You are making my point for me... we are in a chicken and egg logical beat down...
I'm saying before all the culture of "OMG THEY ARE TAKING MY GUNS" (pardon my exaggeration, im trying to clarify. People just owned guns, one, two... with the few that would have a lot more than the average.
In today's culture... the US vs THEM we have sides arguing for the extremes. We have a side who is literally fighting to have their constitutional rights taken from them, which is ridiculous and we have a side that is stock piling AR-15s and Pastors making videos about how the bible tells them that its OK to use his 45 caliber seeds of Freedom on a bastard if he tries anything on him, while he drives his kids to school with loaded guns in the car and screaming Hallelujah.
Look up Josh Fuerstein, the pastor and my point will become clear.
What happened to balance? What happened to nuance? Why can't we de-escalate this debate that is just making us, the citizens fight ourselves?
for sure, the gun law issue is a manufactured political wedge issue, exactly like abortion, designed to divide people along political lines. Abortion was not really a debate until the 70s either. Back in the day in America, here in MA, the law required a man to carry a gun to church.
We can't have balance, nuance or common sense because the Democrats and their media are trying to win the 2018 midterms based on ginning up support for gun control. It is sad. I would love to get rid of the racist gun laws in my state, like most states have, and never have to debate gun control again because there were no proposals to restrict guns.
We can always tell which side of these issues is wrong, it is the side that wants to ban something.
Oh listen... Democrats, Republicans to me they are both polished turds that stand for nothing, but shine none the less.
Our government is nothing but a facade for corporate interests, and the corporations that run this country tell our governing agencies what to do, what not to do and how to pretend we the people are in control.
The over reach of this government is not a new thing, its been creeping up for decades... this whole, let us protect you from the things that you will do to yourself if we don't protect you.. is as logical as baby proofing a jungle.
But the trick Bobby... at least in my opinion is that we, I don't necessarily mean you and I, but for the sake of argument, lets put us as examples. We ought to be astute to have these conversations with those who are still believing in the Red vs Blue Fabricated Dichotomy. So that they, can look at facts and think for themselves and not fall into tribalisms that belong to times long, long gone.
Its we the people, not donkeys vs elephants, red vs blue... that is all bullcrappings..
on other issues I would agree with you, on this issue the lines have been drawn pretty clearly, the democrats are openly anti gun rights and the republicans openly for them. Blue Democrat states still retain racist Jim Crow era "may issue" permitting schemes and every Red Republican state acknowledged that those schemes are discriminatory and racist and did away with them.
I would grant you this, If I believed the Republicans did that from their bottom of their hearts and their commitment to truth and self governance.. To me, its all part of the "keep them divided" game...
They flip flop all the time, dems becomes reps, reps become dems... if you can show me a career politician that has been consistent in their values, I will eat my words, have not found a single one.... and boy have I looked.
Meaning, your assessment is accurate, but its skin deep.
The cows get fed good grass, so that they get fat and the meat is more expensive, not because the farmers love them.
They are gun owners too, they care just as much about their guns as you and I do. It gets press when someone switches parties but most stay the same throughout their careers. I could care less about what their motivations are, in their states the laws around this are non discriminatory and in those they don't they are not.
If anything it's the democrats whose heart is not in it, and maybe that is why they lose most of the time on the federal level, a lot of them are gun owners too.
If you don't own guns then your have an experience of guns that comes only from TV movies and games. That creates an irrational fear of guns. If you do own them you have a very different experience of them from what is on TV. This is where a lot of the divide comes from.
There is a large population that is conditioned to have an irrational fear of guns because they know them mostly as a plot element. Anti civil rights activists and politicians play on those irrational fears.
This is key to understand... to not allowing them to manipulate us.
I'm personally disgusted with our political system... I see no future with its current structure, the bad cop, good cop thing got really old for me.
Republicans want to save the world, and Democrats want to save us from the evil republicans... to me its all a lie, fabricated fight.
I'm not a fan of trump, not in the slightest, but i dont want him to get impeached. I want him to finish his mandate. I would love to see some independent Politicians go up the ranks, people who understand nuance, who don't use "fear" as a token of manipulation.
But, because I believe in living in the real world is important to my personal sanity. I will not hold my breath...
*edit I was replying to someone else
I don't trust Trump and I didn't vote for him but he sure beats the hell out of the alternative, if she won and got to appoint 3 justices we could kiss the 1st 2nd 5th and 14th amendment rights goodbye.
She had democrats cheering at the convention the idea of amending the first amendment.
I'll give you a philosophical Karate Chop Style Question of the Ninja level Degree...
Can one side be wrong, for the right reasons... or at least with the right intention?
Hence the conundrum... I try to have these conversations with people on the fringes, I get attacked because they think I oppose them, I don't... I'm an advocate for balance.
sure, everyone has good intentions, the road to hell is paved with them. The problem here is that when you introduce the word "balance" into a debate about personal liberty, when politicians do that "balance" always means "take away".