend and reinstate the assault weapons ban.

just deem it an infringement on the 2nd.

Sadly, this particular windmill tilts back.

I worked with a couple guys who seemed pretty reasonable and liberal about many things, but they told me they were voting for that idiot because they were convinced Bill Clinton's gun regulations wouldn't be renewed under him. They never struck me as racist. They weren't religious. They just loved their freakin' guns.

Regulations might be better at the local level.

... to me that "independent" voters in Ohio were more gun nutty on average than even the Republicans.

I firmly believe that Hillary would have won this election if not for her Anti-Gun platform. Her bashing on Bernie for not being anti-gun enough was cringe worthy. Suing gun manufacturers for misuse of their products? I'm liberal in almost all areas, and that made no sense at all to me. It would be like suing ford because somebody drove drunk and hit a school bus in their mustang.

I believe a Gallop poll right before the election showed an assault weapon ban as having very little support. Hillary talking about suing gun makers and how she liked Australia's gun control program obviously lost her a lot of votes. Who votes Dem just because they want gun control? Almost nobody. Who votes R because they're afraid of the Dems instituting an AWB or other gun control? Lots of people.

Thanks to freaking gun control we probably ended up with GWB, and now Trump! The issue is a net vote loser and should be dropped from the Party platform.

It has been the whole movement. It's seen as a democratic movement and President Obama helped. I'm not saying I don't believe in tightening gun laws, I do, but this was seen as an attack against gun owners

they were being sued for conspiring to undermine gun laws of various states and cities. To site one example. VA literally became the gun running capital of the east coast because VA gun shops were selling thousands of guns at a time to individuals who would then sell them up and down the east coast. When this was brought to their attention they did nothing. When VA tried to clamp down the gun manufacturers fought every step of the way, first spending money to prevent the law from passing, then when it did pass via referendum they sued to block it, and finally they were forced to abide by it. No one buys 1000 copies of the same gun without intending to sell to those who shouldn't have it.

It blocks suits intended to curtail lawful sale of handguns and "assault weapons", and such suits were the primary reason it passed.

Prior to its being passed, the Brady Campaign et al were trying to curtail handgun and "assault weapon" sales and alter gun design (e.g. mandate straight stocks over pistol-grip stocks, mandate 10-round magazine capacities, etc.) by suing gun companies, to try to get them to sign up to settlements that would impose such draconian rules. Smith & Wesson was the only one to take the bait (they were owned by a clueless UK holding company at the time), and the backlash by gun owners almost destroyed them until they backed out.

The biggest things hurting Dems on the gun issue aren't the stance on the PLCAA, as bad as that was. It's the attempts to criminalize "assault weapons", which is scare-speak for the most popular civilian rifles in U.S. homes, and "high-capacity magazines", scare-speak for any magazine with more than two thirds the capacity of an 1860s-vintage lever-action.

Saying "we don't want to ban your guns, we just want to ban your AR-15 and your Glock/Ruger/S&W pistol magazines" is ludicrous. It's like some Dems seriously believe that most gun owners just own bolt-action or pump-action "huntin' gunz", and refuse to listen to any information that challenges that fantasy.

There are six exceptions that allow lawsuits.

And in fact even if they were there are more than enough federal laws on the books to handle it.

It's illegal to sell firearms for profit without an FFL.

On top of that, it's illegal to sell ANY firearm across state lines without an FFL.

On top of that it's illegal to sell a gun to a prohibited person, FFL or not.

So not only is your idea people were buying thousands of the same gun at a time and reselling them fantasy, if it were true it would be an easily prosecuted crime on the Federal level.

In rural areas, it's terribly important. Not least so, because some people hunt and fish for food.

I do think it affected the outcome in several states - definitely in Pennsylvania.

Thats why we'll win in the court of public opinion if they seriously go after roe v wade or let pence and his dominionist buddies try and outlaw birth control.

We win in the court of public opinion if the Gail Dines/Christian right alliance tries to censor adult sex and nudity on cable or the internet.

We will win in the court of public opinion if Sessions pursues a misguided crusade against immensely popular state-level marijuana law reforms.


Conversely, we lose in the court of public opinion when people think we're trying to outlaw sodas, and we sure as shit lose when they think we want to outlaw their guns.

Americans like their porn, they like their weed, and despite what the Christian right would have you believe, they like their reproductive choice. Yes. But in large number they also like their big gulps, and a lot of them- for better or worse- really like their guns.

We ought to stop poo-poo'ing notions of personal freedom, or approaching them on a case-by-case basis instead of a consistent ideological frame. Personally, I think it is INSANE that AR-15s are sold in sporting goods stores down the street from where granny gets sent to prison for 20 years because she had a plant in her basement to help her glaucoma. But I recognize that gun control on the federal level is a loser.

If we're going to drop it on the federal level- and we probably will need to- we should at least adopt the increasingly popular mantle of consistently standing up for personal liberty across the board in the process.

do.

We have an opening as the party of liberty now that the Republicans have embraced a statist buffoon as their leader.

Because of the GOP's knee-jerk reflexive authoritarianism, we may have an opening. But it will require shutting down the control freaks in our own ranks.

the personal lives of others (guns and drugs are the only areas where one sees Democrats consistently in favor of such legislation), but rather the thornier issues like land use and water rights regulation out west.

The most intrusive government anywhere tends to be local zoning boards and building inspectors

US electorate has two general modes:

1) get the government off our backs!!! (when a Democrat is in office)
2) why isn't the government doing something about this?!?! (when a Republican is in office)

However, when people on our side want to censor the internet, outlaw 'blasphemous' cartoons, or tell people they can't buy a 32 oz. slurpee at 7-11, I do feel it gives people the wrong impression of what "progressivism" actually is about.

And regardless of how I, personally, feel about guns, it's consistently apparent that those kinds of personal freedom issues feed into that perception on that issue, as well. On the Federal level, it consistently clobbers us, and that doesn't look to change.

Now, I personally am of the opinion that in the grand scheme of things, the pseudo-authoritarianism espoused by a tiny but vocal minority on the left holds no candle to the genuine pseudo-fascism one finds on the right. But since, as you point out, we've had a (D) at the top of the DC food chain for the past 8 years, the larger voting populace may be a bit misguided as to which side genuinely has their personal freedom at heart. I suspect the truth will become apparent, before long.

even in places like Colorado or even if it is prescribed to her, it is a ten-year federal rap for granny to buy or possess said rifle.

Well said.

supported a quixotic stand on gun control even if it meant losing the election. Of course they assumed we would win the election, get to appoint a bunch of SCOTUS seats and then go door to door #meltemdown

I don't think GC cost the election by any means but it sure didn't help. I am aware of some liberal gun owners who simply chose not to vote because they didn't think either candidate was going to be good for them. Promises about reinstating the AWB and repealing the PLCAA were big factors in their choice to not vote.

as it is supported by the vast majority of Americans, especially metro areas and their surrounding suburbs, which are the voting base of the modern Dem party, and which are the ones who tend to be affected most by gun violence.

There are many more untapped votes to be had if we turn out our base areas/demographics, than in trying to pander to rural gun-nut conservatives who will never vote Dem anyway.

We do need to reach out to working class whites, but the more non-religous/non-socially conservative types who are more pragmatic about bread-and-butter issues, the types that Bill Clinton (strong on gun control) and Obama (also strong on gun control) was easily able to attract.

Bill Clinton was swayed in 1994 into signing non-sensible gun control (some petty restrictions on rifle stock shape, and raising the price of handgun magazines and a few rifle mags, all aimed squarely at responsible owners). He himself admitted that that mistake cost him the House and Senate that November. It ultimately cost the whole trifecta when Gore lost TN and WV (among others) on guns in 2000; misunderstanding the issue also hurt John Kerry badly in 2004.

Obama largely defused the issue in 2008 by stating that he couldn't ban "assault weapons" even if he wanted to, and implied he didn't care to try. It wasn't until after the 2012 election that the Third Way wing of the party went after gun owners hard, which backfired again in 2014 and 2016.

Proposing to ban popular guns and magazines may play fine in places where gun ownership is well below average, but it plays horribly in flyover country. I live in NC; we just elected a pro-gun Dem as governor, even as Hillary just lost this state on an anti-gun-owner message.

He didn't even talk about the issue much until sandy hook occurred. Campaigning on gun control=Lost voters because hardly anybody is gonna actually vote dem just to get gun control. Anybody who feels that strongly about gun control is probably a hardcore dem voter anyway.

and metro areas/demographics are the base of the modern Dem party.

It is part of a constellation of issues, that Dems should double-down on, IMO, which appeal to metro voters and metro identity, the way the NRA (and other rw groups) appeal to rural identity.

We need to stop pandering to rural/retro voters that are holding the country back, and drive up our base turnout, with policies tailored especially for our base areas/demographics. IOW, not just about the simplistic left vs right, but about appealing with policies to voters who are more likely to vote and identify with the modern (metro) Dem party. This is the correct path to growing the party and ensuring such voters turn out for the mid-terms and local/state races.

Hillary won the popular vote, and lost a few swing states narrowly, without Comey she wins easily.

It is part of a constellation of issues, that Dems should double-down on, IMO, which appeal to metro voters and metro identity, the way the NRA (and other rw groups) appeal to rural identity.

It's sad, but entirely predictable: Gun prohibitionists piss all over a group of people that
vote at demonstrably high rates, then fail to notice when said group retaliate at election time...

In addition to Republicans tearing down numerous other social safety nets is better? Gun control is the left's version of abortion. It's not the hill to die on.

back to the coal mines peasant!
oh what's that you said? more gun laws? for white people?

....the Yosemite Sams in the South and rural areas count for more than the most populous state in the nation, and they are willing to believe any amount of shit if it starts with Wayne LaPierre saying "The gubmit is gonna take your guns away."

...the Yosemite Sams in the South and rural areas count for more than the most populous state in the nation, and they are willing to believe any amount of shit if it starts with Wayne LaPierre saying "The gubmit is gonna take your guns away."

...to possess military-style weaponry for home use? Expecting an invasion from some place? Belong to the National Guard? (If I understand the situation correctly, the State National Guards all keep their weaponry in armories, as do the various military services, not in homes.)

Just want to know where you're coming from, because it's not entirely clear.

As for California, where you correctly surmise I live, I know various folks who possess firearms, some of them related to me. My sister in law taught her sons to hunt, which I only found out when I saw the bloody haunch of a deer in her freezer. Well, maybe less than a haunch, and it was well-wrapped, but you could definitely see where it had leaked. You see, she didn't boast about it or even find it to be a topic of conversation. My next-door neighbor apparently has one or possibly more, which he mentioned when we had a rash of neighborhood burglaries. All I said to him was, "There's a time and place for everything, John." My brother has a sideline dealing in cut gems, and his peers in the trade were being stalked and robbed, so in addition to his other precautions he got a gun to carry on his travels, which he keeps out of reach of his 3 kids in a safe.

I could go on. I'm not trying to disarm everyone in the country. But I have known only one person who boasted about having a personal arsenal, or found it necessary to insert his fascination into ordinary conversation. He told me that if the government were to come looking to seize his guns he would bury them 6 feet deep in his back yard. All I said was "Good place for them."

Maybe I just look like someone who's not interested and so people don't tell me. Who knows?

Just a few last questions: Did the Democratic Party's platform and Hillary Clinton's statements tick you off sufficiently that you didn't vote for her? Do you think there's enough in your cohort to swing an election? Do you listen to Wayne LaPierre?

Do you personally want to possess military-style weaponry for home use? Expecting an invasion from some place? Belong to the National Guard? (If I understand the situation correctly, the State National Guards all keep their weaponry in armories, as do the various military services, not in homes.)

As for California, where you correctly surmise I live

Murder, by State, Types of Weapons, 2015

[font face="courier new"]Total murders...................... 13,455
Handguns............................ 6,447 (47.9%)
Firearms (type unknown)............. 2,648 (19.7%)
Clubs, rope, fire, etc.............. 1,671 (12.4%)
Knives and other cutting weapons.... 1,544 (11.5%)
Hands, fists, feet.................... 624 (4.6%)
Shotguns.............................. 269 (2.0%)
Rifles................................ 252 (1.9%) [/font]

I could go on. I'm not trying to disarm everyone in the country.

And yes, I did vote for Hillary because, overall, she had the better ideas for America. But there were a few ideas she had that hurt her.

My union Democratic family voted republican and not only that but some voted straight ticket, in Michigan. The reasons were economic, guns and when Democrats started fighting for John who thinks he a woman to be able to go into a restroom with their daughters and grand daughters they walked away from the entire party this election.

These things may play well in some states but a conservative Democrat in the rust belt is not on the entire same page as a Democrat from New York and certain policies will flip them to the Republicans. This is what did and has been happening, gun control is a total disaster for us and some other policies.

"...assault weapons do not belong on our streets. They are a danger to law enforcement and to our communities. Clinton supports keeping assault weapons off our streets."

IF no one is going to take them from their owners, how do we intend to keep them off the streets?

What's the goal of the ban?

Isn't there a special forum for gun guys?

which would be this forum.

I live in North Carolina, which was a notable swing state this election. Perhaps you've heard of it.

The gun issue was big here in 2016. And 2014, when Hagan lost her Senate seat over it. I grew up here, though I lived in Florida for a decade in between, and I have some passing familiarity with both states...

Never going to happen

If you want less violence, you make people less desperate. That means a living wage for anyone who works for a living, healthcare as a right, and a way for anybody to reach their full potential through education.

and Gary Kleck have argued. Go to the source of the problem rather than stigmatizing an object. But we don't want to do any heavy lifting. We want the quick/easy fix -- which turns out to be no fix at all!

Perhaps the tragedy of Nov. 8th will shake off our ideological blinders.......perhaps not. After suicides are removed from the overall homicide figures, (60%) 2/3 of the rest of the homicides are criminal-on-criminal -- which suggests that our "War on Drugs" exists only to maintain the Drug Law Enforcement Salary Complex. Good luck trying to kill that beast!

Edited to add: The saying I've seen posted somewhat regularly here at DU goes something like this:

"If Democrats were to fight as hard for the working class as Republicans fight for the leisure class, the GOP would be toast within a few election cycles."

I'd amend that thought thusly:

"If Democrats were to fight as hard for the working class as Republicans fight for the leisure class while dumping dishonest and worthless gun restriction measures, the GOP would be toast within a few election cycles."

...political Kryptonite. In fact I see too many in the media who automatically assume the NRA and the gun manufacturers are going to hold sway forever. That's assuming defeat beforehand.

I'm all for making efforts at the state level and in fact there have been multiple successes there. But gun violence, including suicides (most gun deaths) and accidents, is a nationwide problem, and weak laws in one state affect the other states, given the way guns will be taken over state lines.

Change in ownership demographics is not favorable to gun control advocates, who primarily seek a return to straight-stocked rifles, larger calibers/lower capacity, less carry licensure, and a hunting-centric focus. Ownership has long been trending toward more modern stock styles, smaller calibers/higher capacity, more focus on defensive use, and a downward trend in hunting due to less opportunity.

Changes in the murder stats aren't trending in favor of gun control advocates either; homicide is down 50% since its peak in the early '90s, and rifle homicide is down 43% since the expiration of the much-hated Clinton handgrip and magazine restrictions in 2004. Less homicide equals less support for throwing your peaceable neighbors in prison because they own the wrong shaped rifle/shotgun handgrip or a non-reduced-capacity magazine.

Ban advocates are not just losing the population at large, they are losing registered Democrats, for exactly the reasons listed above.

Gun owners may be stocking up, but their numbers aren't increasing.

[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/29/american-gun-ownership-is-now-at-a-30-year-low/?utm_term=.418c783e9a78[/url]

Gun owners remain a potent political force in the U.S., due largely to the successful efforts of advocacy groups like the NRA. But survey data showing declining gun ownership suggests that the NRA has been successful largely by channeling the energy and intensity of an existing gun-owning base, rather than by broadening that base and bringing more supporters into the fold. If declines in ownership continue, the group could have a hard time replicating recent successes in the coming decades.

Pretty much the *only* survey reporting a long-term decline has been the General Social Survey conducted by the University of Chicago, which is expressly non-anonymous, conducted via in-person interviews, funded by gun control advocates (Joyce), and run by a gun control advocate. Ownership rates assessed by Pew, Gallup, and others in anonymous surveys are much higher, and actual hard data (e.g. firearms possession licenses, in states that require them like IL and MA) show increases, not decreases.

Boston Globe - Gun licenses on the Rise in Massachusetts

Illinois FOID License Holders Up 33% 2009-2013



FWIW, the FOID numbers have kept rising; I believe the number of active Illinois FOID cards as of 12/15/2015 was 1,942,008, which would be a 54% increase in FOID cards since 2009, if I have that number right. And since FOID cards correlate 1:1 with on-the-books legal ownership in IL, a 33% (or 54%) increase in valid FOID's is a commensurate increase in licensed ownership---in the GSS's own backyard.

I'll point out that these are both heavily Dem, deep-blue states, but the same trends are at work in other blue states, as well as purple swing states and red states, whether you look at all the available proxies for ownership or at anonymous self-reported ownership.

As of 9/2016, a Pew Research Center poll put the number at 44% admitting to a gun in the house, 51% saying no gun, and 5% refusing to answer the question. A 1/2016 CNN poll put the numbers about the same, with 40% saying yes and 9% refusing to answer.

Carry licensure, which isn't correlated 1:1 with ownership but is still loosely correlated, has more than doubled since 2007 and IIRC roughly quadrupled since 1999.

WSJ - Permits Soar to Allow More Concealed Guns

Here in eastern NC, my local shooting range is now jam-packed every time I go there, when it used to be fairly sparse years ago, and I have a lot of coworkers and friends who bought their first gun within the last few years, including a longtime coworker who bought his first two months ago.

It is an article of faith among gun control advocates that the GSS is the only reliable measure of gun ownership, but if you look the totality of the metrics, including hard license data, overall ownership trends do not appear to be moving in the prohibitionists' favor. And it is incontrovertible that the styles of guns people have been buying in the last 25 years are not favorable to gun control advocates' handgrip-shape and magazine-capacity crusades, either. As I mentioned upthread, the market has been moving strongly away from larger calibers and straight stocks, toward the modern-looking centerfire .22's and double-stack 9mm's that the gun control lobby wishes to ban or severely restrict.

Perhaps it is hard to see from within the cloistered DC/NY/CA bubble, but Bloomberg et al are trying to outlaw guns and magazines that are legal in Canada and much of Europe, the banning of which would be considered a serious violation of the social contract across much of the United States. If your bans have gotten only 5% to 10% compliance among owners in New York and Connecticut, just how well do you expect those bans to play in NC, WV, Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, or Michigan? It is hard to express just how repellent the NY SAFE Act and similar crap is in states with a strong culture of lawful ownership.

FWIW, there were warnings of the flaws in the current approach in Virginia's 2015 state senate races, which IIRC handed control of the Virginia legislature to the repubs:

Washington Post - Did gun control cost McAuliffe and Democrats the Virginia election?

Too bad no one inside the bubble was listening.

Since 9/11, I have seen the Republicans move toward authoritarianism, rapidly accellerating toward it with Drumph. Since Obama's first campaign, my perception is that gun control has not been a major issue for Democrats, and this is a good thing. The party of civil liberties should not embrace prohibition for people who are not criminals. Reasonable regulations might include stricter laws on sales and registration/licensure, but gun owners will not support these if they are seen as a stepping stone to prohibition.

This is your way forward, guys. Just look at the electoral maps for the last few Presidential elections.

This is why I started the Gun Owners Caucus down in Texas. This is why I ran that little website for a few years. Because I wanted Democrats to win.

They will say the dems are coming for your guns anyway.

Then they will steal the election, and we pretend we can't talk about that.

Had Russia and their de facto arm of our government not been involved in this election, we would have won handily. Down ballot too.

Time to move forward and have a more enlightened approach as part of a more progressive platform.

They only generate black market economies.

How long has it been since the Senate, House and Presidency have all been controlled by the same party along with a majority of state governors?

Unpleasant, doctrinaire, and unable to see that they're nowhere near as popular as they believe themselves to be...

I personally hate guns, and in my perfect world, there would be strong gun control, but the reality is that it doesn't sell in this country.

Most voters do not understand the nuance of Democratic Party gun policy.

Basically they mistrust any discussion as Hillary is going to take our guns away, period.

I was on the road yesterday and passed a late-model large pick-up with a tailgate wrap that read "Come on and try to take'em away!"

Is what abortion is to Republicans..

They can't help, but to get utterly destroyed by the issue..They just can't help themselves, like a moth to a flame, they literally cannot control themselves, they must get closer, and closer, and closer only to get burned up by the flames..

Tell me again, how gun control is a winning issue, when we see how Concealed Carry has spread practically nation wide over the past few years...Notice the green starting to spread... That is concealed carry, with NO permit needed... Tell me again how talk of gun control will win those areas over...



The writing for national gun control has been on the wall for a long time now, some folks just can't see the forest for the trees..The trends are for LESS laws now.