|
Crowsbeak posted:Actually more of them vote democrat then Republicans. The problem is most don't vote at all. In part I would argue because no one (except right now with Trump) ever even tries to communicate with them. Yeah some of their antipathy is racism, but most of all its that no one reaches out to them. Period. Everyone tells them to get in debt and go to college. Well why should they want to get into debt for ten years. They want jobs, they want good pay, and they want their jobs to be appreciated. Actually appreciated and not just be written off. Which becomes a real problem when given the impression that the Democratic party agenda is at the behest of the big dollar campaign contributors, making the poor demographic even more alienated.
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2016 19:45
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 22, 2024 06:55 |
|
|
punk rebel ecks posted:I understand the point of banning assault rifles is to prevent mass shooting. But yeah this too. Except the part where actual legally owned assault rifles haven't been used in a mass shooting in almost a century now, and even scare-quotes Assault Weapons are used in a number of yearly murders that isn't even a statistical wobble compared to handguns. The assault weapons ban attempts get roundly poo poo on as both ineffective and coming from a view on firearms that has everything to do with Hollywood and nothing to do with reality. The national push for it also turbo fucks the downticket races in the vast majority of the country that is used to guns and doesn't want to give then up for the abstract benefit of maybe reducing murder rates in dense uran centers somehow. It gives the GOP an easy lever to win at the local level. Contrary to what seems to be national DNC policy, it's really goddamn hard to hold Congress if you write off the entire rural population before you even start campaigning. It's how shitlords like Steve King and Joanie Ernst get elected in Iowa and stay in office. Edit : cleaned up autocorrect errors Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Feb 7, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Feb 7, 2016 23:30
|
|
|
Pretty much. I vote almost straight ticket Dem these days because I agree with them on a bunch of social and economic issues, but every politician I see cry crocodile tears about assault weapons loses a ton of credibility in my eyes because they are not dumb enough to actually believe their easily falsifiable rhetoric. President Obama trotting out families who lost people for press events and then throwing a tantrum when Congress refused to pass yet another bill the SCOTUS would just shoot down lost him a lot of my respect for the sheer amount of public goodwill and resources he burned on it right before midterms. Midterms the GOP and Tea Party specifically made huge gains in.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 8, 2016 05:28
|
|
|
The two party system is never going to leave American politics unless a large faction the big donors decide that the party isn't giving them enough head and fund a new party. Even the Tea Party, for all that it made strong gains among the GOP, couldn't afford to compete against them on the national stage as a third party.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 8, 2016 16:51
|
|
|
Xand_Man posted:While I am not thrilled by the idea, some gains might be made by using the Right's rhetoric against them. "The real problem is poor mental healthcare in this country!" "Yeah, you know what, you are right. Let's pass comprehensive mental healthcare reform. " Precisely.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 8, 2016 22:12
|
|
|
Difference being that it's a lot easier for the GOP to turn out the vote when the opposing platform can honestly be portrayed as an attempt to curtail constitutional rights. I've never understood why the Democrats haven't pushed that angle on things like the Patriot Act... oh, wait, it's because they voted for it.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2016 02:30
|
|
|
gobbagool posted:Making laws that are ignored, and everybody recognizes that they are ignored, like the NYS SAFE Act, does nothing to help the rule of law, but rather makes an entire class of otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals. Funny that the SAFE Act only resulted in a few thousand registered "assault weapons" out of the 1-2 million estimated to exist in NYS. To your point exactly, Andrew Cuomo attempted to outlaw magazines that held more than 7 bullets in the process, effectively rendering useless every single modern sporting rifle in the state. Now, did he do that out of ignorance, or malice? My guess is, the deep thinkers of the administration wanted to keep the existing limit of 10 rounds, but Cuomo, being half the politician his father was, with twice the mouth, arbitrarily declared 7 a better number than 10 and went on tv and had a Howard Dean-esque meltdown about killing deer. Yet here we are, 2+ years later, stuck with the stupid SAFE act that everybody is ignoring, but it's still on the books. He'll continue to get re-elected in NYS because he holds the correct opinions on BLM and Abortion, but that's as much because the Republican party barely exists here any more. Don't forget the original SAFE act was so incompetently written that it failed to exempt police and military members posessing 'high capacity' magazines in the performance of their duties.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2016 21:57
|
|
|
Jarmak posted:The worst part is that the mag size bans are actually the most sane of these policies. I can actually understand (though not necessarily agree) with wanting to ban civilian firearms with detachable box magazines. For 10 years we had federal legislation banning firearms on the grounds of things like bayonet lugs and flash suppressors. Yes, which was one of the most embarrassingly useless federal firearms restrictions ever, and was allowed to sunset with little fanfare because it accomplished nothing . The AWB is absolutely not what you want to model any effective gun control policy off of, because it was purely about scary looking cosmetics. Regarding 'box magazines', you do realize that you are appealing to an effective ban on 90% of pistols and rifles developed in the last century, yes? Other than 1800's era tube fed rifles, revolvers, most shotguns, and the rare few break action rifles, the vast majority of firearms use a detachable box magazine. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Feb 9, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2016 22:09
|
|
|
gobbagool posted:I wonder when we'll see the first mass killing with a mosin, bayonet affixed. 100% SAFE Act legal! We already had a couple shooting up with California-compliant guns last year.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2016 22:43
|
|
|
Jarmak posted:yes, I do, I wasn't advocating it, I was simply stating it at least targeted a feature that actually made sense from a "limit mass shooting capability" standpoint. At the end of the day, mass shootings are a terrible thing to base sweeping gun laws on in the first place. They are the rarest of firearms crimes, and are generally committed by perpetrators whose plans are only obvious in hindsight, and for whom only mass confiscation of all privately owned firearms would really stand as a preventative measure. Most of them have clean backgrounds and no reason to be denied on a background check, or obtain their weapons (as the Sandy Hook killer did) via murder and theft.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2016 22:49
|
|
|
Jarmak posted:I'm not sure why you're arguing with me I'm not really, just going into detail because not spelling things out when discussing guns even peripherally in D&D is like a bat signal for shitposters.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2016 23:01
|
|
|
Jarmak posted:Wait when did gun owners become not only solely white people but solely rich white people? Common Sense. Seriously, this condescending 'if only you were sensible ' crap is why I am positive the party will never stop sticking their collective genitals in a mouse trap on this issue. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Feb 11, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2016 00:25
|
|
|
Guns are one of those issues where anyone with a knowledge base beyond 'watched Rambo a bunch' picks up pretty quickly on legislators who apparently have never even seen a gun trying to write laws about one.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2016 04:25
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:So what? Most legislators have never seen a joint either and anti-drug laws are often lovely, doesn't mean drug laws are inherently illegitimate and we should start selling cocaine over the counter. And drug laws actually affect a lot more people a lot more negatively than gun control laws - as gun control opponents often point out, most gun owners wouldn't be affected by the various gun type restrictions that get proposed anyway. Holding up drug laws a a shining example of how other goods should be handled is pretty reprehensible for a progressive.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2016 11:50
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:
Why yes, I agree that in some parallel dimension where legislators did their research and wrote fact-based laws rather than trying to outdo each other in a race to be more ideologically pure and not 'contaminate' themselves with knowledge of their subject matter, they could write effective laws. On the other hand, the last 100 years of drug and alcohol laws, from Prohibition onwards. If you're going to defend a purely pie-in-the-sky stance, please indicate that so we can tell the difference between it and observable reality.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2016 19:11
|
|
Just because many of our current drug laws are flawed doesn't mean that the concept of laws regulating and restricting drugs is inherently illegitimate and that all drug laws should be repealed forever.
|
Main Paineframe posted:I guess you're right and we should completely repeal all currently-existing firearms laws - and, while we're at it, all other laws as well, since as you've pointed out, it's fundamentally impossible for legislators to write "effective" laws. Yes because 'legislators should not regulate a good without sufficient research to have a basic understanding of what they are seeking to regulate' really means 'anarchy in the UK'. There is plenty of hyperbole to go around, but attempting to paint opposing opinions as caricature is not a very effective means of discussion.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2016 01:10
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:That's a good reason to be against individual, specific gun control proposals - but it's a very bad reason to be against the very idea of gun control. Likewise, just because we have some bad drug laws doesn't mean the government is fundamentally incapable of regulating substances. This is, I note, why I have never suggested a blanket ban and repeal on all gun laws. Much of what we have on the books works, and would work better if the BATFE and DOJ would do their duty and actually enforce it. I suspect you get the impression that I am, though, because I do not subscribe to the present narrative that disarming the populace and abrogating their (as we keep being reminded by the GOP) Constitutionally protected rights is either Common Sense or invariably a good thing regardless of the details.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2016 08:40
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:Polls I've seen suggest the number is closer to 3/4ths, and the second part of your statement is straight-up horseshit. Since when did outright making poo poo up become acceptable in D&D? Lol you're convinced the base will rally more for gun control than social issues. And we wonder why the last midterms were a charnel house for the Dems.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 14, 2016 07:30
|
|
|
VitalSigns posted:And yet that endorsement was more powerful than facts, since Obama doesn't want to ban guns either but that didn't stop ammo from selling out at his reelection as the Republicans and the NRA convinced everybody that he was secretly plotting to anyway. Somehow I don't think the same would have happened if the guy with a record of gun control but with an R next to his name had gotten the job. President Obama pushed for an Assault Weapons Ban in TYOL 2015, after a decade of previous AWB had precisely no measurable effect on shootings, and in point of fact rifles of all types (scary black rifles and your graddaddy's 30-30 inclusive) are used in 262 homicides in 2014, a number down 283 in 2014 and down from 393 at the point the AWB sunsetted in 2004. That was the centerpiece of his big push for Sensible Gun Control after Sandy Hook. At that point you have to go with the President -wanting- to ban guns that are statistically very unlikely to be used in crime out of either fear or a desire to punish gun owners, or with the idea that the President is so poorly informed on the issue or ill educated in statistics that he actually thinks this will be an effective measure to reduce homicides. enraged_camel posted:They don't do it "for the hell of it." They do it because gun ownership has resulted in many tragedies that could have been avoided or at least mitigated. No one wants to have their children massacred in school. You want to save the lives of schoolchildren, brush up your statistical abilities and then go after cars and swimming pools. Either one is close to order of magnitude more likely to kill a schoolchild than a firearm. Hell, if you want to make a real difference, push to make universal vaccination mandatory before the old childhood diseases make a full comeback and we start seeing kids with polio again.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2016 03:44
|
|
|
VitalSigns posted:Yeah this is the kind of conspiracy-theory poo poo I'm talking about. The president doesn't hate and want to punish gun owners: the reason the assault weapons ban focuses on stupid poo poo because it's an appeal to sport shooters and hobbyists that leaves the stuff they care about legal and focuses on cosmetic tacticlol crap. It's a pretty great deal for anyone who wants guns for serious purposes, it only pisses off people who think they need collapsible buttstocks to defend freedom from Obama's black panther NWO forces, unfortunately the Republicans have decided to appeal to those people and gun manufacturers found they could make a lot of money by selling gun ownership as a personal identity. The AWB doesn't appeal to sport shooters worth a drat. Maybe you're not aware, but the AR-15 platform includes several of the most popular shooting sports guns currently on the market. It's a huge seller, and given that several hundred thousand of them are manufactured a year versus, again less than 300 homicides, not exactly a standout for regulation.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2016 05:16
|
|
|
Chomskyan posted:I makes perfect sense for the Democrats to double down on gun laws. Gun laws are extremely popular among the Democratic base, popular among independents, and split the Republican base. I like how your metric for support of gun laws is a survey question so vague as to be completely useless.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2016 08:55
|
|
|
The Insect Court posted:No. Arguing with gun nuts is like arguing with creationists, you are never going to change their 'minds' because their positions are not based on the rational analysis of evidence. At least one poll has been posted that shows that gun control is a winning issue, the usual bad faith/insane arguments against it were thrown against the wall to see if any would stick. Bonus question: If someone posted a poll showing strong support for a generic loosening of gun laws, how many of the gun nuts would reject it because it was not specific enough in its wording? Seriously. Show me some statistics that make an AWB 'sensible', since I can't seem to find anything beyond 'ivory tower Dems are terrified of scary black plastic rifles'. The numbers don't support it. smg77 posted:Barring some magic supreme court ruling that fixes gerrymandering this is the only solution. As usual all the gunchat is a distraction. That's the whole point of this argument. The whole issue is poison, as seen here with the vicious infighting among a mostly staunchly Dem crowd, with effectively zero chance of doing anyone but the opposition any good or achieving its stated goals of reducing homicides. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Feb 16, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2016 01:29
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Do you have any evidence that Democrats would control the house if they decided to abandon their base on this issue and all become devout anti-regulation advocates? Do you have any evidence that their base supports any of their chosen policy beyond the mostly-bipartisan suggestion of background checks, in any but the vaguest terms?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2016 01:38
|
|
|
They could probably start with where they lost the trade unions, and why the unions are so much diminished in scope and strength over their previous selves. Making the Democratic party's image that of the party supporting blue-collar labor and fair wages would probably be a strong step. It would require the party leadership actually give them more than token nods while pursuing their own pet agendas, though.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2016 01:48
|
|
|
Chomskyan posted:Maybe union members have high levels of gun ownership. This still ignores the fact that most gun owners favor stricter gun laws Cites or it didn't happen. Mind you, I can psychically predict that your cite is once again another so vague as to be completely useless survey running questions like 'do you think it should be harder for criminals to get guns illegally'.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2016 01:51
|
|
|
Holy poo poo, you actually posted a poll that directly addressed policy. Cudos to you! I mean, half of it is just an affirmation, as it is already law, and I'd be very curious as to what the respondents to the other half think currently stands as far as firearm sales without a run through the NICS system. But it's definitely an improvement! 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) : "[i]t shall be unlawful for any person . . . who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence . . . to possess in or affecting commerce any firearm or ammunition."
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2016 02:08
|
|
|
As desperate as you are to not talk about the elephant in the room, it's where we stand. This conversation is what kills the Dems on downticket elections.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2016 07:32
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 22, 2024 06:55 |
|
|
Maoist Pussy posted:Of course there are. But economic issues can be nebulous and poor whites have no reason to trust anyone. Gun control, however, is a clear indication of "gently caress YOU, REDNECK". Exactly. Screaming about the need for gun bans in the face of the SCOTUS's ongoing series of 'gently caress OFFS' to such bans is very, very clear to much of the hobbyist populace as a direct statement that they have no home in the Democratic Party. And then we wonder why the rural poor, who have much to gain economically and in terms of quality of life from progressive policies, are so often unflinchingly hostile to the party.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2016 02:50
|
|