The Americas TFW Liberal gun owner

[Tzeentchean Perspective]

Decisions, Decisions: It's Not Easy Being a Liberal Gun Owner in an Election Year - The Truth About Guns

&#9664Previous Post Next Post▶ By Lisa Marie Pane, AP Like many liberals, Lara Smith considers herself a feminist, favors abortion rights and believes the nation’s immigration policies under the Trump administration have just been “vile.” But when it comes to guns, Smith sounds more like a...

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Liberal gun owners face dilemma in 2020 field

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Like many liberals, Lara Smith considers herself a feminist, favors abortion rights and believes the nation’s immigration policies under the Trump administration have just been “vile.” But when it comes to guns, Smith sounds more like a conservative: She opposes reviving the...

apnews.com

Like many liberals, Lara Smith considers herself a feminist, favors abortion rights and believes the nation’s immigration policies under the Trump administration have just been “vile.”



But when it comes to guns, Smith sounds more like a conservative: She opposes reviving the nation’s assault weapons ban, enacting red-flag laws or creating a registry of firearms. The 48-year-old California lawyer owns a cache of firearms, from pistols to rifles such as the AR-15.


Smith and liberal gun owners like her face a quandary as voting in the Democratic primary intensifies with Super Tuesday next week. They are nervous about some of the gun control measures the Democratic candidates are pushing and are unsure who to trust on this issue.


“You’re alienating a huge part of your constituency,” Smith says of the Democratic field’s gun proposals. “You have a huge constituency that is looking for something different and when you are talking about restricting a right which is so different than everything else you talk about, you are being anti-liberal.”


Gun owners have long been seen as a solidly Republican voting bloc, but there are millions of Democrats who own firearms, too.


Many of them are feeling increasingly disillusioned by their party as it lurches toward the left on the Second Amendment, but they’re also wary of President Donald Trump for a variety of reasons: his conservative leanings but a track record in office that has led to several gun restrictions, such as the banning of bump stocks.


An estimated 23 percent of Democrats nationally lived in households with guns in 2018, according to the General Social Survey, which is conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. And roughly 20 percent of gun owners — about 12 million people — identify as liberal, according to results from survey between 2014 and 2018. More than a third describe themselves as moderates while just under 45 percent call themselves conservatives.


The liberals who are opposed to gun control are at odds with a broader trend among Democrats when it comes to tougher firearms restrictions. According to polling by Gallup last year, 88 percent of Democrats said laws governing firearm sales should be made more strict, up from 77 percent in 2015 and 63 percent in 2010.

Of course, these people aren't going to flip for the party that they feel doesn't represent the broad majority of their interests anytime soon, but in that case, the question is how much can they be doing to sway their fellow democrats to a less harsh stance on guns? The articles mentions the guy who started his self-defense course, but that's just educating people on a local level. Couldn't these people organize for the goal of electing gun-friendly candidates in state and congressional offices or work as advisors for politicians? The fact that Biden is still rambling about the dangers of "50-clip magazines" indicates that it's an untapped field. How about donating to groups that are challenging state restrictions in court?
Note how the article only talks about Liberal gun owners without mentioning armed far left groups. Seems like a critical omission, doesn't it?
As for the first person's complaints about immigration policy, well, recall that Washington compost article from 2015 saying "The NRA will fall. It's inevitable, just look at demographics." That's what some people on your side are gunning for. So either work to change minds or admit that it's time to stop looking the other way.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Note how the article only talks about Liberal gun owners without mentioning armed far left groups. Seems like a critical omission, doesn't it?

Those Armed Far Left Groups are eventual enforcers or people they don’t necessarily like mentioning to be violent or even be armed

That said, these Liberal Gun Owners are gonna have to give their guns up soon, all they need is to follow social pressure from the rest of the Anti-Gun Liberals

A few accusations of fascism and being pro-child murder should do the trick

 

[Bear Ribs]

There's a giant elephant in the room for liberal gun rights and it's name is Michael Bloomberg.

Gun rights have historically been largely bipartisan, with it perhaps being slightly right-leaning due to Democrats like Brady campaigning against guns, but mostly across the lanes. Bloomberg, however, is possibly the most rabidly anti-gun politician in the country and also one of the biggest donors, and has made gun control a litmus test: Democrats who don't hate guns enough don't get funded. At the local level, where Bloomberg's money doesn't trickle down, you'll find plenty of Democratic candidates who support gun rights. Once you get to the level that the DNC takes notice, however, Bloomberg's money ensures that only anti-gun candidates are allowed. You can see this in places like Virginia right now, where 2.5 million dollars of Bloomberg's money went in and gun control so unpopular the entire state is in an uprising over it came out.

So unfortunately no, you can't elect gun friendly candidates to the state and congressional level, once you get above county level the money from New York causes the DNC to swing the banhammer at your gun-loving candidate, no matter how electable and how much the people support them.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Wait, why exactly are these Liberal Gun Owners immune or resistant to accusations of possibly being mass shooters?

 

[prinCZess]

Once you get to the level that the DNC takes notice, however, Bloomberg's money ensures that only anti-gun candidates are allowed. You can see this in places like Virginia right now, where 2.5 million dollars of Bloomberg's money went in and gun control so unpopular the entire state is in an uprising over it came out.

Also visible even in the presidential candidates this time around. He didn't gain much traction, but Steve Bullock of Montana had to walk-back earlier close ties he had with gun-rights groups and come out in favor of an assault-weapons ban...And Bernie Sanders, even more-so and certainly much more loudly than he did in 2016, has needed to reverse course, condemn or hedge around his previous (sane) gun policies and ideas in the face of criticism, and tout his 'D-' rating from the NRA* like some kind of badge of courage and/or aegis in his defense.

Bloomberg funding might be more distant there since they're his competition (though he wasn't actively in the race until lately, so probably bore some consideration), but the close ties of urban elitism and control the Democrats have erected (ironically while talking-up the need for community decision-making, and 'power to the people') and widespread ignorance much of their urban constituency unfortunately has in regards to firearms makes it into a neutral to actively winning issue for them--there was no electoral danger to Bloomberg alienating the New York City firearms community while he was mayor, minority ethnicity or not, because of longstanding policies by previous politicians at the city and state level that have had the impact of driving down firearms-ownership rates and effectively neutering over time any ownership or knowledge in the majority of individuals.

That combined with proud ignorance on the topic on some peoples part and decades of knee-jerk propagandizing over the perpetual need to 'do something for the children' that bases around the most recent tragedy instead of much any statistical reality (and invents statistics as necessary to address the 'public health crisis') and you get the modern, very thoroughly neutered, 'liberal gun club' that is an eviscerated and disliked minority among most of the Democrat party.

Which, to tie back into the point and to Bloomberg, is largely tied with the technocratic, urban impulses of the modern majority of the Democrat party, and its a consensus that gets monetary and electoral pushback on a national or notable-enough state level (Vermont senators and MT governors might get away with some bucking of the party...But Presidential candidates or others won't). An impetus that, ironically enough, sees more notable or effective push-back from the further-left varieties of communists and such who, much as their politics and rhetoric might mirror the 'Wolverines!'-yelling mad libertarians in Wisconsin compounds, at least maintain some consistency in that realm of advocating more community decision-making and 'power to the people' reality.

If anything, it'd be curious to track how the War on Drugs and the crime-wave of the 70s-80s (and the Civil Rights Movement of the previous decade) normalized or expanded illiberal in the traditional sense positions on gun rights within both parties--Southern Democrats obviously battled the access of blacks to arms, 'law and order' rhetoric from folks like Nixon winked-and-nodded at the same end goal in the name of fighting crime, and then things came full circle as the illiberal elements came back to Joe Blow the white, rural hunter-man in the late-80s and early-90s because black plastic guards and handguns (which a person had just tried to assassinate a president with! Crisis, crisis, crisis!) were too much.

*I'd note the NRAs politicization of this rating system (and politicization in favor of Republicans in general) is also a problem from the opposite end of things, but that's a bit of a digression that spirals into a game of whether the alienation happened before or after their trending in favor of one party.

Note how the article only talks about Liberal gun owners without mentioning armed far left groups. Seems like a critical omission, doesn't it?

I can't tell if you're being facetious 'because internet' and I've been writing papers all afternoon, but to flatly answer the question it isn't especially, it's just indicative of the media being really bad at reporting on guns. They have a tendency never to be as relatively even-handed as they are here in regards to any other groups of gun owners, which they usually present as extremists of one crazy rightie stripe or another (see the recent cock-up of Virginia protest-reporting).
I'd say that's largely also the result of most media corporations and journalists themselves who report on guns being products of the above-mentioned urban environment that has spent decades making guns into scary totems of evil and crime.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

So wait, the ANTIFA(non-black-bloc)&Black Panthers who were with the Rural Virginians don’t count as Leftists anymore?

 

[Cherico]

So wait, the ANTIFA(non-black-bloc)&Black Panthers who were with the Rural Virginians don’t count as Leftists anymore?

The democratic parties big tent is too big with too many conflicting desires and ideals some people were going to be ejected at some point no mater what. If they win 2020 they can continue to paper over it if they lose the knives come out and which ever fraction headed that loss gets all of the blame during the fight.

Which is another reason why I hope the business dems don't get their guy this year. I want either the socialists or the woke crowd to be the ones holding the bag and getting the blame.