Biden is doing this to drive a wedge into Republicans. The gun nuts and the ones that don’t care about guns will have differing opinions because now gun violence affects them directly. It’s really smart.
Biden looks presidential. Trump has three choices:
-
Come out against AR-15s, for obvious reasons. This makes gun nuts less likely to vote for him.
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Come out in favor of AR-15s. He looks insane to Republicans who don’t care about guns.
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Trump ignores the issue or waffles and looks unpresidential.
Number 3 is most likely. Of course the correct answer is number 4: propose a competing policy that is nuanced. But that’s impossible for trump.
How many Republicans don’t care about guns?
Lots of them. Do you know any Republicans? None of them care about issues that don’t affect them and their families. Even other “conservative” issues. They are not driven by policy.
Only Republicans with guns care about guns. And only 50% of Republicans have guns.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own-guns.aspx
They don’t care about each other. Liberals care about what other liberals think. Stop thinking like someone who cares about policy.
I’ve had to explain this to a lot of people who naturally assume that any organization of people will be organized around some kind of shared values. Most of the time that’s true, but not for Republicans.
Republicans are just a mish mash of obsessive single-issue voters, and by in large they just don’t care about the other single issues that their fellow party members are going on about.
At the head of the Republican party it’s people who want to minimize their tax burden, eliminate regulations on corporations, and cannibalize as much of the US government as they can into for-profit institutions. You could say that’s three issues instead of one, but the overarching theme is to cater to personal greed, no matter the harm to society. These are the ones who are primarily pulling the strings in the party, at least historically.
Just below them is the military industrial complex and gun manufacturers who just want to sell guns no matter the harm to society. They like to rile up 2A fanatics with conspiracy theories that the government is out to steal all their guns so they’ll be defenseless, paving the way for King Biden to ascend to his throne. The industry only cares about selling guns and the fanatics only care about having guns, and neither care about any kind of harm to society.
Then there’s the radical Christians whose obsessions cover an eclectic mix of social reactionary positions and literal death cult worship (e.g. Christians who give absolute support to genocide in Palestine because they think Israel’s conquest is a crucial step towards the rapture, which they believe is imminent). Broadly speaking the people in this group just want to hoist their religious doctrines onto everyone they can by any means available and no matter the harm it causes to society. They literally only care about “God’s Kingdom” in the afterlife.
Then there’s people who just lack any capacity for adaptation or learning. Their obsession is to feel like things are staying the same, or even reverting back to a past that they only know how to view through rose tinted glasses. They can’t be bothered to comprehend the problems we’re facing as a society or how the past was not the idyllic utopia that they mistakenly remember, nor can the old way of doing things sustain a growing and transforming society. These people just want to exist in comforting ignorance by feeling like they get to remain in familiar surroundings, no matter the harm to society.
There’s really only one thing that truly unites them: Each one wants one specific thing no matter the harm to society, and that one specific thing that they each want IS HARMFUL to society. But they work well together because none of them care about the harm being caused by any of the others, and as long as they all tow the same line, each one gets what they want.
I’ve never met any Republicans that were pro-gun-bans. I really don’t believe you’ll be able to find a single one either.
This is dumb as fuck timing by Biden, but I’m sure he can’t help himself because he’s been super anti-gun for decades so it’s probably just like a reflex at this point for him to to off about banning guns after a shooting.
Trump, for one
How many of them will stay home or change their vote because the head of the party they’re still a part of despite all the gun nuts continues acting like a gun nut?
If Biden is trying to use guns as a wedge issue for Republicans, he’s the person we saw at the debate all the time.
Not a lot but every wedge is probably worth it
The ones that are antiabortion or evangelicals who don’t own guns. GOP has the most gun owners but its not even like half their voters. Vocal minorities is all it is.
The only issue the GOP is actually united on right now is how they don’t like democrats.
Gun control, especially banning the most popular and utilitarian platform, is a massive political loser. This is incredibly poor timing for a struggling campaign.
utilitarian platform
What does that mean?
Narrator: its a made up phrase
Aren’t all phrases made up?
Made up words? Who ulis up to these shenanigans ?
Presumably, “good” in most situations, with extensibility for specialized configurations that are both common and accessible.
Is it now? What else is it good for?
It’s good for shooting small, very fast bullets. May that be hunting, target shooting or self-defense.
If they want to ban AR-15s, they should ban all semi-automatic rifles otherwise it would be ridiculous. The would-be assassin could have done the same thing with a whole assortment of mostly equivalently performing rifles. Some just as “scary looking” black rifles, some with wooden parts.
If they want to ban AR-15s, they should ban all semi-automatic rifles otherwise it would be ridiculous.
And if they ban all those guns they should finish the job while they’re at it and just ban guns, glad we agree.
Indeed, they would have to go down the route Australia went. But I don’t see this happening in America any time soon.
If piles of murdered kids didn’t do much to move the needle, shooting an inflammatory politician isn’t going to do it. We’ll see how the MAGA respond to this event or hopefully when they lose the elections. Maybe (but hopefully not) they’ll act violently enough to force facing America’s relationship with guns.
Trump ignores the issue or waffles and looks unpresidential.
and that is what’s gonna get him. because up until now, he looked soooo presidential 😂
Any of those options will work fine for Trump. He doesn’t need to have policies, strategies, or responses to anything. His voters can’t remember it anyway. You think they remember that he banned bump stocks in the first place? He could promise to ban AR-15s one day, then criticize his own proposal the next day, and he’ll just get cheered by both sides. Voters are fucking stupid.
All that matters is that he keeps the steady supply of hateful buzzwords flowing. You can’t win chess against an opponent who’s playing hungry hungry hippos.
All of that wastes trump’s time and makes him look unprofessional to swing voters. He can’t win with just his fans. That’s why he lost big time in 2020. The swing voters saw him failing to respond to an actual issue.
Correction: He lost big time because of mail-in votes. Trump in 2020 got the record high for votes for a Republican candidate at something like 67.2 million, which was just about a million votes less than what Obama got during his first election (which was a record-breaking turnout). Biden got around 80 million votes in 2020, breaking every voter turnout record ever.
Swing voters are still crucial because that’s how Hillary lost despite having only 100,000 less votes than Obama did in his second election, but I feel like swing voters have probably more or less already made up their minds. If you don’t see Trump for what he is already, the odds of his reaction here being the final straw seems unlikely. I think if people had better access to voting, we’d easily see a repeat of 2020 even if we were to vote right this minute.
Trump already said he’d take away everyones guns, no questions asked, years ago. No one that supported him even blinked. This means nothing to them.
That’s just bullshit, he did not. He said the one stupid thing about ignoring due process for red flag law situations. This is pretty far and away from “everyone’s guns”
You made me curious, thank you. The actual quote is “take the guns first, go through due process second.”
I’m pretty sure the NRA had a heart attack when they heard that 🤣
Trump will go with number 5: “Did you know socialist immigrant windmills causing cancers kill more Americans than guns?”
He will do #2, and his base will cheer. Not a single person from that camp will think he’s crazy.
This is the kind of Democrat logic that makes me cringe…
He can just say nothing. His position is already clear and he just selected a VP candidate who was pictured in social media with an AR15 recently, and openly suggested the ATF doesn’t need to exist.
Biden is doing this to drive a wedge into Republicans. The gun nuts and the ones that don’t care about guns will have differing opinions because now gun violence affects them directly. It’s really smart.
Or… he just doesn’t want to get shot himself. Just saying. not wanting to get shot is a powerful motivator…
Not that it’s perhaps prudent. or you know, god forbid, actually a good fucking idea.
Option 4: trump and the GOP in general still views his assassination attempt as the danger you have to live with to live in a “free nation”. It’s the cost of freedom. Something something “just because i got shot doesn’t mean taking everyone’s rights away is a good idea”
Growing up in texas, this is a very common view.
Admittedly, knowing the coward Trump is (He literally doesn’t order his own food because he’s afraid of poisoning) There’s a very slim chance Trump will declare the AR-15 is evil and act afraid of it.
Actually that’s a pretty distinct possibility
I guarantee that he will say that the attack wouldn’t have happened if more of his followers had ar 15s there
What you’re arguing would make sense with logical voters. So of course it doesn’t apply here. When have Republican voters marked ‘D’ or stayed home instead of voting for a pro-gun candidate!? It just doesn’t happen.
And “wedge” issue?? Come on, Republican voters are either all-in on Trump or they reluctantly mark the ‘R’…
2 and 3 only matter if reality matters to you. Most people being trump don’t care how insane things look, or if trump “looks presidential”.
It’ll be 2 because the Republicans who don’t like guns are a minority. It’s a cult, there’s nothing Trump can do to lose support. You can’t trick him into doing something stupid, he’s always doing something stupid, people clap for it anyway.
-
Holy deep fried frankenfuck will the Democrats NEVER LEARN?!?!?!?!
AFTER!
You talk about guns AFTER the election!
What in the actual pogostickingpopejohnpaul is he THINKING?!?!?
The optics are 1000% awful here.
Uvalde wasn’t enough, but a potshot at the planet’s most notorious living felon is?
Lose the election speed run any %
I’m 100% sure Dems are actively self sabotaging their re-election.
There is no way the entire party cannot read a fucking room. This has to be on purpose at this point.
P2025 will increase their stock portfolio value so they can dump it all and make millions.
Then add some more taxes on the middle class to pay for it.
They get more fundraising dollars when Trump’s in power too. For the dems who are in states that’ll never vote them out, they’ll make a killing from a second Trump term and they’re rich enough to be insulated from just about all his decisions that fuck the rest of us over.
To be fair there’s large swaths of the party that want him to step down. It’s his advisors and aligned leadership that insist on running him and these policies no matter what.
A though has just crossed my mind: what if the advisors want him to be there this way and wait till the last moment to say “you know what? Biden steps down [because of his health] and X runs in his place” so Democrat voters can say “we dodged the bullet”.
That moment is now. And that’s not really how politics usually works. It would be incredibly reckless to do such a thing.
I didn’t say it wasn’t reckless😁
lol, but political advisors are notoriously risk averse.
… If they see something as a risk.
Biden is simply the worst possible candidate, perhaps the only prominent Dem who can lose to Trump. And he’s determined to prove it.
He’s trying to motivate the progressives. His campaign has finally figured out that progressives aren’t turning out in the swing states. After over a year of warnings. This, the rent thing, (which progressives immediately identified as entirely too high and a gift to landlords everywhere), and the exponential increase in supposed policy lists. (Which like any gift horse, shouldn’t be checked too thoroughly lest the corporate subsidies they hide shine through)
What we really need him to understand is the problem is Israel. Any of this would have worked a year ago. But many progressives are not willing to support the genocide in Israel just to buy themselves comfort.
Most of the progressives I know are moving toward gun ownership rather than away, out of despair
I know that, you know that, but he’s so disconnected that he didn’t get what would happen to his ratings when he quashed the most consequential strike action in my lifetime.
the left don’t give fuck about gun control - the far left actively oppose it
its the center right, pearl clutching, NIMBY, yuppy liberals who use it for virtue signaling, but even they won’t be budged on who they’re going to vote for based on the lip service about guns
The center left/right is Biden’s base too, they’re already sure to show up. But I don’t think it’s accurate to say the Left, like progressives, don’t care. They very much care, the ones further to the left want to arm up and the ones closer to the center want to ban guns. It’s an interesting intersection to look at but it pretty much comes down to how threatened they do or do not feel.
Are you suggesting democrats will somehow fool voters into thinking they are agnostic about guns?
No, nor should they try, nor should they stick with their current seemingly nonsensical policy ideas about guns.
The “gun problem” as it stands is really more of a symptom of our mental health crisis, our ridiculously confrontational “news” cycle, and a number of other HUMAN factors that aren’t going to be solved by banning a particular model of gun, though and no one seems to want to hear that.
Screeching “Ban the right’s favorite model of toy” right before an election is beyond tone deaf, and an incredibly dumb move politically that won’t do squat except mobilize the NRA voters to vote the other way, which we DO NOT NEED with democracy in this country at stake.
I can personally count multiple handfuls of coworkers and acquaintances who might have voted for him that will now vote trump or stay away from the polls over this.
No, nor should they try, nor should they stick with their current seemingly nonsensical policy ideas about guns.
I can’t decide if I’m amazed, impressed, or utterly disgusted that the “stick to their guns” play on words was right there and you didn’t go for it.
Braindead take, is Biden gonna come to my rescue when some christofascist militia has me on my knees in front of a ditch?
Sounds like a similar argument to how christofascists justify owning military weapons. It’s very disturbing from a European point of view.
The countries with nukes get permanent seats on the UN Security Council.
Maybe once the US has been around for a few more centuries it’ll be different. in the meantime, if the crazies are armed you should be too.
That’s military not civilians, it seems justified as long as there are authoritarian regimes with imperialist ideas. Completely unrelated to civilians having military weapons. Unless you’re saying civilians should have nukes too.
Unarmed protest will not stop putin
Seems Ukrainian stopped it pretty well without having civilians carrying military weapons outside of military duty.
Not true at all. Ukraine was handing out AKs like candy to any citizen willing to fight for several days before the invasion.
Ukraine was handing out AKs like candy to any citizen willing to fight for several days before the invasion.
regardless of whether this statement is true or not, it would be because they were expecting and preparing themselves for military invasion.
also there was armed conflict already in progress before start of the “3 day special operation”.
Not true at all
so completely true after all… 😆
No, you said Ukraine fought Russia back without arming their civilian populace, then tried to walk it back by saying they were expecting an invasion. Yeah, no kidding. But the fact of the matter is that they did exactly that. They handed out full auto rifles and held bomb making classes for the public. Ordinary people fought back, and a rifle behind every bush was indeed critical to pushing Russia back.
Yes, it is absolutely true that Ukraine fought Russia by having ordinary citizens fighting back with military weapons.
then tried to walk it back
i couldn’t have tried to walk anything back for two reasons:
- i am not the person you originally replied to.
and
- the two statements are not contradictory, so there isn’t “taking anything back”.
But the fact of the matter is that they did exactly that. They handed out full auto rifles and held bomb making classes for the public. Ordinary people fought back, and a rifle behind every bush was indeed critical to pushing Russia back.
that is how it works. you are a civilian, until you are given weapons and task to do, such as fight invading armed forces.
how long you were on a army’s payroll before is just splitting hair. different para-military and guerilla forces are part of the armed conflicts all over the world.
and from the context of this discussion it is pretty clear that “civilians carrying military weapons outside of military duty” refers to some fucking meal team six redneck from some confederate state who only ever saw a war in television and carries his assault rifle to walmart to protect himself against people laughing at his small dick, not people fighting in actual war.
so thanks for playing darling, better luck next time.
Because they were expecting a foreign military invasion, it still is military duty.
Nope. A civilian fighting in a war does not make them part of the military. It makes them a civilian fighting in a war.
…the military will.
If you think arming yourself because there are organized fascists in the country is a similar argument to fascists wanting guns to do fascism you’re a fascist and nothing less.
Ah, didn’t know you would consider most of EU and the developed world to be fascist, thanks for the insult.
You would have been the worst kind of fence sitter right up until the germans boarded in your house. You are a fascist.
Is this what your life is like?
The cops will bring the rope.
Source: George floydd protests
Just as dumb as when Beto said it before his election…
It’ll never pass, and he thinks saying it will get votes, but all it does is motivate idiots to vote trump, even tho he actually did an executive action to try and close a loophole.
It might not have stood, but it worked for a couple of years.
On its own its a dumb idea, but I do think another commenter had it on the money how this is more a ploy to catch trump with his pants down. Trump can either agree and piss off his pro gun base (and look like a coward given his previous statements), he can argue against it and seem like hes inviting more violence and alienate anyone in his base who thinks gun violence is bad. Or he can ignore it and look like hes a doddering old fool oblivious to whats happening around him.
alienate anyone in his base who thinks gun violence is bad
ie exactly nobody
to his base it would look strongbrave to ignore it with the most bigly beautiful thickskin
Nah, I think I’ll keep my shit and wait for the far right to move.
The fuckin scenario we are in I swear.
Far right: let’s kill the left and do fascism.
Democrats: let’s ban weapons right now while there’s threats of violence against democrats.
Really?
Just wait for it, Dems are preparing to finally kill the filibuster just days before they lose to republicans in a landslide defeat due to running the worst possible candidate, simply because he promised the donors nothing would fundamentally change and actually delivered on it.
Afterwards, they’ll eat ice cream and blame the left for not voting hard enough.
Banning guns is a losing policy for democrats. It only ever hurts them. I really wish they’d stop lighting political capital on fire with statements like this
I said this decades ago… if Dems dropped the gun shit and embraced safe shooting sports, they would win every damn election.
Gun rights are a MAJOR factor in why many people I personally know refuse to consider voting Democrat.
They will wax poetic all day about how much they detest Trump… but then end with, “At least he won’t take away our guns.”
I actually know a guy who plans on voting for Trump simply because “They can’t drag me to the concentration camps if I have guns”
He doesn’t think Biden wants to drag him off btw, he thinks Trump will… but it won’t matter because he had guns…
We’d have universal healthcare and constitutional abortion rights if nothing else.
The number of people I know who won’t vote for them because of gun shit is too damn high. There are cheaper ways to solve gun violence anyway. Single issue voters are dumb, but democrats need to accept that they exist and this is the biggest single issue
Rich people would lose a lot of money should that ever happen, so whenever things start to look even a little good, you bet your ass some idiot in the Dems is going to scream “hell yes we’ll take your guns”.
It seems like such a lazy non-solution. Essentially telling shooters “Hey, from now on, you can only use ALL THE OTHER GUNS” as if that solves something.
This is the problem. All banning the AR will do is drive the popularity of another platform up. There’s a crapload of powerful semi-auto customizable platforms out there, it’s just that the AR variant is the most popular. It’s a stupid solution because it’s no solution at all - and I don’t mean that as a “not good enough so we should do nothing at all” thing, it’s just a completely pointless solution.
Noooo you don’t understand, banning pistol grips and front sight posts is totally effective! It totally didn’t spawn an entire new segment of “compliant guns” that had the same level of lethality the last time we did it…
I’m not even sure the AR is the most popular. It may be the best seller in the US, but I’m pretty sure that the AK-47 is more popular globally, and there’s absolutely no way that they will outlaw the AK-47 in the US since we manufacture them.
The AK is a global weapon for sure. My commentary deals with the popularity of US gun platforms because that’s the country whose laws we’re talking about. So the global popularity of the AK isn’t really directly relevant.
Well sure, but the reason I brought it up is that I’m not entirely certain that the AK or M-16 aren’t more owned in the US than the AR. AR has only been standard issue for the military since after I got out in 2004. I would wager there are far more AKs and M-16s in private hands than ARs
You’d be wrong. The AR platform is the civilian version of the M-16/M-4. And the flat-top carbine length version of the M16A4, called the M4, was standard issue for infantry units being deployed since at least 1999. They were increasingly being sold to civilians in semi-auto only configurations right up to the 1994 Assault weapons ban that named them specifically. That just resulted in a bunch of AR platforms with different names that narrowly skirted the rules of the ban, called “Compliant ARs”. After 2004, when the ban expired, sales of AR’s seem to take off because now they can sell freely under the AR name that got a ton of publicity. And now in 2024 they’re going to start selling the AR platform in Sig’s new 6.8mm flavor. To be fair the Spear itself is different enough it some people may not considerate it an Armalite platform. Other would argue it’s an AR-16 platform.
The M-16 and AR-15 are the same gun barring the full auto mechanism. Armalite originally made the AR-15, sold it to Colt, who pitched it to the military, and when it was adopted, was designated the M-16. (Simplified history) So while it may not have been standard issue as the AR, it’s been around for a very long time. Obviously it’s changed up a little over time as manufacturing has changed hands, but I’m not sure if it’s worth debating what’s in private hands other than how they’re designated when they’re essentially variants of the same gun.
Gotcha, they didn’t exactly go into the manufacturing history in boot when they trained us on how to use the thing, and I have had exactly 0 reasons to touch a firearm since boot.
I would assume that banning them would include banning all semiautomatic long guns
It never has in the past. It’s always come down to cosmetics and new sales of 30 round magazines. So you’re left with the actual rifle and a magazine well that you’re just not supposed to put certain magazines in, on the honor system…
I clicked down through the article to see what they meant by “assault rifles like” the AR-15, but they didn’t link to any actual source describing what they meant. So I couldn’t tell you what guns are on the list.
Typically 2 or more of: pistol grip, collapsible/folding stock, barrel over x length, semiautomatic firing mechanics, magazines located outside the grip.
See the former Federal Assault Weapons Ban in place from 1994-2004. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban
under X length. Not over.
This is an issue that Biden has consistently refused to understand to be a political loser well before any suggestion of a decline. He’s consistently vocal on it in a way that would suggest he genuinely believes it to be a winning position.
In reality, it’s practically impossible to do and mostly serves to energize the right and alienate voters in states he actually needs to win. It’d literally be better politically to say nothing on the topic, but he insists on pouring fuel on the “they want to ban our guns” fire.
I have been, on the whole, positive about Biden, but this is a massive blindspot he’s held for a long time.
I’ll give up my guns after the christo-facists give up theirs, not before.
Add the cops to that list for me. Any disarming of citizens while the cops still get more military gear is just class war pretending to be progress.
FUCK
its like he’s trying to lose
this is not going to get anyone excited about voting for him, but it will galvanize the opposition and push swing voters into staying home on election day at the very least
He IS trying to lose.
The Democrats don’t WANT to defeat the Republicans because they NEED their favorite excuse in order to get away with the fuckery they like to pull all the time, all their insider trading and industrial kickbacks especially. Whenever you criticize them, they point at the GOP and say “oh so you’d rather THEM?”
Ironically, electing Democrats fucks up their plans.
I dunno, it didn’t work out so well for Beto.
Sad things is, if the people who voted for Biden in Texas had voted for Beto, Beto would have won Texas in a landslide.
Texas gubernatorial race: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Texas_gubernatorial_election
• 4,437,099 for piss baby
• 3,553,656 votes for BetoPresidential election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Texas
• 5,259,126 for BidenShows you how the independents and left aren’t strictly anitgun. Was such a huge blunder on his part and the person asking him gave him repeated chances to walk it back and clarify it to not mean what he said, and he still insisted on total ban.
It’s not that, they literally just didn’t vote at all.
If I was a registered Democrat in Texas and actively didn’t want Beto to win because of his anti-gun stances, why would I vote for him in the gubernatorial? I can’t vote R, so best thing I can do is just not vote.
Biden is much less likely to succeed in pushing national level bans compared to Beto and state level bans, so voters who didn’t vote for Beto might’ve later voted for Biden.
Also, presidential elections simply have a higher turnout.
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Oh don’t I know it, preaching to the choir here.
Anyone looking to ban weapons must not believe Jan 6th was a genuine insurrection.
Why, oh why, would you disarm the people and give the state a monopoly on violence when that state is teetering on the edge of fascism.
Serious questions how would guns have prevented the insurrection?
I think they mean you want to have guns AFTER the insurrection.
But then, what good are AR-15s against Abrams and F35s?
An F-35 can’t stand on a street corner and enforce martial law. This argument falls apart when you look at any armed resistance fighting oppression.
Did America not just lose a forever war against a bunch of dudes in the desert with AKs and homemade bombs?
Russia is finding out that even those planes and tanks are obsolete compared to cheap drones. At this point any laws we make won’t matter at all in Civil War II.
But then, what good are AR-15s against Abrams and F35s?
Heres the thing about civil war. You don’t need to fight the f35. You live where the pilot, and his family lives. Theres a reason civil war is a last resort and it’s not because it’s unwinnable, it’s because there’s not much justification for the steps you have to take, so the ends better be damn well justified. To think American is some how immune to how civil conflicts work is fantasy.
Dude if the fascists get control of the military then an AR-15 is not going to help you. In fact the best chance we have of avoiding a successful violent coup is military intervention. I know that sucks to hear, but it’s not the 1970’s anymore. The technology we developed for 20 years of fighting an insurgency makes it pretty suicidal to attempt an insurgency against the US military.
You mean the insurgency that eventually achieved all of its goals and reclaimed it’s power and control after the most powerful military in the world gave up and went home?
Or did you mean it’s not the 1970s where that insurgency also did it to the second most powerful military…while a different insurgency did it to the one from the first example?
You’re absolutely right that in a straight up fight no individual stands a chance against the US military (and I also tend to agree that the military would be the best friend of the people in that awful scenario) but there’s two or three points that muddy the waters here a bit: it’s not going to be just one, it’s not going to be a straight up fight, and if the population were somehow disarmed, there wouldn’t even be any struggle at all.
I’m not saying I’d fight off a battalion from my front porch wearing my Crocs, but a) anything is preferable to being herded to my fate, and b) it’s not about one armed individual, it’s more about the unappetizing proposition of subduing an armed populace.
No, it’s not the 1970’s, you can’t expect to survive fighting an American infantry platoon with nothing but rifles anymore.
You guys keep bringing up that the Taliban and Vietnamese won but you aren’t actually comparing the situations. In both situations they only won because we left voluntarily.
So tell me, if half of America votes in a Fascist, when are they leaving?
We do keep asking you what the plan is if you say there’s no point in fighting back against fascism.
No, I’ve told you. You just make it a thing to not get the point. Looking at your post history this is a pattern with you. You ask for clarification, make fun of the argument and then pretend you never got an answer. I’m not engaging with that anymore.
Cool, then let’s stop talking to each other.
80’s-action-hero-MC syndrome is so prevalent in our culture it’s not even fucking funny.
Maybe look a little outside the US? Other Western countries are far, far safer and have much less gun violence with less weapons in circulation. The difference is the easy access to weapons.
Canada and Sweden still have a lot of guns but considerably lower rates of violence in general, and gun violence in particular.
And way, way lower gun ownership rates compared to the US. Plus very strict rules for owning a weapon, such as storage.
This is a strange angle because the UK does not have notably higher levels of knife ownership but has a disproportionately high level of stabbings.
I think the idea that the cause of gun violence is guns is just flawed. People need a reason to commit violence, they don’t just do it for fun.
That fucking horrible assassination attempt would have happened with or without the AR, this is just another knee-jerk emotional reaction, and it could NOT come at a worse time (pre-election). We’re fucked.
Handguns used in ~2/3 of all gun murders in the U.S.: I sleep
AR-15 used in one assassination attempt of geriatric running for president in 2024: REAL SHIT
It’s also the most common rifle in the US, which is why it keeps showing up in various shootings that get media attention. They’re not super great rifles for any application, but they’re good for just about anything and designed to be modular so you can swap parts around if you need to.
That probably cost him a few votes, since he is now openly one of those gun grabbers who hates the 2nd amendment that the GOP claims all Dems are as a scare tactic.
An AR-15 semi-automatic rifle or variant has reportedly been used in multiple mass shootings in recent years, including the Sandy Hook, San Bernadino and Las Vegas shootings. I think here is the real problem with ARs
Okay? That doesn’t change the numbers though.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
The FBI collects data on “active shooter incidents,” which it defines as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” Using the FBI’s definition, 103 people – excluding the shooters – died in such incidents in 2021.
In 2020, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughters (36%) involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as “type not stated.”
103 deaths in mass shootings vs. 13,620 gun murders means that the odds of you dying in a mass shooting are less then 1%. AR’s and attempts at bans thereof are meaningless feel-good legislation that doesn’t fix anything. They aren’t magic murder guns with homing bullets, they’re just popular guns because they’re perfectly adequate for what they do. Ban them and dudes will just use a different rifle… or multiple handguns.
Completely for gun control, but the needless focus on AR-15’s when all the stats say it’s fucking dumb to do so annoys the shit out of me and reeks of taking advantage of the stupid who say shit like, “Why not shoot them in the arm???”. There are so many FAR better things Dems could push for. Modernize the ATF’s database. Plug gunshow loopholes federally rather then the hodgepodge of states we have now, put extreme risk/domestic violence laws on the books, tackle ghost guns before they become a larger issue. The list goes on, and on, and on.
Thank you. Agreed.
Most car accidents involve at least one Toyota Camry. Does that mean Camrys are bad? No, it just means there are a lot of them.
Not a good analogy, you don’t see Toyotas running over kids in schools. I think the point we both made at the beginning,was guns used to kill innocent people. I am not against guns, but crazy people should not have access to them.
If someone’s too dangerous to own a gun then they’re too dangerous to be out in society unsupervised at all. They should be institutionalized and given mental health treatment until they’re no longer dangerous. Just taking their guns away won’t prevent them from harming others. They might not be able to do as much damage without guns but why is any body count whatsoever acceptable?
Good luck getting help in the usa The Mental Health Systems Act of 1980(MHSA) was legislation signed by American President Jimmy Carter which provided grants to community mental health centers. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan, who had made major efforts during his governorship to reduce funding and enlistment for California mental institutions, pushed a political effort through the Democratically controlled House of Representatives and a Republican controlled Senate to repeal most of MHSA.[1] The MHSA was considered landmark legislation in mental health care policy.
Either way solving the issue would require new legislation. Focusing on healthcare would do the most good.
Nooo, let’s not. We’re gonna need those pretty soon from the looks of it.
This is a fucking retarded take and I vote Democrat. Jesus.
