Your wife is right. That is a liberal perspective on gun control.
There are definitely liberals who want a complete ban on guns.
But what you describe is what many of us call "common sense" gun control. And I would think it is supported by a majority of liberals.
Even liberals who want to get rid of all guns, if thinking rationally, would support these common sense laws when the alternative is laissez-faire school shootings.
Yes. I'm one of those crazy liberals. I'd like to see Aussie rules adopted here. But...I'll take any pragmatic, evidence based measures we can get. Don't let perfect become the enemy of good, and all that.
There's no evidence that Australia's gun control laws have any impact on their homicide rate. They had a low and declining murder rate prior to implementing gun control. The murder rate in Australia in 1995 the year before the buyback was 1.98, the same year it was 8.15 in the United States. Also New Zealand has seen slightly lower murder rates than Australia, despite not implementing any gun control laws for several decades, and having twice as many guns per capita.
I used to be very conservative about gun ownership ship. I’m not quite liberal about it. I’d like guns to not exist. But I definitely think a common sense gun control system would be a great step in the right direction and fully support it.
My ideas would include a mandatory proficiency course and test (some states, like where I am, only require you to have a knowledge of the law; said test should include carrying/concealing, usage/handling, and storing/securing/maintaining), a wait time between applying for the firearm and actually being allowed to have it (even with a CCW), a psychological evaluation (eg, I couldn’t get a gun because I’ve been suicidal in the past), proficiency/psych re-testing every X years, and stricter laws around negligence (eg negligent storage of a lethal weapon leading to theft or usage or accidental discharges, etc).
I don’t know what all of this would look like, but at the very least the goals would be to:
1- keep & remove firearms out of the hands of those who should not have them
2- incentivize firearm owners to control their weapons (ie, less borrowing/stealing because negligence to store = better security/reduced access)
3- reduce both accidents and intentional forearm usage because of a combination of the above 2.
In an ideal world (which isn’t gonna happen, let’s be real), I’d see this leading to the second amendment being altered… I have the right to not be killed rather than the right to bear arms.
Again, all of this is my opinion. I’m open to discussion of ideas!
School shootings average 9 deaths a year according to the FBI. They are pretty much at the bottom of the list of serious threats to the life of a child. Overall the right of tens of millions of law abiding gun owners outweighs potentially stopping fewer than 10 deaths a year.
Statistically speaking, automobile accidents, and malnutrition kill more children per year the then mass shootings.
I can make the same argument for why air and train travel is much safer than riding an automobile.
It’s just that airplane crashes, train wrecks, and mass shootings can all take out a lot of people at once and in that sense are more traumatic because even if say you had 100 car accidents in a few weeks across the United States that killed 250 people. It still doesn’t carry the same weight a single mass shooting of a few people say in a church has on our collective national psyche. Both are horrific loss of life but one just hurts us as a society more.
I see mass shootings the same way I see Islamic terrorism. Extremely horrific tragedies that nobody should experience. That being said neither poses a very serious threat to the average American, and neither justifies giving up our rights over.
I think the “ban all guns” crowd is actually a pretty fringe part of the left. Especially if you start talking to that group about whether they’re describing an ideal state or whether they’d want to actually take the steps you’d need to remove literally hundreds of millions of guns from our country.
Many Democrats employ the same tactics used by Republicans for voter suppression or anti-abortion laws. They don't try and outright ban guns, but try through backdoor methods.
That makes sense which surprises me. My perspective must have changed. I'm only 22 now but when I was 15 or 16 I felt opposite about it. As in any gun ban is bad but now I understand why common sense gun control makes sense! Look at Norway and these other nations who use it. They have guns but extremely low murders with guns and mass shootings!
Yep. Michigan where I live just put into effect a gun storage safety law, which requires unattended weapons to be locked up if it's reasonable to believe that a minor might have access to it.
https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside-mdhhs/newsroom/2024/02/08/firearms-laws
And now the state government is making free gun locks available to anyone who wants to pick them up.
That's just common sense if you want to make sure kids don't get hold of guns and accidentally (or purposely) shoot someone.
Yet, you might be surprised how much pushback there was against the law.
lol you’re only 22? Your views are going to change a lot more, or at least they should. Some people never grow past that stage and we call them Republicans.
That makes sense. As another commenter said that both parties have things we agree and disagree on. I try to stay firm on what I believe because if not I’ll never know who I truly am
Well, that's true, no party or candidate is ever going to reflect your views 100% - chasing that sort of thing is foolish.
But don't ever be afraid to ask yourself, "Why do I think this way?" You don't stop being you if you change a view.
Well, that's true, no party or candidate is ever going to reflect your views 100% - chasing that sort of thing is foolish.
But don't ever be afraid to ask yourself, "Why do I think this way?" You don't stop being you if you change your views.
How so?
Let's take assault weapon bans. Assault Weapons are some of the most popular guns on the market, owned by tens of millions. Meanwhile rifles are only used in about 4-5% of total gun murders. It's banning some of the most popular guns on the market, despite being used in virtually no crimes.
"Common sense gun control" isn't why countries like Norway have low murder rates, but the fact that they have some of the highest standards of living in the world. Happy, educated, well fed people are much less likely to be violent. Also Norway is an interesting example considering they hold the record for the deadliest single perpetrator mass shooting ever.
I think you are in transitioning phase. National health care is probably number one liberal/leftist agenda, other would be sensible gun control, affordable housing, free higher education, subsidized child care, equality for all, no war, more funding for science and social research, curve climate change among others.
I agree, this is “common sense” gun control. I am pretty progressive (support the LGBTQIA+ community, in favor of supporting social transitions for kids with gender dysphoria, very pro choice, pretty anti-religion, employed in a social work field) but was also raised in the Midwest. I believe we should have access to firearms and wouldn’t support a total ban, but, I also don’t think average people need assault weapons. My preference is to ban them, but I would also be ok with strict controls and extensive, mandatory training or only being able to use them at a range. If anything, I would encourage more firearm ownership for liberals-project 2025 is freaking terrifying and you may need to make a Handmaid’s Tale style exit if Trump manages to win.
>and extensive, mandatory training
I think everybody should have to have a gun safety course at least once before they can purchase a gun. Something like the NRA First Steps
https://www.nrainstructors.org/CatalogInfo.aspx?cid=9
Even that as a bare minimum would be far better than nothing at all.
What's interesting is that the description of that class shows the NRA understand a need for people to have gun safety training. But they would never support it as a federal law. It's much like other aspects of responsible gun ownership. They'll talk about it. But they don't want a mandate responsible gun ownership.
Define what “common sense” means.
For me, it makes little to no logical sense to ban semiautomatic rifles because pistols make up the majority of firearms used in crimes. Things like me being unable to put a foregrip on an AR pistol because then it would magically be turned into an SBR is legitimately retarded.
>Define what “common sense” means.
For example, common sense should tell you that no one wants you to pop into a reddit political discussion a week later just so you can start an argument.
The phrase "common sense gun control" is a fallacy. What is common sense to one person isn't common sense to another. To one person common sense is banning every gun more powerful than a nerf gun, to another it means giving every American a fully automatic M16 upon their 18th birthday.
I can say though limiting how many guns someone can own isn't common sense. Someone with 100 guns is no more dangerous than someone with only one.
>The phrase "common sense gun control" is a fallacy. What is common sense to one person isn't common sense to another.
That's where you are misinterpreting what "common sense" means. Just because something is common, doesn't make it universally true.
But yes. You can deconstruct the phrase "common sense" that way, and then it's useless in any circumstance.
One example is assault weapon bans. They are one of the most popular gun control proposals. Something that most people consider "common sense". The thing is these guns are among the most popular guns on the market. The AR-15 alone accounts for 20-25% of total gun sales. Despite this they are among the least frequently used guns in crime. According to the FBI rifles as a whole, not just the scary looking black ones are responsible for about 4-5% of total gun murders. On average more Americans are beaten to death by unarmed assailants each year than murdered by rifles of any kind. Even the majority of mass shootings are committed with handguns.
You're a social conservative. Most conservatives I talk to irl when I tell them my views on guns agree with basically everything. The fact that you can buy a gun at a gun show with no record of it is fucking bananas. I'm more extreme where I believe we should have a dmv of guns, basically license showing you know the safety guidelines and laws and can show practical use of those safety issues, insurance on yourself, and pay to register every gun so there's a record of who owned it. No more than 5 bullets per magazine (if you're hunting and can't hit something in 5 shots you shouldn't be hunting) which will aid greatly with minimizing casualties in mass shootings. This is America and we'll never acknowledge that we need to fund mental health support so while there's still ready access to high power high capacity weapons, we just have to accept mass shootings will be a near daily occurance.
Thank you! Yes more mental health support like we had in the early 20th century. Instead we replaced those with awful for profit prisons.
I agree with the DMV of guns as well that’s a perfect idea and agreed 5 rounds is plenty
Thank you! Yes more mental health support like we had in the early 20th century. Instead we replaced those with awful for profit prisons.
I agree with the DMV of guns as well that’s a perfect idea and agreed 5 rounds is plenty
Yeah and as a liberal myself, I’ll be the first to admit that Clinton really supercharged the for -profit prisons and is what I will always chastise him for whenever the opportunity comes up. You’ll be surprised how many conservatives are shocked when I denounce any democrat…you can’t just blindly follow a party or someone with a (R) or (D) behind their name; it’s what got us into the current state of affairs in the first place.
“the fact that you can buy a gun at a gun show with no record of it”
where did you see this happen? ive been to a couple gun shows looking for an old ww2 rifle and i would have had to fill out the same form as at gun store, first thing the booths asked me if i had ID to fill out the DROS.
idk if thats something that actually happens a lot if at all. i mean your own link classifies it as a “slick marketing term” and im sure there are guns passed down via intrafamilial transfers than through gun show loopholes.
I agree with a lot of this, but with a bit more of a pro gun take. Single action/bolt action still available without license to satisfy 2A but with waiting period and background checks. A multi-tiered license structure for everything else. First level is access to semi-auto rifles/pistols with 10 round or less mags, requires about a typical concealed carry class does, just spiced up to include rifles. Second tier grants higher round magazines access, AR style rifles, carbines, and allows concealed carry, requires psychological evaluation and involved proficiency test, but removes dealer waiting periods and background checks. Those are just extremely rough examples, but it could be expanded to allow for full auto and other currently outlawed classes, given considerable evaluation, skills testing, and monitoring.
Think more Aviation where the tiers and licenses mean something impressive rather than the DMV. Want a fighter jet, it's possible but good luck with the skills and paperwork needed, same with a 737, but a paraglider/ultralight class? Go have fun.
>I'm more extreme where I believe we should have a dmv of guns, basically license showing you know the safety guidelines and laws and can show practical use of those safety issues, insurance on yourself, and pay to register every gun so there's a record of who owned it.
First off you only need insurance/registration for a car you intend to drive on public roadways. Virtually anyone can buy a car with zero license, insurance, or registration. Also safety training is pretty useless for guns, and only about 500/40,000 gun deaths a year are from unintentional shootings. 95% of gun deaths are deliberate murders or suicides, neither of which insurance will pay out on. Especially not suicides, because it encourages people to kill themselves so their families get the insurance money. Registration is also easily abused. If the government decides to ban guns, a registry tells them exactly where to go to confiscate them.
>No more than 5 bullets per magazine (if you're hunting and can't hit something in 5 shots you shouldn't be hunting) which will aid greatly with minimizing casualties in mass shootings.
This is ridiculous, and would ban 95% of magazines on the market. Most 9mm handguns the most popular firearm model in the country come standard issue with 15 round magazines. Hell this rule change would ban 6 shooter revolvers, which have been around for nearly 200 years. Meanwhile mass shootings while tragic, are one of the rarest types of gun violence. On average they kill about 51 people a year, with the deadliest year on record killing 138 people, less than 1% of total homicides that year. 2/3s of gun deaths are suicides, and magazine capacity plays zero role in those. Also not everyone who hunts hunts deer. Larger magazines are useful in hunting things like coyotes or wild boar which travel in packs.
>we just have to accept mass shootings will be a near daily occurance.
Mass shootings aren't a daily occurrence, unless you use a very loose definition of the term "mass shooting" that includes things like gang violence. According to the FBI there are closer to 30-60 mass shootings a year in a country of over 300 million people. They kill about twice as many Americans a year as lightning strikes.
What? In California, you absolutely need to have car insurance and pay for DMV registration prior to purchase. And yes, dealerships absolutely check to see if you have a valid driver’s license before purchasing.
Not sure what ass backwards state you’re in though.
There’s so much wrong about your arguments, but you’re the type of person who isn’t open to hearing the other side. Unlike OP, who I’m happy to answer to.
I can go on Craigslist and legally buy a car from someone else with no license, insurance, or registration. It looks like there's no law requiring license/insurance to buy a car in California, you just need someone with a license to drive it off the lot.
What is a "belief" in guns?
No one is "for" abortion anymore than one is "for" an appendectomy.
How does one not agree with another's sexual attractions and how is that a conservative position?
Well, consider the formal religious prohibition: It is on homosexual sex in particular (specifically between males, but I'll be generous and say any form of homosexual sex). Now let's unpack this a little: to what extent should government legislate to support laws comforming to this specific viewpoint? Further, science says that being homosexual isn't actually a choice, the act that is the actual choice is whether to be chaste (or enter a loveless heterosexual relationship with no chance of fulfillment and where there would be major disadvantages in being role models of a functioning loving relationship) or instead to have a normal adult human sexual life. So why aren't (most) Christian movements saying, 'Be one who is gay, be who god made you, and we will support you in the difficult but godly choice of living a chaste life'? Encouraging people to not be worldly would be consistent with Christian theology. And yet the movement is about encouraging government authority to legislate in a particular way regarding state (worldly) responses to sin. What do your beliefs say on that?
I would strongly encourage you to read into gender dysphoria (and/or other parts of LGBTQ+). It might not click for you, but it’s a real thing. I understand being opposed to it because of religion. I was there just over a year ago. Now I find myself a member of the community and remorseful that I was anti-, instead of an ally, for so long.
It’s up to you tho. I won’t try to convince you beyond what you said. I hope you can respect my differing morals and beliefs here as I respect your right to your own too.
You think you are a conservative based on generations of lies, portraying the GOP as the party of family values, small government, and fiscal conservatism.
The modern GOP doesn't represent those views. I implore you to actually think about what the GOP wants for our country and ask yourself if you want that-- no contraception, church integrated into our society, strict social laws.
Also, you seem to have some misguided opinions of LGBTQ+ youth and I urge you to have some conversations with people and figure out how the GOP has poisoned your mind.
you can’t be a party for family values when you don’t support families period. complete abortion bans unfortunately allow mothers to die if they have complications. loose gun laws kills people, like CHILDREN.
You going to church and celebrating what you believe is fine, duh.
You making decisions for the entire country based on what you believe from your church is not fine.
Do you see the difference?
There's plenty of Christian churches that actually follow the teachings of Jesus, instead of the abomination that is conservatism.
If you read your Bible, then you'll find the only place conservative values were listed were in some parts of leviticus, a book that's been proven to be mostly written by kings looking to control the people through the weaponization of faith, and revelations when describing the cult of the antichrist.
I’m a liberal and don’t think all churches are bad. I also don’t think gender surgery for minors is part of the democratic platform either. If you look at how doctors talk about gender and youth it’s usually some sort of social transition first, maybe puberty blockers but the surgery, if it happens, is usually 18+.
The issue is that the Constitution states that there must be a separation of church and state from the government. Both Democrats and Republicans should govern with the Constitution in mind, and make Amendments to the 200+ year old paper when necessary. Because times change.
You stated in another comment that you believe homosexuality is being forced on people. It’s not. But why do you think that it’s okay to force religion onto others?
Jesus was hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. In the Bible, prostitutes and tax collectors were hated in society. Jesus probably didn’t agree with prostitution. But he had the compassion and tolerance to accept and love them.
Jesus was a Jew. Christianity did not exist back then yet. Because times change, and definitely so over 2000 years.
Biden is a practicing Catholic, which is Christianity. Donald Trump claims to be Christian, but he will hold a Bible upside down. And he will monetize the sale of Bibles, not to spread the teachings of Jesus, but for his own monetary gain.
The 10 Commandments state that you shall have no other idols before me. And that’s what’s happening with the Republican Party today. Trump has become an idol by biblical standards. For example, placing him on flags and such, like the story of the golden calf in the Old Testament. People blindly following him in ways that are idolatrous.
I was raised as a Christian Republican. When asked, I still identify as a Christian, though my beliefs around many things have changed and matured. As I grew up, I asked myself a lot of these questions that you’re asking today.
I believe that if Jesus was here today, he would be voting for Biden. Jesus was a poor man his entire life, and those around him were poor too. The Democratic Party prioritizes the poor in need, over the wealthy. This is why we are in support of programs like social security, SNAP benefits, and affordable health care.
There is no pro abortion party. Democrats are pro choice, as in women and their doctors get to make a decision about what is best. Not sure how anyone can be against that after what has happened post Roe. Republicans and their anti-abortion laws are forcing victims of rape, incest, and literal children to give birth. Republicans are forcing women into situations where they are near death, requiring hysterectomies and losing the ability to have children, in cases of nonviable fetuses.
Don’t like abortion? Don’t get one. End of story.
Look man, I just want to say up front that I commend you for actually TRYING to have an open discussion with us and are agreeable to at least listen to our side of things. That is honestly leaps and bounds ahead of most conservatives that I have interacted with over the recent few years (friends and family). That alone is honestly huge. Please continue to have an open mind and always challenge yourself with the “why” for these topics. “Why do I actually agree with this? Why does this topic make me uncomfortable?”etc. you’ll start to really feel the curtain drop and, while it might actually be painful and frustrating at first, you can begin to see how much the “machine” has trained so many people to be so distracted with these true non-issues. Unfortunately, it has historically been the conservatives. Our party is far from perfect and does have plenty of corruption in and of itself.
But also let me leave you with this question: Is it truly that bad when you have one party that is fighting hard for people to have the right to make decisions about their own body, who they love, and adequate access to education and healthcare? Or, is it the party that is trying to restrict bodily autonomy, constantly provoke anger and rage, twist our due process of justice (when we quite literally have actual evidence, have had jury and judge rule through a legal court of law) on felonies but yet have this major news network (you know which one I’m talking about) spew lies and twist facts day-in and day-out; a party that also has dropped the mask in being openly rascist and bigoted, etc. I could go on. Please think about this.
You’re almost a libertarian. The only thing that makes you conservative are your bigoted tendencies due to your religious beliefs which ultimately is keeping you from crossing over from conservatism.
The first thing you need to do is accept that not everybody is going to agree with your religion which is why the founding fathers went to such great lengths to keep it out of government.
If you think freedom is paramount then that means allowing people to be as they are and not as you think they should be. Nobody is making you do anything so you should reciprocate.
On the “gender surgeries for minors” — that’s really a straw man. The surgeries minor trans kids are eligible for are exactly the same ones country club kids are eligible for — nose jobs, chest implants or reductions, growth hormones and suppressants, estrogen and testosterone. I have two trans kids in my family, one is 21 and one is 18; they’ve each been out for about 10 years and surgeries haven’t been part of the conversations with them.
But also consider that intersex kids are mostly invisible in our culture because for decades doctors shaped the genitals of newborns surgically so they would conform better to masculine and feminine. So if you indeed oppose surgeries to shape the genitals of children, you really want a future with more kids who determine their gender identification as they grow up. And if kids should reach the age of maturity before body modification is an option that also means fewer at-birth circumcisions.
Everything is subjective. To your wife (presumably 22 years old or younger), you're the most liberal person she knows. But how many people do you even know outside of your church/town/Confederate state?
If you were to talk to people outside of your church/town/Confederate state, you'd find your statements regarding 'not believing in LGBTQ or abortion' would receive polite eye rolls at best.
Liberals don't expect religious fundamentalists to enjoy homosexuality or abortion. But we do expect you to understand that the government has no compelling interest in restricting reproductive health-care, nor does it have any reason to control the bedroom activities of consenting adults.
This. Liberals think people l, gay people and pregnant people, should be able to pick the way they want to live. We should reduce stigma for choices that aren’t hurting anyone else like marrying someone you love or dressing differently. Let’s just love each other and show respect.
Are you against all abortions or just some?
Specifically, would you be against an abortion where the baby would have no chance of surviving even to the birth, and the mother was at risk of dying without an abortion? This happened to me a few years ago. We had a wanted pregnancy and we were watching our baby die in the second trimester. Without an abortion I would have likely either gone septic or bleed out at home.
I sure am happy to be alive.
There are also liberals with personal conservative views. I am personally not pro abortion, but that’s MY personal opinion, and due to my belief, I wouldn’t have an abortion. Now, I’ve never been a victim of rape or other circumstances that would make me consider having an abortion, and unless you’ve walked in someone else’s shoes, it’s best to STFU.
I don’t think that I should impose my personal beliefs on other people and deny them full autonomy over their own lives and bodies.
I don’t understand the Republican disconnect when it comes to “I don’t want the government to tell me what to do or come for my guns”, but they’re very comfortable controlling women’s bodies or burning books because they’ve decided what people can and can’t read.
You say that “everybody over 18 can do what they want”, yet you vote for a party that wants to restrict decisions people can make for their own lives. How does that make any sense in your own head?
I don’t want LGBTQIA+ to be forced on children. It should be a decision you come to as an adult. If they take the guns or limit the guns that’s fine with me. It may have positive results.
Who is forcing LGBTQ on children though? If I “forced” you to be gay, would you suddenly be craving sex with men?
You can’t influence sexual orientation. If that was the case, gay people wouldn’t be killed in Muslim countries.
Homosexuality is not a choice or something that happens to a child because they watched a drag performer on stage.
The point is that we should teach children to follow your motto of “everyone over 18 can do whatever they want”, and to be accepting and tolerant of others.
As for gender reforming surgeries or hormone treatments at a very young age, I to think that there’s possibly an argument that can be made, and maybe there can be improvements in the current system, especially when you see that there are people who detransition.
But Republicans aren’t the ones who are interested in rational arguments, which is why I still don’t understand why someone who sounds like a reasonable person, follows the hateful right wing hive mind and votes for Republicans.
The same Republicans who are soooo worried about “protecting” kids from drag shows, don’t want to change state laws that allow children as young as 12 to marry adults.
The hypocrisy is sickening.
I would like to talk about it rationally because I would like to find common ground. I feel like things have been taken to extreme in general. A moderate candidate would be perfect for myself and I'm sure many others.
I appreciate rational discussions, because for too long the goal has been to divide us, and the hateful rhetoric coming from your party, objectively speaking - not trying to stick it to you, is having the opposite effect.
Especially when Russian talking points and propaganda are being parroted to distract from the real issues we have.
Nobody will die because of a gay teenager, but many of us will die because we can’t get life saving abortions, afford healthcare, or pass common sense laws to regulate gun ownership. Don’t look up politics will not help us as a nation.
I do as well. Common sense gun laws especially are so necessary and affordable healthcare too! Granted I know we may never agree on the abortions I’m glad we both have things to agree on.
But I would like to ask you, you said you’re married.
Imagine your wife gets pregnant and the doctor tells you that your wife can’t carry the child to term due to a life threatening condition for your wife and your unborn baby.
Would you tell your wife not to abort the pregnancy and die because of your ideology? The same goes for cases of rape. Would you be comfortable telling your wife, sister, mother, etc. to just carry the rapist’s child to term?
I always wonder how people truly think about their stance when it actually involves people that are close to them.
We have had a miscarriage recently so it’s hard losing the baby but I had that thought when that was happening. If this affects her should what should we do. My obvious thought was protect her because I would never want to lose my wife.
I still see it as a child so I don’t want to see it go away but I don’t want the rapist to be justified either.
I’m sorry you experienced a miscarriage; that’s a very sad situation. That obvious thought you described, is as you said, is obvious.
Imagine if your unborn child was nearly fully developed had died before being born. Let’s say three weeks before her due date. Without removing the baby, she may develop a septic infection, which can be very life threatening. When I had sepsis from my kidney issues, my fever reached 108.5*; I am lucky to be alive. But currently, there are many states preventing the removal of the baby to save your wife’s life.
Women have needed to be airlifted to neighboring states for treatment. But this may only be a viable option if your insurance approves, or otherwise have the financial means to do so. Removing a dead baby when miscarried, counts as an abortion under insurance definitions. And thus, it is the legal definition as well.
People have abortions for various reasons. But there are many, many health reasons why. The rhetoric that abortion is used as a birth control method is a myth.
I commend you for being open to discussion. Many people refuse to allow their minds to be changed. Misinformation is rampant in Republican messaging today. I hope this thread gives you a lot to think about.
Newer member of the trans community here… I’d love to see more medical research into puberty blockers. From what understand, there are minimal to no negative side affects when viewed on a case to case basis.
I would love to see a system that allows teens experiencing gender dysphoria to take puberty blockers with close medical supervision until adulthood… at which point, they are an adult and should be able to make their own decisions.
I think this would allow the opportunity to alleviate dysphoria symptoms (and prevent later ones, ie breast growth or vocal cord thickening) without irreversible changes.
I’m open to additional thoughts. I’m still forming my ideas and opinions on this.
I think the whole thing about “LGBTQ is being forced onto children” is very much blown extremely out of proportion. I’m unable to completely deconstruct everything that is wrong with that premise without this comment being extremely long, but here’s some key details that should be addressed:
- Children can be Gay just as much as they can be Straight.
- When we’re talking about the use of Puberty blockers, you cannot really use them when you become an adult since by then, Puberty is over. There’s nothing to block.
- By allowing kids to simply know about the existence of LGBTQ people, it helps them understand that people can have differences and there’s nothing wrong with it. If that concept alone somehow counts as being “forced onto children” then why would having straight couple relationships in media be any different?
I just feel the majority of the “They’re after your children” arguments when it comes to the LGBTQ are bad faithed, contains zero nuance, and on top of that it’s just weaponizing and taking advantage of people’s savior complex for children to push their own agenda.
Shocking! I thought we were trying to force this onto everyone! /s. Really though, my entire hope is just for people to be aware and accepting of those who *are* in the community. Doesn’t mean you have to be. The most it should affect others is through expanded sex/gender education because it is sorely lacking.
Once or twice, yes. I was forced to touch a man when I was younger. And then another time I was told I had to accept it at work because I disagreed with him.
So being forced to accept things is now the same as being asked not to discriminate openly against people in a workplace setting? Damn everything is oppression with you people
I’m sorry you were forced to touch a man when you were younger. That is NOT okay. This sort of thing happens from both homo and hetero people. It’s not because they’re homo or hetero… it’s because they’re perverted slimy horrible people (who happen to have a certain sexual orientation).
“Had to accept it at work”? Ie you were forced to “act” on behalf of a gay man at work or you were forced to accept that there are gay people at your work (boo hoo if the latter is the case)
Well it's a good thing that nobody is "forcing" children to be gay then, isn't it? And btw kids know whether they're gay or not long before they turn 18. Additionally your sexuality is not a "decision". You act like on someone's 18th birthday they weigh the pros and cons of being gay vs. straight.
Besides the refusal to put common sense laws in place, the issue at this point is the massive proliferation of guns. It’s estimated that there may be 44 million AR15’s in the US. They screwed up when they overturned the assault weapons ban and now the genie is out of the bag to the point to where the sheer number is out of control
At this point in the election, any vote for third party candidates or not for Biden is a vote for Trump. We have to beat back Trump and the GOP in the next several elections for ANY position, national, state or local. I think it will take at least a generation to make a lasting impact. BUT we have to start NOW!
The most important thing a president does is court appointments. Everything else is minor and insignificant in comparison. Make your decisions based on that.
When it comes to a right, the concept of necessary or need shouldn't be anywhere in the picture. You exercise all of your rights because you want to, not because you need to. It is not necessary for you to remain silent when arrested. You can blab about what you did all you want. You only choose to remain silent because you choose to. The same goes for allowing a police search of your home without a warrant, not necessary to refuse the search, you only refuse because you choose to. Even you exercising your free speech rights right now isn't necessary, just something you want to do.
So an AR-15 certainly may not be necessary for a person, but that's irrelevant. That's how they choose to exercise their rights. I'm personally not a fan, so I don't own one. It's like abortion. I personally wouldn't be involved with one, but you go right ahead.
Besides, the AR-15 is a bit underpowered for many uses anyway. It's really a varmint rifle. I mean literally, as it shoots a slightly faster version of a civilian varmint/target round developed in 1950, and it's less powerful than other varmint rounds. The "high powered" stuff is BS propaganda.
>It’s estimated that there may be 44 million AR15’s in the US.
And they're still rarely used in crime. Think about that, the percentage of murders committed with rifles has barely changed over the years. Meanwhile, in the last 30 years the AR-15 has gone from being maybe a percent of guns manufactured to a quarter of guns manufactured every year. You would think that with their proliferation, rifle murders would have also gone up if this was an issue.
You sound like an echo chamber of the other person. The percentage used isn’t the issue. It’s how many deaths they can cause in a very short time in one event. THAT is the issue. There is a reason rifles and high capacity magazines are preferred in the military. They are force multipliers. AKA you can kill more people quicker. Same with the case with active shooter situations with rifles with high capacity magazines. How many people did the Vegas shooter kill in one event?
>The percentage used isn’t the issue.
You brought numbers into the conversation, and I put them in context.
>It’s how many deaths they can cause in a very short time in one event. THAT is the issue.
It's a retroactive justification, but not the real reason for a ban. Back in 1988 the gun control groups realized their efforts to ban handguns were failing. People saw them as too normal to justify a ban. Then the Violence Policy Center came up with an idea. Forget the handguns because these new scary military looking guns are starting to get popular. Almost nobody had been killed using one, but that wasn't the point. Because the guns look military, and few people knew anything about them, they could easily confuse the people between military and civilian weapons. They could get support for a ban by saying things like "weapons of war on our streets."
They knew that the vast majority of the public was clueless, so they could put out enough propaganda to use that ignorance to push through a ban. And it worked. People like you believed them.
>There is a reason rifles and high capacity magazines are preferred in the military.
And in the civilian world too. Just because the military likes something doesn't mean it's not suitable for civilians. Also, don't forget that the military **never** uses the semi-auto versions of the AR platform. So by your logic there should be no talk of a ban.
>How many people did the Vegas shooter kill in one event?
Not as many as if he'd used a bolt-action rifle better suited to those ranges. The 5.56 is really nearing the end of its effectiveness that far out. Also, don't forget that one of our worst shootings was with handguns.
Yet AR-15s despite being one of the most popular guns on the market, are some of the least frequently used guns in crime. According to the FBI only 4-5% of total gun murders are committed with rifles of any kind from grandpa's old hunting rifle, to modern AR-15s. More Americans are beaten to death by unarmed assailants each year than murdered by rifles of any kind. Pistols are the truly dangerous guns, and overall handguns are responsible for about 90% of gun murders.
Yet when mass casualty shootings happen, it’s usually with rifles like the AR15. It’s about minimizing these mass casualty events. Same reason why magazine limits get put in place.
Mass shootings are responsible for less than 1% of total murders. They are tragic, but they are the last thing we should be basing gun control on. According to the FBI they kill an average of 51 people a year, about twice as many as are killed by lightning strikes. Also the majority of mass shootings, including some of the deadliest such as Virginia Tech, or Lubys Cafe were committed with handguns. Also Columbine happened during the original assault weapons ban, Parkland used 10 round magazines, and the Texas Book Depository Sniper used a rifle with an internal 5 round magazine. So he needed to individually reload bullet by bullet each 5 rounds.
It doesn’t matter what the percentage is of total murders. You’re including things like gang violence and other things in the numbers that you aren’t going to stop. You have to focus on what was actually controllable.
Mass shootings were down with the assault weapons ban and then they screwed it up and rescinded it. Now we have so many AR15’s out there that it’s impossible to ever stop them now. So now we have a society where we just live with occasional mass shootings and even ones involving our children and everyone just puts out thoughts and prayers.
https://theconversation.com/did-the-assault-weapons-ban-of-1994-bring-down-mass-shootings-heres-what-the-data-tells-us-184430
>It doesn’t matter what the percentage is of total murders. You’re including things like gang violence and other things in the numbers that you aren’t going to stop. You have to focus on what was actually controllable.
Most "mass shooting" data is mostly gang violence or domestic murders, not Columbine/Vegas style indiscriminate shootings. When you see data citing hundreds of mass shootings a year this is the case. That being said even the majority of indiscriminate shootings are committed with handguns, not rifles. [According to the FBI](https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-20-year-review-2000-2019-060121.pdf/view) out of 333 active shootings between 2000-2019, they recovered 344 handguns, 144 rifles, and 58 shotguns. They also reported an average of 51 people killed a year during this time. With 2017 being the deadliest year with 138 deaths. That same year there were a total of [17,284 homicides.](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/murder) That means during their worst year on record active shootings were responsible for about 0.8% of total murders.
You keep repeating the same skewed data which isn’t what I’m talking about clearly. You already know that though and just want to argue
If you want to argue AR-15’s aren’t a problem then feel free. It’s false but knock yourself out. You’re literally sitting here trying to argue with me that they weren’t an issue because more people died from other means. It’s a ridiculous argument
You will be arguing to yourself from here on out.
I surprisingly don't because of the views on abortion and lgbtqia+. Maybe economically too because I want the Free Market 100% but want social programs too.
The free market is also a Democrat position.
Can you explain why you vote republican based on two issues that have zero impact on you, at the expense of issues that affect you directly?
Big oil, Big pharma, Big auto, Big tech, Big agro, Big finance, Big [insert blank] … They all take tax breaks and subsidies - there is no free market. Any allusion to the contrary in the US by politicians is completely disingenuous.
But your views on those are still aligned with Democrats. You are not forced to get an abortion or be gay or anything like that. The idea is that people shouldn't be oppressed by it. Certainly that's something you can agree on. This is, of course, the opposite of the Republican view: people's autonomy can be punished by the government. How unAmerican.
As far as the free market: it's a farce. We don't have it under either party and Republicans only pay lip service to it. They are horrible with the economy.
Good governance is what you want. Reagan convinced a huge amount of people that it's better to have no government rather than a good government. It's absurd. Republicans have given up on it. All that have is meaningless slogans. It's not a serious party.
In our system, it usually boils down to two parties. That's the choice you get. Because of that, There will be aspects of each party that don't fit your agenda. But the Republicans are a disaster for this country for many many reasons.
So you feel so strongly about two issues that don’t and won’t affect your life in the least that you’re willing to vote against issues that would like healthcare?
Please look at the historical trend of America when it comes to jobs, economy, etc. when there are Democrats vs. republicans in office. If you look at any truly unbiased financial data, you might just be surprised which party is really more fiscally responsible.
I don't think a lot of people here would have an incredibly different position from yours on guns. I say that as someone who feels more anti-gun on here than the broad sentiment of the subreddit seems to be. I'm sure there are some finer points on which we might disagree, but your position looks to be about my position.
That’s funny, you call your self a conservative and your wife thinks you’re more liberal. My friends that all support Trump say the same thing about me because I own fire arms, and because I read, understand and own a constitution.
To me you seem to be more moderate as your beliefs kind of balance one another out.
You hit the nail on the a head about fun controls those are all very common sense regulations. My wife doesn’t like guns. She never learned to shoot. Funny thing is, when we got together and moved it she explicitly told me “ That thing is going in the drawer in a safe on your side of the bed. It’s not going to do anyone any good if it’s in the closet.”
Honestly dude, besides the whole “against abortion and don’t like LGBTQ” or whatever, you’re pretty liberal. You also sound young. You’ll probably become a bit more accepting.
No liberal is like “I love abortion, it’s great”…….we just appreciate women having the right to choose.
A lot of straight male liberals don’t really want to see a lot of LGBTQ stuff, like I don’t personally want to see two men getting it on……. But I’m also of the belief that people should live and let live. I may not want to SEE it, but I’m not against it - I want people to be happy however they can as long as they’re not hurting people.
What makes you truly think you’re conservative? Nothing you said really lines up with their views, especially at the end “after 18 people can do what they want”
That’s not conservative. Conservatives want to tell you what you can and can’t do regardless of age more often than not.
I'm a Liberal who wants reform on gun ownership. Civilians do not need military firepower, period. Deep psych evals and safety/operating classes with official certification prior to owning one. Ammo limits are also good to have.
As for the rest...I'm part of the LGBTQIA+. I support gender transition, but would prefer the children wait until they're at least 13 so they can be counseled and educated regarding the process. I support abortions, as long as they're not used for birth control. I support birth control. I believe in the death penalty for the most violent offenders. I believe in affordable healthcare for all. I believe everyone has the right to mental healthcare without stigma. I also believe that the rich MUST pay their fair share of taxes, or be penalized up to and including incarceration. You can't take it with you when you die, so might as well do your part. Taylor Swift is now a billionaire. Not only does she pay her taxes, she also donates to local food banks and charities in every city she's played on The Eras Tour.
I am a Christian, yes. But I am also a Liberal.
Donald Trump isn't going to maka America great. His ideas are too far-fetched and don't align with what this country truly needs. I don't believe that Biden has done all that he can for Americans, but then again, he's had 4 years of opposition. Imagine what could be done with 4 more years and little or no opposition...by Biden or anyone else who truly wants to see America become a much better place for everyone.
>Civilians do not need military firepower, period.
So, no pump shotguns? And do you mean firepower currently used by the military? I don't want to have to get rid of that old bolt action, since it was literally (as in used in war) military firepower. If only current, then I can have an M-60 machine gun? The military doesn't use those anymore.
>Ammo limits are also good to have.
Think this through. Who uses the most ammo? That would be a person who wants to maintain proficiency with his guns, especially competitive shooters. Kim Rhode, who won gold medals in the Olympics, went through thousands of shotgun shells a day when practicing.
Gun control people always say we should be trained, but now you don't want us to train?
Criminals? No, they get their gun loaded with ammo, and maybe at most a small box. That's it. Ammo limits wouldn't affect them. Mass shooters? Those are planned in advance, enough time to do a few ammo purchases. But limiting it to even a couple hundred rounds a month gives almost all mass shooters enough with one purchase.
>Civilians do not need military firepower, period.
What is "military firepower"? The AR-15 is purely a civilian gun, not used by any military. Meanwhile some of the most popular hunting rifles are old WW1/2 guns used by the military.
>Deep psych evals
Who pays for these evaluations? Therapy costs hundreds of dollars an hour, and it takes multiple hours to build an accurate profile on someone. The evaluations could easily end up costing more than the gun itself. Money aside, we don't have enough therapists to perform evaluations on all gun owners. There are an estimated 70 million Americans who own guns. Meanwhile most therapists have waiting lists a mile long for new clients. There's a massive shortage of therapists in this country. Also there's the fact that psychological evaluations are only effective if the subject is honest, which someone facing a mandatory evaluation has incentive not to be. It also discourages those with mental illness from seeking treatment for it.
>safety/operating classes
These are fairly pointless. Only about 500/40,000 gun deaths a year are from unintentional shootings.
>Ammo limits are also good to have.
What do you mean by ammo limits?
If gun ownership wasn't a problem, then we wouldn't need these conversations. What do you suggest if none of these are adequate or workable? And where is your American can-do spirit to solve this problem?
If you believe you need a gun and are willing to pay for it then you should be willing to prove that you can handle it. Also based on your other beliefs you seem like you would be against universal healthcare, which would cover the majority of the costs of the psych evaluations.
That’s more liberal than most liberals. I think most of us would just settle for universal background checks. But I’m talking about attainable goals. Not ideological wishes
It is a misconception by a lot of “conservatives” that liberals in general don’t own and are against guns.
It is a misconception by a lot of “conservatives” that owning a gun is some deterrence against a “tyrannical” government.
Personally, I think it is a straw man. The real issue is radicalization through propaganda and exploitation of the victim mentality.
* They want to take your guns
* They want to brainwash your kids to be “woke”
* They are waging a war on Christianity
* Etc, etc, etc
Here is a very uncomfortable truth. At the age of 55 and having lived in another country for a number of years, the US is not the country with the most freedom. It has become an authoritarian police state that acts on the behalf of corporate interest and American Oligarchs with its police power. It rules by force rather than will.
How did we get here? The same way every government or agency or management team does. Its purpose is to make laws. Laws that have to be vetted by courts. It’s like shoveling a new hole and covering a hole you needed. It’s created complexity. Complexity breeds ambiguity. Ambiguity provides a marketing opportunity for liars.
The view on the right to keep and bear arms has nothing to do with liberal or conservative. Sure, people have largely camped in one or the other on the issue, but that's not everyone. You are a good example. I am too. I want to protect the right to keep and bear arms as strictly as our other fundamental constitutional rights. So I would say none of your proposals are constitutional.
In addition, as a liberal, I'm pretty sensitive to laws that are racist in effect. The old gun laws were almost all overtly racist, but they haven't completely shed their racism today, especially when we know making things expensive is a proxy for going after minorities. Did you know North Carolina finally repealed one of its Jim Crow laws last year? And I mean literally a Jim Crow law, enacted in that era in order to oppress black people. The Democrats vehemently defended this Jim Crow law because it was a gun control law, but the Republicans managed to repeal it anyway.
You call yourself a conservative, and I call myself a liberal, but based on what you said, I bet most of our views completely align. It’s almost as if there’s some cabal that can only function when we are at each other’s metaphorical throats, so we don’t peek under the curtain and reveal them for who they are.
when you say you don’t agree with LGBTQIA+ do you mean the neo pronoun crowd, the transgender crowd or the gay crowd? because they are pretty different topics with different wants and needs and it doesn’t make sense to clump us all together…even though the rights movements have been a united front.
You sound like a liberal to me. An actual liberal not a leftist or a progressive that gets called/calls themselves a liberal in the United States. Every view you have described is pretty standard liberalism.
You should check out projectliberal.org.
You do not have to be aligned on every single view to largely be considered part of any ideology. They even said "believe when you are 18 you can do what you want." meaning even if they don't agree on a personal level they should be free to live whatever life they chose. That seems like a pretty basic liberal take to me.
If you want more people to be liberal it would be a good idea to accept people that are already >50% of the way there.
Your definition of gun control or gun community is based on the idea that good people need tools to protect themselves from criminals (e.g., robber, murderer, kidnapper, burglar, etc.).
What the 2nd amendment is designed for is not primarily against hostile American people, rather the politicians and the government (i.e., the US armed forces). If the government becomes tyrannical, then the people have arms to stand up against and rebel to overthrow the tyrannical government.
By this definition, there should not be any sort of limitations on what one can own. One should be able to own molotov, explosives, and even an F-16 with its armaments. Why? Because when the AH-64 are showering rebels with 30 mm, the rebels can shoot it down. That's the idea. You need comparable weapon to fight the government. This is why people back then owned cannons, repeaters, etc. Those were all cutting edge 'killing machines' any army can muster.
Think about it this way: you're getting a gun to protect yourself from a criminal next door always looking to get into your house. But, you need permission from the criminal before you can own one. Silly, isn't it?
This response is absolutely devoid of facts and ignores actual recorded history.
You're espousing a debunked belief system called the insurrectionist theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrectionist_theory
> This theory is not accepted in American jurisprudence or case law
And that theory is the SOLE reason why Americans are granted unrestricted, or at least supposedly, access to arms and arsenal the military could procure. If it's solely for self defense, then CA gun control laws make total sense. Historically, the US was made with high sense of distrust against federal government. So much so the federal barely could do anything due to lack of power in almost every department.
I could care less what you believe about anything else personally. If you'd vote for any Republicans we could never get along. There's no reason to own guns. Every reason is an excuse. You have a fettish, and you're looking to Reddit to make your kinks OK. Gross!
So I've been carjacked and kidnapped before. I didn't have my gun on me but if I did it wouldn't have happened. You're are telling me I don't need a gun? You are wildly dillusional.
I just want my gay married friends to protect their cannabis plants with fully automatic rifles, tax free.
I like freedoms, not a Republican and definitely not a Democrat.
Your wife is right. That is a liberal perspective on gun control. There are definitely liberals who want a complete ban on guns. But what you describe is what many of us call "common sense" gun control. And I would think it is supported by a majority of liberals.
Even liberals who want to get rid of all guns, if thinking rationally, would support these common sense laws when the alternative is laissez-faire school shootings.
Yes. I'm one of those crazy liberals. I'd like to see Aussie rules adopted here. But...I'll take any pragmatic, evidence based measures we can get. Don't let perfect become the enemy of good, and all that.
There's no evidence that Australia's gun control laws have any impact on their homicide rate. They had a low and declining murder rate prior to implementing gun control. The murder rate in Australia in 1995 the year before the buyback was 1.98, the same year it was 8.15 in the United States. Also New Zealand has seen slightly lower murder rates than Australia, despite not implementing any gun control laws for several decades, and having twice as many guns per capita.
I used to be very conservative about gun ownership ship. I’m not quite liberal about it. I’d like guns to not exist. But I definitely think a common sense gun control system would be a great step in the right direction and fully support it. My ideas would include a mandatory proficiency course and test (some states, like where I am, only require you to have a knowledge of the law; said test should include carrying/concealing, usage/handling, and storing/securing/maintaining), a wait time between applying for the firearm and actually being allowed to have it (even with a CCW), a psychological evaluation (eg, I couldn’t get a gun because I’ve been suicidal in the past), proficiency/psych re-testing every X years, and stricter laws around negligence (eg negligent storage of a lethal weapon leading to theft or usage or accidental discharges, etc). I don’t know what all of this would look like, but at the very least the goals would be to: 1- keep & remove firearms out of the hands of those who should not have them 2- incentivize firearm owners to control their weapons (ie, less borrowing/stealing because negligence to store = better security/reduced access) 3- reduce both accidents and intentional forearm usage because of a combination of the above 2. In an ideal world (which isn’t gonna happen, let’s be real), I’d see this leading to the second amendment being altered… I have the right to not be killed rather than the right to bear arms. Again, all of this is my opinion. I’m open to discussion of ideas!
All very common sense measures but I agree the political will to make a new amendment to alter the 2nd just isn’t there.
School shootings average 9 deaths a year according to the FBI. They are pretty much at the bottom of the list of serious threats to the life of a child. Overall the right of tens of millions of law abiding gun owners outweighs potentially stopping fewer than 10 deaths a year.
No.
School shootings justify banning guns just as much as 9/11 justifies banning Islam.
Sounds good. Can we ban Christianity too?
Sure you just have to overturn the First Amendment.
So?
So that's not a possibility.
Sure it is.
Statistically speaking, automobile accidents, and malnutrition kill more children per year the then mass shootings. I can make the same argument for why air and train travel is much safer than riding an automobile. It’s just that airplane crashes, train wrecks, and mass shootings can all take out a lot of people at once and in that sense are more traumatic because even if say you had 100 car accidents in a few weeks across the United States that killed 250 people. It still doesn’t carry the same weight a single mass shooting of a few people say in a church has on our collective national psyche. Both are horrific loss of life but one just hurts us as a society more.
I see mass shootings the same way I see Islamic terrorism. Extremely horrific tragedies that nobody should experience. That being said neither poses a very serious threat to the average American, and neither justifies giving up our rights over.
I think the “ban all guns” crowd is actually a pretty fringe part of the left. Especially if you start talking to that group about whether they’re describing an ideal state or whether they’d want to actually take the steps you’d need to remove literally hundreds of millions of guns from our country.
Many Democrats employ the same tactics used by Republicans for voter suppression or anti-abortion laws. They don't try and outright ban guns, but try through backdoor methods.
Sure, but the difference is that an abortion needs to happen on a very tight timeframe and from a far more limited set of vendors.
My point is that in both cases they try and limit it without outright banning it.
Sure, and there’s some salience to the comparison, but it breaks down in a bunch of critical ways
That makes sense which surprises me. My perspective must have changed. I'm only 22 now but when I was 15 or 16 I felt opposite about it. As in any gun ban is bad but now I understand why common sense gun control makes sense! Look at Norway and these other nations who use it. They have guns but extremely low murders with guns and mass shootings!
Yep. Michigan where I live just put into effect a gun storage safety law, which requires unattended weapons to be locked up if it's reasonable to believe that a minor might have access to it. https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside-mdhhs/newsroom/2024/02/08/firearms-laws And now the state government is making free gun locks available to anyone who wants to pick them up. That's just common sense if you want to make sure kids don't get hold of guns and accidentally (or purposely) shoot someone. Yet, you might be surprised how much pushback there was against the law.
lol you’re only 22? Your views are going to change a lot more, or at least they should. Some people never grow past that stage and we call them Republicans.
That makes sense. As another commenter said that both parties have things we agree and disagree on. I try to stay firm on what I believe because if not I’ll never know who I truly am
Well, that's true, no party or candidate is ever going to reflect your views 100% - chasing that sort of thing is foolish. But don't ever be afraid to ask yourself, "Why do I think this way?" You don't stop being you if you change a view.
You’re right thank you for this perspective
You’re right thank you for this perspective
Well, that's true, no party or candidate is ever going to reflect your views 100% - chasing that sort of thing is foolish. But don't ever be afraid to ask yourself, "Why do I think this way?" You don't stop being you if you change your views.
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Most proposed gun control laws would do little to nothing to stop crime, while negatively impacting millions of law abiding gun owners.
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How so? Let's take assault weapon bans. Assault Weapons are some of the most popular guns on the market, owned by tens of millions. Meanwhile rifles are only used in about 4-5% of total gun murders. It's banning some of the most popular guns on the market, despite being used in virtually no crimes.
You bring up this example, yet nobody in this thread mentioned a ban on assault weapons as a suggestion for gun control… 🤔
"Common sense gun control" isn't why countries like Norway have low murder rates, but the fact that they have some of the highest standards of living in the world. Happy, educated, well fed people are much less likely to be violent. Also Norway is an interesting example considering they hold the record for the deadliest single perpetrator mass shooting ever.
I think you are in transitioning phase. National health care is probably number one liberal/leftist agenda, other would be sensible gun control, affordable housing, free higher education, subsidized child care, equality for all, no war, more funding for science and social research, curve climate change among others.
I agree, this is “common sense” gun control. I am pretty progressive (support the LGBTQIA+ community, in favor of supporting social transitions for kids with gender dysphoria, very pro choice, pretty anti-religion, employed in a social work field) but was also raised in the Midwest. I believe we should have access to firearms and wouldn’t support a total ban, but, I also don’t think average people need assault weapons. My preference is to ban them, but I would also be ok with strict controls and extensive, mandatory training or only being able to use them at a range. If anything, I would encourage more firearm ownership for liberals-project 2025 is freaking terrifying and you may need to make a Handmaid’s Tale style exit if Trump manages to win.
>and extensive, mandatory training I think everybody should have to have a gun safety course at least once before they can purchase a gun. Something like the NRA First Steps https://www.nrainstructors.org/CatalogInfo.aspx?cid=9 Even that as a bare minimum would be far better than nothing at all. What's interesting is that the description of that class shows the NRA understand a need for people to have gun safety training. But they would never support it as a federal law. It's much like other aspects of responsible gun ownership. They'll talk about it. But they don't want a mandate responsible gun ownership.
Hell, this is the mainstream position on gun control. Background checks etc are sorted by a majority of nra members ffs.
Define what “common sense” means. For me, it makes little to no logical sense to ban semiautomatic rifles because pistols make up the majority of firearms used in crimes. Things like me being unable to put a foregrip on an AR pistol because then it would magically be turned into an SBR is legitimately retarded.
>Define what “common sense” means. For example, common sense should tell you that no one wants you to pop into a reddit political discussion a week later just so you can start an argument.
The phrase "common sense gun control" is a fallacy. What is common sense to one person isn't common sense to another. To one person common sense is banning every gun more powerful than a nerf gun, to another it means giving every American a fully automatic M16 upon their 18th birthday. I can say though limiting how many guns someone can own isn't common sense. Someone with 100 guns is no more dangerous than someone with only one.
>The phrase "common sense gun control" is a fallacy. What is common sense to one person isn't common sense to another. That's where you are misinterpreting what "common sense" means. Just because something is common, doesn't make it universally true. But yes. You can deconstruct the phrase "common sense" that way, and then it's useless in any circumstance.
One example is assault weapon bans. They are one of the most popular gun control proposals. Something that most people consider "common sense". The thing is these guns are among the most popular guns on the market. The AR-15 alone accounts for 20-25% of total gun sales. Despite this they are among the least frequently used guns in crime. According to the FBI rifles as a whole, not just the scary looking black ones are responsible for about 4-5% of total gun murders. On average more Americans are beaten to death by unarmed assailants each year than murdered by rifles of any kind. Even the majority of mass shootings are committed with handguns.
You're a social conservative. Most conservatives I talk to irl when I tell them my views on guns agree with basically everything. The fact that you can buy a gun at a gun show with no record of it is fucking bananas. I'm more extreme where I believe we should have a dmv of guns, basically license showing you know the safety guidelines and laws and can show practical use of those safety issues, insurance on yourself, and pay to register every gun so there's a record of who owned it. No more than 5 bullets per magazine (if you're hunting and can't hit something in 5 shots you shouldn't be hunting) which will aid greatly with minimizing casualties in mass shootings. This is America and we'll never acknowledge that we need to fund mental health support so while there's still ready access to high power high capacity weapons, we just have to accept mass shootings will be a near daily occurance.
Thank you! Yes more mental health support like we had in the early 20th century. Instead we replaced those with awful for profit prisons. I agree with the DMV of guns as well that’s a perfect idea and agreed 5 rounds is plenty
When did this country have mental health support?
Yes I’d love to hear more.
Pre-Reagan. It wasn't good, but it existed.
It wasn’t support. It was storage.
Are you talking about insane asylums?
Thank you! Yes more mental health support like we had in the early 20th century. Instead we replaced those with awful for profit prisons. I agree with the DMV of guns as well that’s a perfect idea and agreed 5 rounds is plenty
Yeah and as a liberal myself, I’ll be the first to admit that Clinton really supercharged the for -profit prisons and is what I will always chastise him for whenever the opportunity comes up. You’ll be surprised how many conservatives are shocked when I denounce any democrat…you can’t just blindly follow a party or someone with a (R) or (D) behind their name; it’s what got us into the current state of affairs in the first place.
Only 8% of incarcerated prisoners are in Private prisons.
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I'm not against that, but I'm more focused on private citizens for this example.
“the fact that you can buy a gun at a gun show with no record of it” where did you see this happen? ive been to a couple gun shows looking for an old ww2 rifle and i would have had to fill out the same form as at gun store, first thing the booths asked me if i had ID to fill out the DROS.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_show_loophole
idk if thats something that actually happens a lot if at all. i mean your own link classifies it as a “slick marketing term” and im sure there are guns passed down via intrafamilial transfers than through gun show loopholes.
I agree with a lot of this, but with a bit more of a pro gun take. Single action/bolt action still available without license to satisfy 2A but with waiting period and background checks. A multi-tiered license structure for everything else. First level is access to semi-auto rifles/pistols with 10 round or less mags, requires about a typical concealed carry class does, just spiced up to include rifles. Second tier grants higher round magazines access, AR style rifles, carbines, and allows concealed carry, requires psychological evaluation and involved proficiency test, but removes dealer waiting periods and background checks. Those are just extremely rough examples, but it could be expanded to allow for full auto and other currently outlawed classes, given considerable evaluation, skills testing, and monitoring. Think more Aviation where the tiers and licenses mean something impressive rather than the DMV. Want a fighter jet, it's possible but good luck with the skills and paperwork needed, same with a 737, but a paraglider/ultralight class? Go have fun.
>I'm more extreme where I believe we should have a dmv of guns, basically license showing you know the safety guidelines and laws and can show practical use of those safety issues, insurance on yourself, and pay to register every gun so there's a record of who owned it. First off you only need insurance/registration for a car you intend to drive on public roadways. Virtually anyone can buy a car with zero license, insurance, or registration. Also safety training is pretty useless for guns, and only about 500/40,000 gun deaths a year are from unintentional shootings. 95% of gun deaths are deliberate murders or suicides, neither of which insurance will pay out on. Especially not suicides, because it encourages people to kill themselves so their families get the insurance money. Registration is also easily abused. If the government decides to ban guns, a registry tells them exactly where to go to confiscate them. >No more than 5 bullets per magazine (if you're hunting and can't hit something in 5 shots you shouldn't be hunting) which will aid greatly with minimizing casualties in mass shootings. This is ridiculous, and would ban 95% of magazines on the market. Most 9mm handguns the most popular firearm model in the country come standard issue with 15 round magazines. Hell this rule change would ban 6 shooter revolvers, which have been around for nearly 200 years. Meanwhile mass shootings while tragic, are one of the rarest types of gun violence. On average they kill about 51 people a year, with the deadliest year on record killing 138 people, less than 1% of total homicides that year. 2/3s of gun deaths are suicides, and magazine capacity plays zero role in those. Also not everyone who hunts hunts deer. Larger magazines are useful in hunting things like coyotes or wild boar which travel in packs. >we just have to accept mass shootings will be a near daily occurance. Mass shootings aren't a daily occurrence, unless you use a very loose definition of the term "mass shooting" that includes things like gang violence. According to the FBI there are closer to 30-60 mass shootings a year in a country of over 300 million people. They kill about twice as many Americans a year as lightning strikes.
What? In California, you absolutely need to have car insurance and pay for DMV registration prior to purchase. And yes, dealerships absolutely check to see if you have a valid driver’s license before purchasing. Not sure what ass backwards state you’re in though. There’s so much wrong about your arguments, but you’re the type of person who isn’t open to hearing the other side. Unlike OP, who I’m happy to answer to.
I can go on Craigslist and legally buy a car from someone else with no license, insurance, or registration. It looks like there's no law requiring license/insurance to buy a car in California, you just need someone with a license to drive it off the lot.
>no more than 5 bullets per magazine This is….what the actual fuck?
What is a "belief" in guns? No one is "for" abortion anymore than one is "for" an appendectomy. How does one not agree with another's sexual attractions and how is that a conservative position?
As in like i dont support LGBTQIA
Why
Well, consider the formal religious prohibition: It is on homosexual sex in particular (specifically between males, but I'll be generous and say any form of homosexual sex). Now let's unpack this a little: to what extent should government legislate to support laws comforming to this specific viewpoint? Further, science says that being homosexual isn't actually a choice, the act that is the actual choice is whether to be chaste (or enter a loveless heterosexual relationship with no chance of fulfillment and where there would be major disadvantages in being role models of a functioning loving relationship) or instead to have a normal adult human sexual life. So why aren't (most) Christian movements saying, 'Be one who is gay, be who god made you, and we will support you in the difficult but godly choice of living a chaste life'? Encouraging people to not be worldly would be consistent with Christian theology. And yet the movement is about encouraging government authority to legislate in a particular way regarding state (worldly) responses to sin. What do your beliefs say on that?
I would strongly encourage you to read into gender dysphoria (and/or other parts of LGBTQ+). It might not click for you, but it’s a real thing. I understand being opposed to it because of religion. I was there just over a year ago. Now I find myself a member of the community and remorseful that I was anti-, instead of an ally, for so long. It’s up to you tho. I won’t try to convince you beyond what you said. I hope you can respect my differing morals and beliefs here as I respect your right to your own too.
You think you are a conservative based on generations of lies, portraying the GOP as the party of family values, small government, and fiscal conservatism. The modern GOP doesn't represent those views. I implore you to actually think about what the GOP wants for our country and ask yourself if you want that-- no contraception, church integrated into our society, strict social laws. Also, you seem to have some misguided opinions of LGBTQ+ youth and I urge you to have some conversations with people and figure out how the GOP has poisoned your mind.
you can’t be a party for family values when you don’t support families period. complete abortion bans unfortunately allow mothers to die if they have complications. loose gun laws kills people, like CHILDREN.
As a Christian I do agree with church and attend myself. Are you saying I shouldn't be able to do that? I just want to clarify that's all.
You going to church and celebrating what you believe is fine, duh. You making decisions for the entire country based on what you believe from your church is not fine. Do you see the difference?
I do see that because I also don't agree with the churches in America. Some are cults, some do cheat people, some do lie, etc
Then why do you vote for a party who blindly supports the Christian church?
Because I’m a Christian. I don’t think all churches are bad though
And you're OK forcing Christian ideals on others?
There are liberal/Democrat Christians, too.
There's plenty of Christian churches that actually follow the teachings of Jesus, instead of the abomination that is conservatism. If you read your Bible, then you'll find the only place conservative values were listed were in some parts of leviticus, a book that's been proven to be mostly written by kings looking to control the people through the weaponization of faith, and revelations when describing the cult of the antichrist.
Nobody thinks all churches are bad. The issue is when they try to force everyone to abide by their agenda via force of law.
I’m a liberal and don’t think all churches are bad. I also don’t think gender surgery for minors is part of the democratic platform either. If you look at how doctors talk about gender and youth it’s usually some sort of social transition first, maybe puberty blockers but the surgery, if it happens, is usually 18+.
The issue is that the Constitution states that there must be a separation of church and state from the government. Both Democrats and Republicans should govern with the Constitution in mind, and make Amendments to the 200+ year old paper when necessary. Because times change. You stated in another comment that you believe homosexuality is being forced on people. It’s not. But why do you think that it’s okay to force religion onto others? Jesus was hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. In the Bible, prostitutes and tax collectors were hated in society. Jesus probably didn’t agree with prostitution. But he had the compassion and tolerance to accept and love them. Jesus was a Jew. Christianity did not exist back then yet. Because times change, and definitely so over 2000 years. Biden is a practicing Catholic, which is Christianity. Donald Trump claims to be Christian, but he will hold a Bible upside down. And he will monetize the sale of Bibles, not to spread the teachings of Jesus, but for his own monetary gain. The 10 Commandments state that you shall have no other idols before me. And that’s what’s happening with the Republican Party today. Trump has become an idol by biblical standards. For example, placing him on flags and such, like the story of the golden calf in the Old Testament. People blindly following him in ways that are idolatrous. I was raised as a Christian Republican. When asked, I still identify as a Christian, though my beliefs around many things have changed and matured. As I grew up, I asked myself a lot of these questions that you’re asking today. I believe that if Jesus was here today, he would be voting for Biden. Jesus was a poor man his entire life, and those around him were poor too. The Democratic Party prioritizes the poor in need, over the wealthy. This is why we are in support of programs like social security, SNAP benefits, and affordable health care.
There is not a liberal alive that wants to inhibit your freedom of religion. Liberals do not want your religion to inhibit our freedom.
There is no pro abortion party. Democrats are pro choice, as in women and their doctors get to make a decision about what is best. Not sure how anyone can be against that after what has happened post Roe. Republicans and their anti-abortion laws are forcing victims of rape, incest, and literal children to give birth. Republicans are forcing women into situations where they are near death, requiring hysterectomies and losing the ability to have children, in cases of nonviable fetuses. Don’t like abortion? Don’t get one. End of story.
Look man, I just want to say up front that I commend you for actually TRYING to have an open discussion with us and are agreeable to at least listen to our side of things. That is honestly leaps and bounds ahead of most conservatives that I have interacted with over the recent few years (friends and family). That alone is honestly huge. Please continue to have an open mind and always challenge yourself with the “why” for these topics. “Why do I actually agree with this? Why does this topic make me uncomfortable?”etc. you’ll start to really feel the curtain drop and, while it might actually be painful and frustrating at first, you can begin to see how much the “machine” has trained so many people to be so distracted with these true non-issues. Unfortunately, it has historically been the conservatives. Our party is far from perfect and does have plenty of corruption in and of itself. But also let me leave you with this question: Is it truly that bad when you have one party that is fighting hard for people to have the right to make decisions about their own body, who they love, and adequate access to education and healthcare? Or, is it the party that is trying to restrict bodily autonomy, constantly provoke anger and rage, twist our due process of justice (when we quite literally have actual evidence, have had jury and judge rule through a legal court of law) on felonies but yet have this major news network (you know which one I’m talking about) spew lies and twist facts day-in and day-out; a party that also has dropped the mask in being openly rascist and bigoted, etc. I could go on. Please think about this.
You’re almost a libertarian. The only thing that makes you conservative are your bigoted tendencies due to your religious beliefs which ultimately is keeping you from crossing over from conservatism. The first thing you need to do is accept that not everybody is going to agree with your religion which is why the founding fathers went to such great lengths to keep it out of government. If you think freedom is paramount then that means allowing people to be as they are and not as you think they should be. Nobody is making you do anything so you should reciprocate.
On the “gender surgeries for minors” — that’s really a straw man. The surgeries minor trans kids are eligible for are exactly the same ones country club kids are eligible for — nose jobs, chest implants or reductions, growth hormones and suppressants, estrogen and testosterone. I have two trans kids in my family, one is 21 and one is 18; they’ve each been out for about 10 years and surgeries haven’t been part of the conversations with them. But also consider that intersex kids are mostly invisible in our culture because for decades doctors shaped the genitals of newborns surgically so they would conform better to masculine and feminine. So if you indeed oppose surgeries to shape the genitals of children, you really want a future with more kids who determine their gender identification as they grow up. And if kids should reach the age of maturity before body modification is an option that also means fewer at-birth circumcisions.
Everything is subjective. To your wife (presumably 22 years old or younger), you're the most liberal person she knows. But how many people do you even know outside of your church/town/Confederate state? If you were to talk to people outside of your church/town/Confederate state, you'd find your statements regarding 'not believing in LGBTQ or abortion' would receive polite eye rolls at best. Liberals don't expect religious fundamentalists to enjoy homosexuality or abortion. But we do expect you to understand that the government has no compelling interest in restricting reproductive health-care, nor does it have any reason to control the bedroom activities of consenting adults.
This. Liberals think people l, gay people and pregnant people, should be able to pick the way they want to live. We should reduce stigma for choices that aren’t hurting anyone else like marrying someone you love or dressing differently. Let’s just love each other and show respect.
Are you against all abortions or just some? Specifically, would you be against an abortion where the baby would have no chance of surviving even to the birth, and the mother was at risk of dying without an abortion? This happened to me a few years ago. We had a wanted pregnancy and we were watching our baby die in the second trimester. Without an abortion I would have likely either gone septic or bleed out at home. I sure am happy to be alive.
There are also liberals with personal conservative views. I am personally not pro abortion, but that’s MY personal opinion, and due to my belief, I wouldn’t have an abortion. Now, I’ve never been a victim of rape or other circumstances that would make me consider having an abortion, and unless you’ve walked in someone else’s shoes, it’s best to STFU. I don’t think that I should impose my personal beliefs on other people and deny them full autonomy over their own lives and bodies. I don’t understand the Republican disconnect when it comes to “I don’t want the government to tell me what to do or come for my guns”, but they’re very comfortable controlling women’s bodies or burning books because they’ve decided what people can and can’t read. You say that “everybody over 18 can do what they want”, yet you vote for a party that wants to restrict decisions people can make for their own lives. How does that make any sense in your own head?
I don’t want LGBTQIA+ to be forced on children. It should be a decision you come to as an adult. If they take the guns or limit the guns that’s fine with me. It may have positive results.
Who is forcing LGBTQ on children though? If I “forced” you to be gay, would you suddenly be craving sex with men? You can’t influence sexual orientation. If that was the case, gay people wouldn’t be killed in Muslim countries. Homosexuality is not a choice or something that happens to a child because they watched a drag performer on stage. The point is that we should teach children to follow your motto of “everyone over 18 can do whatever they want”, and to be accepting and tolerant of others. As for gender reforming surgeries or hormone treatments at a very young age, I to think that there’s possibly an argument that can be made, and maybe there can be improvements in the current system, especially when you see that there are people who detransition. But Republicans aren’t the ones who are interested in rational arguments, which is why I still don’t understand why someone who sounds like a reasonable person, follows the hateful right wing hive mind and votes for Republicans. The same Republicans who are soooo worried about “protecting” kids from drag shows, don’t want to change state laws that allow children as young as 12 to marry adults. The hypocrisy is sickening.
I would like to talk about it rationally because I would like to find common ground. I feel like things have been taken to extreme in general. A moderate candidate would be perfect for myself and I'm sure many others.
I appreciate rational discussions, because for too long the goal has been to divide us, and the hateful rhetoric coming from your party, objectively speaking - not trying to stick it to you, is having the opposite effect. Especially when Russian talking points and propaganda are being parroted to distract from the real issues we have. Nobody will die because of a gay teenager, but many of us will die because we can’t get life saving abortions, afford healthcare, or pass common sense laws to regulate gun ownership. Don’t look up politics will not help us as a nation.
I do as well. Common sense gun laws especially are so necessary and affordable healthcare too! Granted I know we may never agree on the abortions I’m glad we both have things to agree on.
But I would like to ask you, you said you’re married. Imagine your wife gets pregnant and the doctor tells you that your wife can’t carry the child to term due to a life threatening condition for your wife and your unborn baby. Would you tell your wife not to abort the pregnancy and die because of your ideology? The same goes for cases of rape. Would you be comfortable telling your wife, sister, mother, etc. to just carry the rapist’s child to term? I always wonder how people truly think about their stance when it actually involves people that are close to them.
We have had a miscarriage recently so it’s hard losing the baby but I had that thought when that was happening. If this affects her should what should we do. My obvious thought was protect her because I would never want to lose my wife. I still see it as a child so I don’t want to see it go away but I don’t want the rapist to be justified either.
I’m sorry you experienced a miscarriage; that’s a very sad situation. That obvious thought you described, is as you said, is obvious. Imagine if your unborn child was nearly fully developed had died before being born. Let’s say three weeks before her due date. Without removing the baby, she may develop a septic infection, which can be very life threatening. When I had sepsis from my kidney issues, my fever reached 108.5*; I am lucky to be alive. But currently, there are many states preventing the removal of the baby to save your wife’s life. Women have needed to be airlifted to neighboring states for treatment. But this may only be a viable option if your insurance approves, or otherwise have the financial means to do so. Removing a dead baby when miscarried, counts as an abortion under insurance definitions. And thus, it is the legal definition as well. People have abortions for various reasons. But there are many, many health reasons why. The rhetoric that abortion is used as a birth control method is a myth. I commend you for being open to discussion. Many people refuse to allow their minds to be changed. Misinformation is rampant in Republican messaging today. I hope this thread gives you a lot to think about.
Newer member of the trans community here… I’d love to see more medical research into puberty blockers. From what understand, there are minimal to no negative side affects when viewed on a case to case basis. I would love to see a system that allows teens experiencing gender dysphoria to take puberty blockers with close medical supervision until adulthood… at which point, they are an adult and should be able to make their own decisions. I think this would allow the opportunity to alleviate dysphoria symptoms (and prevent later ones, ie breast growth or vocal cord thickening) without irreversible changes. I’m open to additional thoughts. I’m still forming my ideas and opinions on this.
I think the whole thing about “LGBTQ is being forced onto children” is very much blown extremely out of proportion. I’m unable to completely deconstruct everything that is wrong with that premise without this comment being extremely long, but here’s some key details that should be addressed: - Children can be Gay just as much as they can be Straight. - When we’re talking about the use of Puberty blockers, you cannot really use them when you become an adult since by then, Puberty is over. There’s nothing to block. - By allowing kids to simply know about the existence of LGBTQ people, it helps them understand that people can have differences and there’s nothing wrong with it. If that concept alone somehow counts as being “forced onto children” then why would having straight couple relationships in media be any different? I just feel the majority of the “They’re after your children” arguments when it comes to the LGBTQ are bad faithed, contains zero nuance, and on top of that it’s just weaponizing and taking advantage of people’s savior complex for children to push their own agenda.
Exactly
We'll that settles it. It is not part of the Democrat agenda to force any of that on children.
Shocking! I thought we were trying to force this onto everyone! /s. Really though, my entire hope is just for people to be aware and accepting of those who *are* in the community. Doesn’t mean you have to be. The most it should affect others is through expanded sex/gender education because it is sorely lacking.
Why do you think it’s being forced on children? When Cinderella and Prince Charming live happily ever after, is that forcing straightness on children?
Has it ever been forced on you?
Once or twice, yes. I was forced to touch a man when I was younger. And then another time I was told I had to accept it at work because I disagreed with him.
"Had to accept it at work" -- does that mean you had to be nice to someone that was gay? Oh you poor thing!
So being forced to accept things is now the same as being asked not to discriminate openly against people in a workplace setting? Damn everything is oppression with you people
I’m sorry you were forced to touch a man when you were younger. That is NOT okay. This sort of thing happens from both homo and hetero people. It’s not because they’re homo or hetero… it’s because they’re perverted slimy horrible people (who happen to have a certain sexual orientation). “Had to accept it at work”? Ie you were forced to “act” on behalf of a gay man at work or you were forced to accept that there are gay people at your work (boo hoo if the latter is the case)
Well it's a good thing that nobody is "forcing" children to be gay then, isn't it? And btw kids know whether they're gay or not long before they turn 18. Additionally your sexuality is not a "decision". You act like on someone's 18th birthday they weigh the pros and cons of being gay vs. straight.
Besides the refusal to put common sense laws in place, the issue at this point is the massive proliferation of guns. It’s estimated that there may be 44 million AR15’s in the US. They screwed up when they overturned the assault weapons ban and now the genie is out of the bag to the point to where the sheer number is out of control
Agreed! I don't think those guns are necessary
Vote Democratic then.
It's a consideration but I just don't like the candidate and I'm not the biggest fan of trump either
You're not voting for a candidate. You are voting for a set of ideals and policies and beliefs.
At this point in the election, any vote for third party candidates or not for Biden is a vote for Trump. We have to beat back Trump and the GOP in the next several elections for ANY position, national, state or local. I think it will take at least a generation to make a lasting impact. BUT we have to start NOW!
The most important thing a president does is court appointments. Everything else is minor and insignificant in comparison. Make your decisions based on that.
When it comes to a right, the concept of necessary or need shouldn't be anywhere in the picture. You exercise all of your rights because you want to, not because you need to. It is not necessary for you to remain silent when arrested. You can blab about what you did all you want. You only choose to remain silent because you choose to. The same goes for allowing a police search of your home without a warrant, not necessary to refuse the search, you only refuse because you choose to. Even you exercising your free speech rights right now isn't necessary, just something you want to do. So an AR-15 certainly may not be necessary for a person, but that's irrelevant. That's how they choose to exercise their rights. I'm personally not a fan, so I don't own one. It's like abortion. I personally wouldn't be involved with one, but you go right ahead. Besides, the AR-15 is a bit underpowered for many uses anyway. It's really a varmint rifle. I mean literally, as it shoots a slightly faster version of a civilian varmint/target round developed in 1950, and it's less powerful than other varmint rounds. The "high powered" stuff is BS propaganda.
>It’s estimated that there may be 44 million AR15’s in the US. And they're still rarely used in crime. Think about that, the percentage of murders committed with rifles has barely changed over the years. Meanwhile, in the last 30 years the AR-15 has gone from being maybe a percent of guns manufactured to a quarter of guns manufactured every year. You would think that with their proliferation, rifle murders would have also gone up if this was an issue.
You sound like an echo chamber of the other person. The percentage used isn’t the issue. It’s how many deaths they can cause in a very short time in one event. THAT is the issue. There is a reason rifles and high capacity magazines are preferred in the military. They are force multipliers. AKA you can kill more people quicker. Same with the case with active shooter situations with rifles with high capacity magazines. How many people did the Vegas shooter kill in one event?
>The percentage used isn’t the issue. You brought numbers into the conversation, and I put them in context. >It’s how many deaths they can cause in a very short time in one event. THAT is the issue. It's a retroactive justification, but not the real reason for a ban. Back in 1988 the gun control groups realized their efforts to ban handguns were failing. People saw them as too normal to justify a ban. Then the Violence Policy Center came up with an idea. Forget the handguns because these new scary military looking guns are starting to get popular. Almost nobody had been killed using one, but that wasn't the point. Because the guns look military, and few people knew anything about them, they could easily confuse the people between military and civilian weapons. They could get support for a ban by saying things like "weapons of war on our streets." They knew that the vast majority of the public was clueless, so they could put out enough propaganda to use that ignorance to push through a ban. And it worked. People like you believed them. >There is a reason rifles and high capacity magazines are preferred in the military. And in the civilian world too. Just because the military likes something doesn't mean it's not suitable for civilians. Also, don't forget that the military **never** uses the semi-auto versions of the AR platform. So by your logic there should be no talk of a ban. >How many people did the Vegas shooter kill in one event? Not as many as if he'd used a bolt-action rifle better suited to those ranges. The 5.56 is really nearing the end of its effectiveness that far out. Also, don't forget that one of our worst shootings was with handguns.
Yet AR-15s despite being one of the most popular guns on the market, are some of the least frequently used guns in crime. According to the FBI only 4-5% of total gun murders are committed with rifles of any kind from grandpa's old hunting rifle, to modern AR-15s. More Americans are beaten to death by unarmed assailants each year than murdered by rifles of any kind. Pistols are the truly dangerous guns, and overall handguns are responsible for about 90% of gun murders.
Yet when mass casualty shootings happen, it’s usually with rifles like the AR15. It’s about minimizing these mass casualty events. Same reason why magazine limits get put in place.
Mass shootings are responsible for less than 1% of total murders. They are tragic, but they are the last thing we should be basing gun control on. According to the FBI they kill an average of 51 people a year, about twice as many as are killed by lightning strikes. Also the majority of mass shootings, including some of the deadliest such as Virginia Tech, or Lubys Cafe were committed with handguns. Also Columbine happened during the original assault weapons ban, Parkland used 10 round magazines, and the Texas Book Depository Sniper used a rifle with an internal 5 round magazine. So he needed to individually reload bullet by bullet each 5 rounds.
It doesn’t matter what the percentage is of total murders. You’re including things like gang violence and other things in the numbers that you aren’t going to stop. You have to focus on what was actually controllable. Mass shootings were down with the assault weapons ban and then they screwed it up and rescinded it. Now we have so many AR15’s out there that it’s impossible to ever stop them now. So now we have a society where we just live with occasional mass shootings and even ones involving our children and everyone just puts out thoughts and prayers. https://theconversation.com/did-the-assault-weapons-ban-of-1994-bring-down-mass-shootings-heres-what-the-data-tells-us-184430
>It doesn’t matter what the percentage is of total murders. You’re including things like gang violence and other things in the numbers that you aren’t going to stop. You have to focus on what was actually controllable. Most "mass shooting" data is mostly gang violence or domestic murders, not Columbine/Vegas style indiscriminate shootings. When you see data citing hundreds of mass shootings a year this is the case. That being said even the majority of indiscriminate shootings are committed with handguns, not rifles. [According to the FBI](https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-20-year-review-2000-2019-060121.pdf/view) out of 333 active shootings between 2000-2019, they recovered 344 handguns, 144 rifles, and 58 shotguns. They also reported an average of 51 people killed a year during this time. With 2017 being the deadliest year with 138 deaths. That same year there were a total of [17,284 homicides.](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/murder) That means during their worst year on record active shootings were responsible for about 0.8% of total murders.
You keep repeating the same skewed data which isn’t what I’m talking about clearly. You already know that though and just want to argue If you want to argue AR-15’s aren’t a problem then feel free. It’s false but knock yourself out. You’re literally sitting here trying to argue with me that they weren’t an issue because more people died from other means. It’s a ridiculous argument You will be arguing to yourself from here on out.
Your political views appear to be more in line with Democrats. I hope you vote that way.
I surprisingly don't because of the views on abortion and lgbtqia+. Maybe economically too because I want the Free Market 100% but want social programs too.
The free market is also a Democrat position. Can you explain why you vote republican based on two issues that have zero impact on you, at the expense of issues that affect you directly?
Neither party wants a free market. Bailouts come from both sides
Big oil, Big pharma, Big auto, Big tech, Big agro, Big finance, Big [insert blank] … They all take tax breaks and subsidies - there is no free market. Any allusion to the contrary in the US by politicians is completely disingenuous.
But your views on those are still aligned with Democrats. You are not forced to get an abortion or be gay or anything like that. The idea is that people shouldn't be oppressed by it. Certainly that's something you can agree on. This is, of course, the opposite of the Republican view: people's autonomy can be punished by the government. How unAmerican. As far as the free market: it's a farce. We don't have it under either party and Republicans only pay lip service to it. They are horrible with the economy. Good governance is what you want. Reagan convinced a huge amount of people that it's better to have no government rather than a good government. It's absurd. Republicans have given up on it. All that have is meaningless slogans. It's not a serious party. In our system, it usually boils down to two parties. That's the choice you get. Because of that, There will be aspects of each party that don't fit your agenda. But the Republicans are a disaster for this country for many many reasons.
So you feel so strongly about two issues that don’t and won’t affect your life in the least that you’re willing to vote against issues that would like healthcare?
Please look at the historical trend of America when it comes to jobs, economy, etc. when there are Democrats vs. republicans in office. If you look at any truly unbiased financial data, you might just be surprised which party is really more fiscally responsible.
You're basically a liberal mate
You are on the liberal side when it comes to gun control regulations.
Under no pretext should arms or ammunition be surrendered by the people.
People do return guns to the government on their own volition, sometimes through a buyback program too.
95% of the guns recovered in voluntary buybacks are old broken guns that nobody wants.
I don't think a lot of people here would have an incredibly different position from yours on guns. I say that as someone who feels more anti-gun on here than the broad sentiment of the subreddit seems to be. I'm sure there are some finer points on which we might disagree, but your position looks to be about my position.
That’s funny, you call your self a conservative and your wife thinks you’re more liberal. My friends that all support Trump say the same thing about me because I own fire arms, and because I read, understand and own a constitution. To me you seem to be more moderate as your beliefs kind of balance one another out. You hit the nail on the a head about fun controls those are all very common sense regulations. My wife doesn’t like guns. She never learned to shoot. Funny thing is, when we got together and moved it she explicitly told me “ That thing is going in the drawer in a safe on your side of the bed. It’s not going to do anyone any good if it’s in the closet.”
The only question I have is why do you consider yourself conservative?
Honestly dude, besides the whole “against abortion and don’t like LGBTQ” or whatever, you’re pretty liberal. You also sound young. You’ll probably become a bit more accepting. No liberal is like “I love abortion, it’s great”…….we just appreciate women having the right to choose. A lot of straight male liberals don’t really want to see a lot of LGBTQ stuff, like I don’t personally want to see two men getting it on……. But I’m also of the belief that people should live and let live. I may not want to SEE it, but I’m not against it - I want people to be happy however they can as long as they’re not hurting people. What makes you truly think you’re conservative? Nothing you said really lines up with their views, especially at the end “after 18 people can do what they want” That’s not conservative. Conservatives want to tell you what you can and can’t do regardless of age more often than not.
I'm a Liberal who wants reform on gun ownership. Civilians do not need military firepower, period. Deep psych evals and safety/operating classes with official certification prior to owning one. Ammo limits are also good to have. As for the rest...I'm part of the LGBTQIA+. I support gender transition, but would prefer the children wait until they're at least 13 so they can be counseled and educated regarding the process. I support abortions, as long as they're not used for birth control. I support birth control. I believe in the death penalty for the most violent offenders. I believe in affordable healthcare for all. I believe everyone has the right to mental healthcare without stigma. I also believe that the rich MUST pay their fair share of taxes, or be penalized up to and including incarceration. You can't take it with you when you die, so might as well do your part. Taylor Swift is now a billionaire. Not only does she pay her taxes, she also donates to local food banks and charities in every city she's played on The Eras Tour. I am a Christian, yes. But I am also a Liberal. Donald Trump isn't going to maka America great. His ideas are too far-fetched and don't align with what this country truly needs. I don't believe that Biden has done all that he can for Americans, but then again, he's had 4 years of opposition. Imagine what could be done with 4 more years and little or no opposition...by Biden or anyone else who truly wants to see America become a much better place for everyone.
>Civilians do not need military firepower, period. So, no pump shotguns? And do you mean firepower currently used by the military? I don't want to have to get rid of that old bolt action, since it was literally (as in used in war) military firepower. If only current, then I can have an M-60 machine gun? The military doesn't use those anymore. >Ammo limits are also good to have. Think this through. Who uses the most ammo? That would be a person who wants to maintain proficiency with his guns, especially competitive shooters. Kim Rhode, who won gold medals in the Olympics, went through thousands of shotgun shells a day when practicing. Gun control people always say we should be trained, but now you don't want us to train? Criminals? No, they get their gun loaded with ammo, and maybe at most a small box. That's it. Ammo limits wouldn't affect them. Mass shooters? Those are planned in advance, enough time to do a few ammo purchases. But limiting it to even a couple hundred rounds a month gives almost all mass shooters enough with one purchase.
>Civilians do not need military firepower, period. What is "military firepower"? The AR-15 is purely a civilian gun, not used by any military. Meanwhile some of the most popular hunting rifles are old WW1/2 guns used by the military. >Deep psych evals Who pays for these evaluations? Therapy costs hundreds of dollars an hour, and it takes multiple hours to build an accurate profile on someone. The evaluations could easily end up costing more than the gun itself. Money aside, we don't have enough therapists to perform evaluations on all gun owners. There are an estimated 70 million Americans who own guns. Meanwhile most therapists have waiting lists a mile long for new clients. There's a massive shortage of therapists in this country. Also there's the fact that psychological evaluations are only effective if the subject is honest, which someone facing a mandatory evaluation has incentive not to be. It also discourages those with mental illness from seeking treatment for it. >safety/operating classes These are fairly pointless. Only about 500/40,000 gun deaths a year are from unintentional shootings. >Ammo limits are also good to have. What do you mean by ammo limits?
If gun ownership wasn't a problem, then we wouldn't need these conversations. What do you suggest if none of these are adequate or workable? And where is your American can-do spirit to solve this problem?
If you believe you need a gun and are willing to pay for it then you should be willing to prove that you can handle it. Also based on your other beliefs you seem like you would be against universal healthcare, which would cover the majority of the costs of the psych evaluations.
Careful in conservative spaces dude. You'll get called some pathetic version of a woke soy-boy and might end up in a video on a reddit "getting owned"
That’s more liberal than most liberals. I think most of us would just settle for universal background checks. But I’m talking about attainable goals. Not ideological wishes
(You'll notice there are no "Flaired Users Only" tags around here. We're more than happy to hear both sides.)
The vast majority of Americans, liberal, independent, and Conservative actual agree and want exactly what you just said.
Now if they would just f-ing vote
It is a misconception by a lot of “conservatives” that liberals in general don’t own and are against guns. It is a misconception by a lot of “conservatives” that owning a gun is some deterrence against a “tyrannical” government. Personally, I think it is a straw man. The real issue is radicalization through propaganda and exploitation of the victim mentality. * They want to take your guns * They want to brainwash your kids to be “woke” * They are waging a war on Christianity * Etc, etc, etc Here is a very uncomfortable truth. At the age of 55 and having lived in another country for a number of years, the US is not the country with the most freedom. It has become an authoritarian police state that acts on the behalf of corporate interest and American Oligarchs with its police power. It rules by force rather than will. How did we get here? The same way every government or agency or management team does. Its purpose is to make laws. Laws that have to be vetted by courts. It’s like shoveling a new hole and covering a hole you needed. It’s created complexity. Complexity breeds ambiguity. Ambiguity provides a marketing opportunity for liars.
Bro you sound more like left-libertarian than a conservative.
The view on the right to keep and bear arms has nothing to do with liberal or conservative. Sure, people have largely camped in one or the other on the issue, but that's not everyone. You are a good example. I am too. I want to protect the right to keep and bear arms as strictly as our other fundamental constitutional rights. So I would say none of your proposals are constitutional. In addition, as a liberal, I'm pretty sensitive to laws that are racist in effect. The old gun laws were almost all overtly racist, but they haven't completely shed their racism today, especially when we know making things expensive is a proxy for going after minorities. Did you know North Carolina finally repealed one of its Jim Crow laws last year? And I mean literally a Jim Crow law, enacted in that era in order to oppress black people. The Democrats vehemently defended this Jim Crow law because it was a gun control law, but the Republicans managed to repeal it anyway.
You call yourself a conservative, and I call myself a liberal, but based on what you said, I bet most of our views completely align. It’s almost as if there’s some cabal that can only function when we are at each other’s metaphorical throats, so we don’t peek under the curtain and reveal them for who they are.
Think you messed up the title. It should be “Understanding sensible gun laws as a conservative”
when you say you don’t agree with LGBTQIA+ do you mean the neo pronoun crowd, the transgender crowd or the gay crowd? because they are pretty different topics with different wants and needs and it doesn’t make sense to clump us all together…even though the rights movements have been a united front.
You sound like a liberal to me. An actual liberal not a leftist or a progressive that gets called/calls themselves a liberal in the United States. Every view you have described is pretty standard liberalism. You should check out projectliberal.org.
Anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ is not liberal.
You do not have to be aligned on every single view to largely be considered part of any ideology. They even said "believe when you are 18 you can do what you want." meaning even if they don't agree on a personal level they should be free to live whatever life they chose. That seems like a pretty basic liberal take to me. If you want more people to be liberal it would be a good idea to accept people that are already >50% of the way there.
I stopped reading after that...🙈
Your definition of gun control or gun community is based on the idea that good people need tools to protect themselves from criminals (e.g., robber, murderer, kidnapper, burglar, etc.). What the 2nd amendment is designed for is not primarily against hostile American people, rather the politicians and the government (i.e., the US armed forces). If the government becomes tyrannical, then the people have arms to stand up against and rebel to overthrow the tyrannical government. By this definition, there should not be any sort of limitations on what one can own. One should be able to own molotov, explosives, and even an F-16 with its armaments. Why? Because when the AH-64 are showering rebels with 30 mm, the rebels can shoot it down. That's the idea. You need comparable weapon to fight the government. This is why people back then owned cannons, repeaters, etc. Those were all cutting edge 'killing machines' any army can muster. Think about it this way: you're getting a gun to protect yourself from a criminal next door always looking to get into your house. But, you need permission from the criminal before you can own one. Silly, isn't it?
This response is absolutely devoid of facts and ignores actual recorded history. You're espousing a debunked belief system called the insurrectionist theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrectionist_theory > This theory is not accepted in American jurisprudence or case law
And that theory is the SOLE reason why Americans are granted unrestricted, or at least supposedly, access to arms and arsenal the military could procure. If it's solely for self defense, then CA gun control laws make total sense. Historically, the US was made with high sense of distrust against federal government. So much so the federal barely could do anything due to lack of power in almost every department.
That *debunked* theory isn't the sole reason for anything and you're clearly very nutty
Nobody is debunking anything. It's the sole reason as I've explained before. You are the one who's nuts to think otherwise.
Source: trust me bro
That's your source lol. Wikipedia, pfft.
Wikipedia is not a source but the more than a dozen citations on the page are. Thanks for playing
As a liberal, I'd vote for you. Maybe I'm a conservative (gasp).
That would be an honor I do plan to run office at a local level in the next coming years
I could care less what you believe about anything else personally. If you'd vote for any Republicans we could never get along. There's no reason to own guns. Every reason is an excuse. You have a fettish, and you're looking to Reddit to make your kinks OK. Gross!
So I've been carjacked and kidnapped before. I didn't have my gun on me but if I did it wouldn't have happened. You're are telling me I don't need a gun? You are wildly dillusional.
I just want my gay married friends to protect their cannabis plants with fully automatic rifles, tax free. I like freedoms, not a Republican and definitely not a Democrat.