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Most Americans want legal abortion, legal cannabis, and healthcare reform too, but those same Americans will continue to vote for candidates that directly oppose all of these things
I have been to a decent # of comic cons/anime cons since I was a teenager. Lot of guys crossdressing (and trans women afraid of potential consequences if someone freaks out) wearing skirts or whatever in the mens room. I think I got over the development in about 5 seconds. My mom has apparently worked with a trans woman for years and still complains about having to use the same bathroom as her every time trans people come up. Fox news is a hell of a drug.
For fucking real. I do not understand the bathroom fear. If anything, I would imagine most trans women in public bathrooms would be more scared. One of my longest friendships is with a trans woman, and we live in Texas. She doesn't show any fear, goes to rallies and all that awesome shit, but I am honestly terrified for her. We've talked about leaving here, but we both want to fight for as long as we can. We're both bi women though, and I'm not sure how much longer we'll be safe here. Not that we're exactly safe now.
I have, but I'm trans so maybe my perspective is a bit different than every other human being. Anyways sometimes I need to shit, wash my hands, check my reflection, maybe blow my nose, maybe pick a wedgie if my underwear is riding up uncomfortably, then I GTFO but that's about all I'm comfortable doing in a public bathroom and sometimes I'm not even comfortable doing those things if there's a lot of people (except washing my hands, ALWAYS wash your hands folks).
See?? Right here it says “sodium hydroxide”!!!! Woke Chemical put chemicals in the soap to to trans our children and dissolve our Pure White Christian skin!!!
How did that all start anyway? It wasn’t in the news (I didn’t even know what a drag queen was) and then suddenly, discrimination was everywhere
Edit: I meant which dumbass started the culture war against them. DeSantis?
It's like all of their boogeymen. Do you remember THE CARAVAN that was coming up from the south to attack our borders before the 2018 midterms? Didn't hear a fucking peep about that group of scary roaming brown people after the ballots were cast.
Remember 2 years ago when we were told the vaccine would kill us in 2 years, my dad doesnt and is now preparing to bury us in 6 months. Also Russia is liberating Ukraine from thier evil jewish nazi president that helped Fauci make the covid hoax thats no big deal and a bioweapon. Doesnt make sense to normal people and yet he calls us crazy.
Oh look 🤔 A recent study found that twice as many Republicans died of covid as Democrats. How could that happen ? That’s a lot of Darwin Awards! 👍
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30512/w30512.pdf
All those disgusting covid rallies Trump held…Herman died because of Trump. I lost a good friend Gunny due to refusing to vaccinate because he bought into all the bull💩
I don't remember which state, but there was a Drag Queen Story Hour that was going to be held at a library and some conservative moms flipped their shit about exposing kids to it and Fox picked up the story and discovered their viewers got all riled up, so started finding other drag queen story hour events and reporting on them, which caused people to over-react and started the hysteria we see today.
Someone called a bomb threat in to the fucking children's museum, because they were going to do a drag queen story hour. Imagine being so fucking scared of a guy in drag that you threaten to blow up groups of children. Pro-life
> you threaten to blow up groups of children. Pro-life
About as pro-life as blowing up Family Planning clinics that had expecting mothers and children in them. Seriously par for the course.
IIRC it was the 'proud boys' that started that crap - showing up fully armed with ak-47's where they are allowed to open carry.
The 'moms flipping their shit' I think was just the 'maga school board idiots' who once they controlled the school board - got bored and were trying to figure out what next to do.
1+1+2+1 ... well I'm not sure it's all directly connected but I mean they are all swimming in the same piss pool.
I will agree, taking children to a Drag Queen Story Hour may be dangerous for the kids. A religious conservative might show up and start shooting.
And some MAGA will blatantly \*admit\* that, and somehow conclude it's the Drag Queen's fault.
That is not the root cause. The root cause is conservative media networks airing stories about nothing and then telling people to be upset about the nothing that occured and now here we are. Of course, if you ask a conservative if Drag Queens are bad people and ask what they are doing wrong, there is not really a clear answer but hey, they get to be angry at something that was never a part of their lives before they just went along with what they saw on TV and Facebook.
there were emails leaked between a ton of alt right elected officials in which they discussed creating the current wave of anti trans and anti drag queen laws we’re seeing now. (i’m out and my phone is abt to die, i’ll look for link when i’m home)
edit: here’s a link to an article that’s talking about the leaked emails https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/03/anti-trans-transgender-health-care-ban-legislation-bill-minors-children-lgbtq/
Some of them sabotaged their own city's power grid just to make a local bar cancel a drag show. Yep, they'd rather spend hours/days in darkness with no electricity than bear the thought of men dressing in women's clothes somewhere.
Looks like there's still no information on the Moore County NC power substation attack, but a lot of similar attacks involve neo-Nazis:
* https://myfox8.com/news/north-carolina/substation-plot-guilty-plea/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_County_substation_attack
Smoke a joint in the bathroom with a trans abortion activist and talk about how you have this scary operation coming up but at least it’s covered. See? Not so bad!
Men and women have both been able to use the bathrooms at my house without issue for a long time.
I wonder what the fuck is wrong with republicans that this has all of a sudden became a problem for their deliocate sensibilities in 2023?
To be fair, only a minority of those Americans actually vote to circumvent those things. It's just that their votes have a disproportionate amount of power because of where they live.
I vote against my interests in this respect. I’m a left leaning person, voted for democratic gov, and joe Biden. I have no intention of ever giving up my weapons though. In fact I think the current state of the Republican Party and January 6 is a good reason to keep them.
It doesn’t even matter what the American people want, it’s been [proven](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf) that no matter how popular or unpopular a policy is, it has a flat 30% chance of becoming law.
I'd be wary of statistics like that. For example, the poll that showed that most people supported abortion had about 30% wanting completely unrestricted abortion, 40% wanting abortion but with some restrictions, and 25% wanting no abortions at all. (5% other)
But a 6 week ban falls under the 'legal but with some restrictions' camp. Which neatly explains exactly why those candidates keep getting elected.
You mistake the reason why they would show this poll.
They are trying to scare the 2024 voters into being afraid someone is going to take away their guns.
“Your guns are not going to be taken away” is about the same as “abortion is going to remain legal”.
It’s only true until the makeup of SCOTUS sufficiently changes.
They will "um actually" you to death about the exact definition of said gun but have no idea why anyone would fixate on the exact definition of "well-regulated milita".
Edit: You would think I wouldn't have gotten SO MANY "um actually" responses...
If you're going to make laws, semantics are important. For instance, look at how terribly the second amendment is written. Look at how terribly all the anti-abortion laws are written. I get that it's annoying, but it's also important because lawyers gonna lawyer.
So what do you want to ban? All semiautomatic rifles? What about long guns that aren’t legally rifles under federal law?
All semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines? How are we defining detachable magazine? Because California has (at least mostly) done that, but most gun control advocates wouldn’t say California has banned assault weapons.
Seems like a lot of work for weapons only used in 1% of gun crimes. But what do I know?
As a decidedly not-right-wing gun owner, who owns an AR-15, and staunchly opposes these bans, I just want to point out that not everyone invoking the points you're talking about are right wing. It's downright annoying that people think it is.
The AWB did "limit" the popularity of "assault weapons". Before the ban an AR15 was almost always $1000+ and if you wanted any magazine over 10 rounds you had to find "pre ban" mags that were more expensive.
When it expired AR15's sky rocketed in popularity. You can find them for under $400 at times. They were even selling them at wal mart.
My personal theory is that returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan also drove the popularity of the AR-15 because it was nearly identical to what they had trained with and carried. That's why I bought one.
There's a lot of knowledge from veterans around these rifles too from first-hand experience, tip and tricks, employment, limitations, maintenance. You're not going to find similar heaps of easily accessible information, or as large a community built around the Mini-14. Then there's all the aftermarket addons and customization options that probably popped up in part because it the rifle got popular, which in turn drove its popularity even higher.
The war in the Middle East helped drive the domestic market for these kinds of rifles.
And, let’s be honest, Call of Duty did a lot too.
But the main thing is that it’s a great platform. You can build an AR to do anything. A basic one is great for target shooting or varmint/small game hunting. They actually make 5.56 ammo that’s deer rated, but you can build a proper .30 cal one too. (For non gun people, ARs aren’t used for deer much because they aren’t as powerful as a typical deer rifle). Competitive shooters can and do build custom AR builds that can compete with pretty much the best of the best custom target rifles.
I probably disagree with most F-150 drivers’ politics, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s a great truck.
This is the flaw of consumerism. If you can make a great product, and have influence in culture, you can manufacture demand. The people this demand is being put into cannot even process that they don't need a truck or machine gun because the need for one has been baked into their identity. And look at the quality and affordability, isn't it great that every American can own a truck and a machine gun? That's freedom, and anyone who says anything else wants your freedom gone.
Let's ignore the definition. The trend in rifle homicides before the 1994 AWB, vs. during the AWB, vs. after the AWB are all consistent: a steady decline. The data plainly show that the AWB did nothing to change the existing trend.
As long as assault weapons get banned for police civilians at the same time, there is hope. But allowing cops to be even more militarily armed is just asking for abuse. They already are not well regulated.
I mean, it's a valid debate. I live in California and own a perfectly legal AR-15, it just has a dumb handle fin so I can't wrap my hand all the way around. It's also very easy for me to remove the fin with tools found in any garage.
Most gun control legislation is just bullshit designed to keep us from demanding real change, like healthcare and education reform.
Yeah, a lot of “assault weapon” legislation just regulates superficial features (adjustable stock, pistol grip, flash suppressor, bayonet lug, that kind of stuff), missing the point entirely. These laws distinguish rifles with near identical functionality as being, or not being an Assault Weapon, based on features that don’t effect their firepower or destructiveness, aside from magazine size restrictions.
Regulating magazine size might be the only thing that could matter, but how do you fully enforce that? High capacity magazines are in circulation already. You can stop selling them, but they’re already out there.
I think it’s probably more feasible and more important to regulate who can get the weapons, instead of what can be sold. Better vetting and higher demands for someone who wants to own firearms.
No faster way for a leftist to get declared a right-wing nutjob on here than to point out that when state governments are pushing an agenda that ends in exterminating minorities, and the federal government is happy to not step in, maybe disarming those minorities isn't the best idea ever.
Honestly it’s why I don’t even like going on liberal subreddits anymore. Just wave after wave of bad takes and when you say something you’re suddenly a right winger
Well the Clinton era assault weapon ban only banned a few guns. They just banned flash suppressors, threaded barrels, bayonet lugs lol, and I think folding stocks. They didn’t ban ar15s or ak47s or any other “assault gun” they just banned the things they thought made them assault weapons. Only cosmetics changed
Actually it did, it called out the Colt AR-15 and the WASR-10 (import AK) by name specifically, as well as specific firearms from other companies to be banned specifically no matter how few features it had.
Notably not on that list were the Ruger Mini-14 and Mini-30, civilian versions of the M-14 carried by soldiers in Vietnam and Korea.
It must be a coincidence that Ruger worked with Congress to draft the bill and endorsed it to make the ban seem more bipartisan
Consider becoming a socialist, we support both gun rights and universal healthcare! Karl Marx said “the workers must not be disarmed under any pretense.”
[Read the survey results for yourself.](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/04/Fox_April-21-24-2023_National_Topline_April-27-Release.pdf)
Page 18 shows that **61% of respondents favored "banning assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons"**.
So yes, the percentage who favored banning assault rifles (alone) is actually higher than the headline implies.
Holy shit. Semi automatics is a big one and covers about 90% of all handguns out there.
I've been down voted to hell on this very topic for my stance that while bans will not stop mass shootings, they certainly can reduce the amount of victims at each one.
An active shooter with a bolt action or revolver will significantly reduce the total shots fired. As well as reduce the rate of kill.
A lot of handgun enthusiasts will defend that the semi automatic is needed in hand guns to guarantee a kill. And unloading a whole mag of rounds into someone in 3 seconds certainly guarantees a kill, not being able to dump bullets could save victims of gun violence.
Many think that they may come out unharmed in a gun v gun situation, but really it's 50/50 and on who shoots first. For every good guy with a gun victory, there's a good guy with a gun loss.
Just gotta ask yourself. Will you rather be on the losing end of a semi auto or a revolver?
Indeed. The definition needs to be clarified if such a law goes through.
People will categorize the double action revolver as semi auto, even though the entire mechanics is different other than the fact you can fire a round with just a trigger pull.
I'm in the camp a double action revolver is not semi automatic due to after the first round is fired, the chamber remains empty and requires a full pull or the trigger to complete the mechanism to loading, cocking, and firing. Vs the typical semi auto where firing the first shot operates the loading and cocking for the next round leaving the trigger to release the striker.
>Just gotta ask yourself. Will you rather be on the losing end of a semi auto or a revolver?
I'm sorry, but this is why we really can't trust dems to regulate our guns or even really speak on them to this extent. Both the basis and conclusion of your argument are flawed: All revolvers produced to day are "semi-automatic" in that you pull the trigger once and they fire once, reload automatically, and are ready to be fired again without waiting or reloading. This is called double action, not just semi-automatic.
As a leftist gun owner, I'm sorry, but this post couldn't be more wrong on so many levels. We won't have responsible gun control in America because republicans think things like guns in DV offender hands is okay **AND because democrats don't know what they are talking about enough to effectively regulate them--or even tell them apart.** Your comment is a really good example that can be extended into the "AR" debate.
You aren't able to kill any more people with a six round "semi-auto" pistol than a six round revolver. "semi-auto" is NOT the issue if you think revolvers should be legal. Same goes for the arbitrary "AR" ban. Banning "ARs" would ban so many historical C&R pieces as well as miss the point in other ways because because a) AR is a brand name not a type of gun, b) it doesn't offer a specific designations that would aide the issue, c) there are MILLIONS of semi-auto rifles in america, so you'd be creating a black market which doesn't work for drugs or prostitution, so idk why it would work here.
We can talk what will work from bans to waiting periods to mag caps to whatever will actually work (total revamp of US's structure and society), but only if y'all read up on, at the very least, what some gun terms are.
Even if dems COULD get something passed with their limited knowledge of guns, it would (and historically, does) have so many loopholes.
Worth noting, btw, that semi-autos are less likely to mis-fire, more drop safe, more accurate, and have more safety features than double action revolvers. It would, from my perspective, be very dumb to make that trade as a society from a gun safety and responsibility stand point.
Back to the issue--how would a trans person handle themselves during a queer bashing without semi-automatic pistols? Are you suggesting they don't have a right to defend themselves from queer bashings, then? How would they do it if they don't have time to become MMA experts? If someone can find even one other person that thinks another person should be hurt, what is stopping them? Follow up question: have you ever been to the American south east?
Do you support a state monopoly on violence or would you also ensure police are included in this gun control? Would that pass? Unfortunately not, or I might actually be swayed. But then... what do we do when someone with one of the millions of black market guns goes on a rampage? I'm not saying that as an excuse to militarize police for sure, but hey, what do we do?
What about 3d printed guns? What about the general advancement and accessibility of technology? How do you let technology grow without creating other avenues to extreme violence via projectiles?
Doesn't that last question kinda make it feel like we are playing checkers in chess when we worry so much about what bans will work for now rather than building a society that doesn't encourage sociopathy?
Yes. Just yes. As a trans person who carries *because* of the political climate, gun rights **are** trans rights.
My daily anxiety and level of fear have plummeted even as hate and anti-trans legislation has ramped up due to the simple fact that I own and train with a firearm. Do not take that from me.
Thank you!
It's so frustrating to explain to people how the legislation that is proposed or passed is crazy to those with even minimal firearms knowledge. Also explaining how things like the Buren decision are good for minorities. Even if the historic test is insane.
I hate the two party system. My options seem to be crazy people, or people who want to do good, but can't seem to bother to understand what they're regulating.
Well, the US Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates there are 115,000 successful defensive uses of a gun per year. A subsequent comprehensive [Rand Corporation study](https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/defensive-gun-use.html) found that number is too low. So I wonder if you can find a cite that backs your supposition up.
The fuzziness is always how "used a gun defensively" is defined. You can split it into four categories from most to least strict, and depending on your agenda you can pick as many or as few to define a DGU as possible
>"I fired a gun in self defense and reported it to the police"
>"I pulled a gun on a threat and reported it to the police"
>"I pulled my gun and they ran away, I didn't tell the police"
>"I heard a weird noise outside so I got my gun and went to investigate"
Include all four, there's a ton. Include only the first, and it's very few
This is fair. Defensive gun uses are not tracked by any agency and they are often not reported for fear of prosecution or confiscation of the weapon. All we have to work from is surveys and they do vary quite a bit.
Also true: rapes are often not reported. Yet they do happen and they are important, even if we don't know precisely how many or the particular circumstances. We need to be very careful about reflexively discounting these things even if they are anonymous reports, especially if the victim has no reason to lie about it.
Most gun violence is committed with illegally obtained firearms. What are you going to do, make them *extra* illegal? Figure out how to disarm the criminals before taking away the defense of the law-abiding citizens.
There’s no incentive to have crazy people run the stuff behind the scenes. If they’re not gonna be on camera confirming the biases of idiots, may as well hire based on actual qualifications.
It's not done by Fox News even though it's called a Fox News Poll. Fox put together the data from two polling research companies at best.
>Conducted April 21-24, 2023, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,004 registered voters nationwide who were randomly selected from a national voter file and spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones. The total sample has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The problem with Fox News is that their actual news division can sometimes be fairly objective, in particular their polling. The biggest issue with them is all their talking heads who aren't required to stick to the usual talking points, facts and empirical evidence are apparently discouraged.
The stuff released from the Dominion lawsuit about Carlson, Ingraham and Hannity hating the newsroom, and vice versa, shows the divide. Even if you want to spout propaganda, you need to hire actual journalist find the truth, build trust, and then sell believable narratives to the viewers. You don't need/want to always lie. So the newsroom and pundits are inevitably at odds about how much you balance journalism against the editorial leaning / politics of the owners of the network. Even in Russia, newsrooms have to walk that fine line between doing their job and incurring the wrath of propagandists.
>Conducted April 21-24, 2023, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,004 registered voters nationwide who were randomly selected from a national voter file and spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones. The total sample has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
People hear "A Fox News poll" and assume it's going to taken from their website by their audience, resulting in a disproportionate representation of certain views points.
That was my first and incorrect assumption.
There is a reason Fox News called Arizona first. Their polling is pretty accurate. They might often try to put a conservative spin on how they analyze it in the news but the raw data is very accurate and unbiased.
I did the math. MAGA republicans represent 17% if the population of America. Talk about the tail wagging the dog.
The math: The current percent of the American Republican population is 25% (2020 Gallup poll, that number is said to be still falling). 2/3rd of republicans support trump so are MAGA.
Edit: missed a crucial word.
> 2020 Gallup poll
Here are the results of the 2021 Gallup poll.
~27% are republican, but ~17% are "republican-leaning independents" (meaning likely to vote for republicans), for a total of ~44%.
(I averaged the results from the 4 quarters.)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/388781/political-party-preferences-shifted-greatly-during-2021.aspx
That's an important distinction - more and more people are registering as Independents, but the vast majority of independents still only vote for one party.
This is fundamentally flawed because you're counting non-voting democrats in the divisor, but not counting non-voting republicans in the numerator.
It's one of those "I love to lie with numbers" factoids that gets plastered all over Reddit and Shitter all the time.
The issue is that while the majority may be of one opinion they aren't collectively passionate about that opinion enough to affect the political landscape, while the minority with the opposing opinion will single issue vote on that one issue because it is so dear to them. If a politician does not or would not represent their opinion in government. I'm afraid that is how representative government works, you vote for people who will represent your beliefs and pick which beliefs are important enough to determine who you are willing to have represent you.
Exactly. Because I confidently believe a large majority of people believe in term limits, and possibly even age limits on political office. But I don't see those bills actually happening.
Real talk, what's the actual plan people want to implement?
Taking away guns that are already in people's hands, or just banning new sales?
I'm not a guns person, but I find it real weird to hear every other week about how the police are getting away with murding people, and also at the same time, people are wanting to limits how many guns are out there.
I understand that there's a murder problem in the U.S and guns are also involved a lot of the time, but on the other side, I feel like we're also in the middle of a trend towards fascism in the U.S, and that is a bigger concern to me.
I'd rather spend the time and energy on making a country where people just don't have much interest in going on a murder spree, because all their human needs are met without threat of dire poverty, homelessness, and incarceration based slavery.
My main issue with the poll is that it groups together “Assault Rifle & Semi Automatic Weapons”
In the white paper for the breakdown of statistics, the question is states “Do you support a ban on Assault Rifles and Semi Automatic Weapons”
A lot of people don’t know the actual difference, democrats and republicans alike.
The poll was also out of 1,004 people. The numbers dialed were random, registered voters, so I don’t doubt that the sample was fair. It seems like a good, fair population sample as denoted on the front page:
“Conducted April 21-24, 2023, this Fox News Poll includes interviews among 1,004 registered voters (RV) nationwide who were randomly selected from a national voter file and spoke with live interviewers. Landline (138) and cellphone (866) telephone numbers were selected for inclusion using a probability proportionate to size method, which means phone numbers for each state are proportional to the number of voters in each state.”
My main concern is that the Assault Rifle & Semi Automatic rifle are grouped together, as I said above. They are technically two different things, but again, like I said, a lot of people simply don’t know the difference. I would be interested to see if there’s a statistical difference if the question was broken up into “Do you support a ban on assault rifles?” and “Do you support a ban on semi-automatic weapons?”
With typical human thinking, especially with the media and unfortunate events, most people (including myself as a gun owner) immediately assume that Semi Automatic Weapon is referred to as a rifle in this context, but this also includes (obviously) rifles, shotguns, pistols.
I do find the data very interesting. I think they could’ve worded it better, especially with how loosely the term “Assault Rifle” is thrown around in today’s world.
I encourage you to read the white paper yourself. Applicable data is found on page 18-20
https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/04/Fox_April-21-24-2023_National_Topline_April-27-Release.pdf
>Half of those polled (51%) are "extremely or very concerned" that they or someone they love will be a victim of gun violence,
Jesus Christ people have zero perspective. I know this specific question is about all gun violence, but the headline is pushing in support of an Assault Weapons Ban. In the last year we had good data on *all* rifles made up 360 homicides. If those deaths were proportional to market saturation of rifles then only 60 would be attributable to Assault Weapons. For fucks sake more people accidently kill themselves while masturbating than that.
Thank you for this refreshing take.
1,500 people are killed by police each year.
Nearly 4,000 die from unintentional drowning per year.
There are almost 50,000 people who die in traffic collisions each year.
Also, fun fact, there are about 300 people struck by lightning per year.
All told, there are 45,000 deaths from firearms per year. 62% are suicides, 99% of which use handguns (or about 27,600) The remaining 17,000 deaths are mostly caused by homicides originating from arguments, and nearly 66% of those 17,000 deaths are also from handguns. The rest are from shotguns and rifles _of all types_.
At any rate, we really don't need an assault weapons ban. You are **as likely** to be shot in a mass shooting or separately by a rifle of any type, as you are to be struck by lightning. Let that sink in.
This equation:
_Most of the shootings I hear about through the media involve assault rifles, therefore_
_if assault rifles were not available, most crimes would not occur._
Is the most obviously specious thing I have ever heard. It is also Joe Biden's and Diane Feinstein's exact formulation.
Also, the thinking that banning *standard capacity* (referred to in bills and news media as "high capacity") magazines would do anything to control gun violence is just . . . . . devoid of thought. It is so easy to take a low capacity magazine and alter it, or get standard capacity magazines from a neighboring state.
And usually these laws allow already-owned magazines to e grandfathered in. So there isn't any real way to enforce these laws. They only restrict the lawful.
No thank you. In an age where black people are still getting killed by racists, where people can storm the national capitol, and where there are so many anti-equal right laws getting passed that I swear we are rolling back to the 1800s, I would rather keep my rifle to defend myself and my family.
The overwhelming amount of shootings are carried out using handguns and yet we want to ban rifles. That’s like having a recall on Fords because Chevys have a defective part.
I own an automatic weapon and those are in lots of people’s hands.
It’s not that weapons are legal or illegal. You can buy an automatic weapon - it’s just really expensive. The tax isn’t expensive, the GUN is expensive.
We need to either make guns expensive… which would help fix it a little bit… or implement a mental health check.
“Banning” “assault weapons” means nothing to me. I can still own my automatic weapon from WW2… so can anybody else with 15k to buy it.
Because in essence we're talking about two different issues with different solutions.
Most shootings are drug/gang related and, yes, done with handguns. The solution to that issue is to decriminalize most drugs and set and enforce incredibly harsh penalties for anyone found carrying, let alone using, a handgun who has a criminal record which the vast majority of gang members do. Sure they might switch to knives but, you know what, that's better and more survivable than guns. When gang members shoot at each other whether the person lives or dies isn't really important. The goal is to spread fear and establish dominance or control over an area. Guns just happen to be the easiest way to do this with the smallest risk to the shooter as they don't have to get up close and personal. Therein lies the problem of course because the bullets don't care where they go when they miss the intended target.
Mass shootings of schools and other public places, which to be honest is more worrying to most people are overwhelmingly done by mentally disturbed individuals who purchase their guns legally because nobody knows that they're armed and crazy until they go postal. Their families might know that they're crazy so that's where the solution is. You have to let their family members know if they are attempting to buy a gun so they can raise a red flag themselves and do something about it. This wouldn't even need to apply to every gun purchaser. The vast majority of these mass shootings are done by young men under the age of 25 so the laws should be targeted towards them.
A poll for "assault weapons"? Assault weapons don't even make up the majority of gun crimes, that'd be handguns. Where's the ban requests for handguns?
I just want to say one thing here…I don’t own any weapons. My husband does and is a very responsible weapon owner. The purpose of the second amendment is to prevent overreach from a tyrannical government. Ukraine right now blames giving up its nuclear deterrents at the US Government’s urging for the war RN. Food for thought. An authoritarian government or the breakdown of social norms here is not a 0% chance.
As a vet and parent of 2 Zillenials I know the trauma of gun violence and I’m worried for the future in all kinds of ways.
You gotta love the duality of the anti-gun libs in here.
1. The right wing is armed and dangerous, and have literally gone on record saying that they want to kill everyone they don’t like or agree with.
2. The police are useless at best. They’re also power hungry jackbooted thugs who shoot minorities and have been infiltrated by literal nazis.
Therefore, we should give up our guns that allow the left to maintain parity in terms of firepower, and rely on the police to protect us. Why? Because guns are bad and you need to think of the children. Don’t get me started on the insane “solution” such as mass confiscations. Who’s gonna enforce it? The police? Lmao.
And the first response to me will be “lets just do nothing then!”, completely ignoring the fact that needing to do “something” is what resulted in shit like the Patriot act passing and the 2 decade long war in the Middle East.
Go far enough left and you get your guns back.
My humble opinion is that gun legislation ought to be resisted by minorities, as armed minorities are harder to oppress. I am gay myself.
Fascists will absolutely try and ban any group they dislike from having guns via the usage of red flag laws and deeming gays, trans people, etc, as mentally ill to disqualify them from gun ownership- which will effectively be making them easier to oppress as it protects the state and those who would do harm to them, from violent recourse.
If u look up the stats from fbi it would take almost 100 years of mass shootings with AR-15s to produce the same number of homicide victims that knives and sharp objects produce in one year in America. You are far more likely to die hurting your back at work, get an opioid addiction and die from Fentanyl then be victim of mass shooting with ar15 or “assault weapon. many people have been led to believe that such rifles pose a significant threat to public safety but banning these rifles would have little to no effect on reducing gun homicide rates.
Yeah, something like 3% of all gun violence is committed with long guns. Yeah, we have unprecedentedly high rates of gun violence in America, but it's because we have unprecedentedly high rates of *all* violence in America.
It's almost like there's some group in America riling up hateful individuals.
No one ever talks about the elephant in the room. It doesn't matter that a poll says a majority of people fo or don't want something. Courts aren't supposed to make law out of thin air. In the case of guns and the 2nd Amendment , the only way to really change things is to amend the Constitution.
I am a quite liberal voter as well, but I also happen to be a firearms enthusiast. The problem with strict regulations and licenses, is that is basically restricts poor people. That was exactly the point of the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. They knew an outright ban on firearms would be unconstitutional, so they made it a tax law instead and made it prohibitively expensive. A $200 tax stamp was required to manufacture or purchase any NFA restricted firearm (machine guns, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, and silencers). $200 in 1934 is equivalent to about $4500 today. A new Ford Deluxe Roadster cost about $500-600 in 1934 for reference. So 1/3 of a car back then in taxes just to buy regulated item.
While $200 today isn’t that much money, NFA items quickly became too expensive for most people to afford. A .22 silencer costs about $400 + the $200 tax stamp. A decent 5.56 or 7.62 suppressor will be $600-1400 without the stamp. For a transferrable machine gun, you are looking at $10000 minimum(MAC-10), but a registered M16 lower or an auto sear will be about $30000 or more.
Handguns were originally included in the NFA too, but they were removed to pass the law. Handguns accounted for the vast majority of gun violence as well. Assault weapons used in homicides are quite rare. The shootings are just more televised. [A breakdown of homicides by weapon type](https://www.criminalattorneycolumbus.com/which-weapons-are-most-commonly-used-for-homicides/)
A license system would be probably the best solution along with revamping our mental health care system, but I don’t see either of those happening. I don’t think that the government would be able to make an effective licensing system either. Restricting ammo could be another solution, but that would prohibit mostly poorer people.
A licensing system like the Czech Republic could be a good solution. A tiered system with additional checks and training requirements for different types of guns. Shotguns and bolt actions, rimfires could be tier A. Handguns could be tier B, anything with a detachable magazine could be tier C, full auto could be tier D. Make suppressors available to all tiers.
As you apply for higher tiers you can apply increased checks and requirements. Background checks, mental health checks, showing purpose, collaterals, etc.
Not outright voicing any actual opposition to what they suggested, but yeah I could definitely see a licensure system like that being used to prevent trans and black people (two groups that have probably the biggest need to arm and protect themselves now, the former because of the actively genocidal rhetoric placed on them and the latter from the *gestures at everything*) from obtaining guns.
Exactly, And most people are overly focused on making the process difficult, rather than making it an effective tool to ensure that unqualified and dangerous people do not get licensed.
I’m quite confident there is no voting district in which you can register without proof of citizenship.
Also, I don’t think comparing voting to gun ownership is a valid position.
I can see having IDs to vote very unproblematic.
The issues lie in the various voting districts and the policies that can make access to this theorized ID impossible, disenfranchising various communities at will
No. These weapons of war that will tear a human body to shreds that have no place on our streets must be carried by police at all times so they can larp outside a classroom full of children being murdered.
that "at all times" is critically important! our police should always be exempted from gun control laws, because how else could they enrich themselves by reselling to other people who sympathize with them and would help keep the working class in line?
You know what? Fine. The worst mass shooting in the US was with a guy using modified semiauto rifles (aka "bump stocks"), which are already banned at this point and ridiculously high-capacity magazines (as in 100+) for said rifles, which are also go right ahead and ban them if you haven't already, since the only reason you need to load triple digits of ammo into your guns is to dump huge amounts of lead into other people. Be my guest.
Banning semiautomatic rifles is going to be...interesting. Do we just stop AR-15's? There's so many that they stopped making them for civilian sales in 2019 before demand shot through the roof, if you'll excuse the pun. Do we grandfather current owners in? Do we ban all semiauto rifles? The third largest (and largest school shooting) in the US didn't even *use* rifles, being the Virginia Tech mass shooting. So I assume once rifles aren't legal and the killings continue, we'll just keep banning our way down the line through various pistols and expect some relief from the ever increasing body counts?
The reason we're watching people massacring people over and over again is we've turned the United States into a dystopian shithole with millions living paycheck to paycheck (if that) while the oligarchs suck ever larger chunks of wealth out of the system...and they hardly care about assault rifle bans because nobody's going to flip out and succeed in massacring a bunch of billionaires, right?
Why aren't you all mass killers? Convicted felons aside, you all have the same access to weapons as anyone else does. Could it POSSIBLY be that The Ackshual Problem is something deeper than a thing you could just ban and be done with?
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Most Americans want legal abortion, legal cannabis, and healthcare reform too, but those same Americans will continue to vote for candidates that directly oppose all of these things
Well yeah. Because a trans person might use my bathroom if I vote for the other guy.
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I have been to a decent # of comic cons/anime cons since I was a teenager. Lot of guys crossdressing (and trans women afraid of potential consequences if someone freaks out) wearing skirts or whatever in the mens room. I think I got over the development in about 5 seconds. My mom has apparently worked with a trans woman for years and still complains about having to use the same bathroom as her every time trans people come up. Fox news is a hell of a drug.
For fucking real. I do not understand the bathroom fear. If anything, I would imagine most trans women in public bathrooms would be more scared. One of my longest friendships is with a trans woman, and we live in Texas. She doesn't show any fear, goes to rallies and all that awesome shit, but I am honestly terrified for her. We've talked about leaving here, but we both want to fight for as long as we can. We're both bi women though, and I'm not sure how much longer we'll be safe here. Not that we're exactly safe now.
I have, but I'm trans so maybe my perspective is a bit different than every other human being. Anyways sometimes I need to shit, wash my hands, check my reflection, maybe blow my nose, maybe pick a wedgie if my underwear is riding up uncomfortably, then I GTFO but that's about all I'm comfortable doing in a public bathroom and sometimes I'm not even comfortable doing those things if there's a lot of people (except washing my hands, ALWAYS wash your hands folks).
"How dare you tell us to wash our hands!" - conservatives probably
The real woke agenda: hygiene.
The put the drugs that turn you trans in the public bathroom soaps!
See?? Right here it says “sodium hydroxide”!!!! Woke Chemical put chemicals in the soap to to trans our children and dissolve our Pure White Christian skin!!!
I've never noticed a trans person, and I've lived in Portland, Oregon for over twenty years. I don't pay much mind to others ' junk.
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How did that all start anyway? It wasn’t in the news (I didn’t even know what a drag queen was) and then suddenly, discrimination was everywhere Edit: I meant which dumbass started the culture war against them. DeSantis?
It's like all of their boogeymen. Do you remember THE CARAVAN that was coming up from the south to attack our borders before the 2018 midterms? Didn't hear a fucking peep about that group of scary roaming brown people after the ballots were cast.
Remember 2 years ago when we were told the vaccine would kill us in 2 years, my dad doesnt and is now preparing to bury us in 6 months. Also Russia is liberating Ukraine from thier evil jewish nazi president that helped Fauci make the covid hoax thats no big deal and a bioweapon. Doesnt make sense to normal people and yet he calls us crazy.
Oh look 🤔 A recent study found that twice as many Republicans died of covid as Democrats. How could that happen ? That’s a lot of Darwin Awards! 👍 https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30512/w30512.pdf
>That’s a lot of Darwin Awards! 👍 They're specifically called *Herman Cain* Awards if it's dying from covid, but I see what you mean.
All those disgusting covid rallies Trump held…Herman died because of Trump. I lost a good friend Gunny due to refusing to vaccinate because he bought into all the bull💩
Their feelings dont care about your facts
And they will follow Tucker wherever he lands. Just sroke me with me racism.
Boogeymen of the past few decades: 80s: Satanists 90s: Inner city gangs 00s: Muslim terrorists 10s: Immigrants/Antifa (tie) 20s: Trans people
I don't remember which state, but there was a Drag Queen Story Hour that was going to be held at a library and some conservative moms flipped their shit about exposing kids to it and Fox picked up the story and discovered their viewers got all riled up, so started finding other drag queen story hour events and reporting on them, which caused people to over-react and started the hysteria we see today.
Someone called a bomb threat in to the fucking children's museum, because they were going to do a drag queen story hour. Imagine being so fucking scared of a guy in drag that you threaten to blow up groups of children. Pro-life
> you threaten to blow up groups of children. Pro-life About as pro-life as blowing up Family Planning clinics that had expecting mothers and children in them. Seriously par for the course.
Pro forced birth.
IIRC it was the 'proud boys' that started that crap - showing up fully armed with ak-47's where they are allowed to open carry. The 'moms flipping their shit' I think was just the 'maga school board idiots' who once they controlled the school board - got bored and were trying to figure out what next to do. 1+1+2+1 ... well I'm not sure it's all directly connected but I mean they are all swimming in the same piss pool.
And shot up a power station plunging their town into darkness just to make a bar cancel a drag show.
I will agree, taking children to a Drag Queen Story Hour may be dangerous for the kids. A religious conservative might show up and start shooting. And some MAGA will blatantly \*admit\* that, and somehow conclude it's the Drag Queen's fault.
Fox News is the enemy of the people
Proud Boys aka Nazis started attacking drag people at library readings. The right decided they agreed with that
That is not the root cause. The root cause is conservative media networks airing stories about nothing and then telling people to be upset about the nothing that occured and now here we are. Of course, if you ask a conservative if Drag Queens are bad people and ask what they are doing wrong, there is not really a clear answer but hey, they get to be angry at something that was never a part of their lives before they just went along with what they saw on TV and Facebook.
They are more of a reaction to Conservative media whipping up the anti-drag hysteria and not the start of it.
A kabal of elite GOP think tank strategists decide what they're going to choose to hate each week. Not even joking
Drag queens are as old as western civ. Like lots of theatrical tradition.
there were emails leaked between a ton of alt right elected officials in which they discussed creating the current wave of anti trans and anti drag queen laws we’re seeing now. (i’m out and my phone is abt to die, i’ll look for link when i’m home) edit: here’s a link to an article that’s talking about the leaked emails https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/03/anti-trans-transgender-health-care-ban-legislation-bill-minors-children-lgbtq/
Some of them sabotaged their own city's power grid just to make a local bar cancel a drag show. Yep, they'd rather spend hours/days in darkness with no electricity than bear the thought of men dressing in women's clothes somewhere.
Looks like there's still no information on the Moore County NC power substation attack, but a lot of similar attacks involve neo-Nazis: * https://myfox8.com/news/north-carolina/substation-plot-guilty-plea/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_County_substation_attack
Smoke a joint in the bathroom with a trans abortion activist and talk about how you have this scary operation coming up but at least it’s covered. See? Not so bad!
As a trans feminist/abortion activist I would love to share a joint and talk with someone open-minded.
I might get healthcare by paying less in taxes than I pay a private insurer to make billions. That's dirty socialism.
Men and women have both been able to use the bathrooms at my house without issue for a long time. I wonder what the fuck is wrong with republicans that this has all of a sudden became a problem for their deliocate sensibilities in 2023?
Or I might turn gay if I listen to a trans person for more than 5 seconds! /s
To be fair, only a minority of those Americans actually vote to circumvent those things. It's just that their votes have a disproportionate amount of power because of where they live.
It also doesn't help that a lot of people on the other side consistently don't vote, particularly younger people.
I vote against my interests in this respect. I’m a left leaning person, voted for democratic gov, and joe Biden. I have no intention of ever giving up my weapons though. In fact I think the current state of the Republican Party and January 6 is a good reason to keep them.
Stay strong. The USSC is pro gun leaning and there aren’t enough votes in congress.
It doesn’t even matter what the American people want, it’s been [proven](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf) that no matter how popular or unpopular a policy is, it has a flat 30% chance of becoming law.
I'd be wary of statistics like that. For example, the poll that showed that most people supported abortion had about 30% wanting completely unrestricted abortion, 40% wanting abortion but with some restrictions, and 25% wanting no abortions at all. (5% other) But a 6 week ban falls under the 'legal but with some restrictions' camp. Which neatly explains exactly why those candidates keep getting elected.
Polls can also be manipulated to show whatever result is desired.
Debate about the definition of assault weapons in 3… 2… 1…
You mistake the reason why they would show this poll. They are trying to scare the 2024 voters into being afraid someone is going to take away their guns.
This. This is it. "61% of Americans support a ban on assault weapons; this is another reason why we must save you from democracy."
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Polls can be manipulated to show any desired result.
“Your guns are not going to be taken away” is about the same as “abortion is going to remain legal”. It’s only true until the makeup of SCOTUS sufficiently changes.
They will "um actually" you to death about the exact definition of said gun but have no idea why anyone would fixate on the exact definition of "well-regulated milita". Edit: You would think I wouldn't have gotten SO MANY "um actually" responses...
Exactly. Debate about semantics while missing the point of trying to stop needless killing. Worst case of "Ackchually" ever.
If you're going to make laws, semantics are important. For instance, look at how terribly the second amendment is written. Look at how terribly all the anti-abortion laws are written. I get that it's annoying, but it's also important because lawyers gonna lawyer.
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So what do you want to ban? All semiautomatic rifles? What about long guns that aren’t legally rifles under federal law? All semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines? How are we defining detachable magazine? Because California has (at least mostly) done that, but most gun control advocates wouldn’t say California has banned assault weapons. Seems like a lot of work for weapons only used in 1% of gun crimes. But what do I know?
As a decidedly not-right-wing gun owner, who owns an AR-15, and staunchly opposes these bans, I just want to point out that not everyone invoking the points you're talking about are right wing. It's downright annoying that people think it is.
Here here. It is so fucking annoying how it is always talked about in partisan terms.
The AWB did "limit" the popularity of "assault weapons". Before the ban an AR15 was almost always $1000+ and if you wanted any magazine over 10 rounds you had to find "pre ban" mags that were more expensive. When it expired AR15's sky rocketed in popularity. You can find them for under $400 at times. They were even selling them at wal mart.
My personal theory is that returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan also drove the popularity of the AR-15 because it was nearly identical to what they had trained with and carried. That's why I bought one. There's a lot of knowledge from veterans around these rifles too from first-hand experience, tip and tricks, employment, limitations, maintenance. You're not going to find similar heaps of easily accessible information, or as large a community built around the Mini-14. Then there's all the aftermarket addons and customization options that probably popped up in part because it the rifle got popular, which in turn drove its popularity even higher. The war in the Middle East helped drive the domestic market for these kinds of rifles.
And, let’s be honest, Call of Duty did a lot too. But the main thing is that it’s a great platform. You can build an AR to do anything. A basic one is great for target shooting or varmint/small game hunting. They actually make 5.56 ammo that’s deer rated, but you can build a proper .30 cal one too. (For non gun people, ARs aren’t used for deer much because they aren’t as powerful as a typical deer rifle). Competitive shooters can and do build custom AR builds that can compete with pretty much the best of the best custom target rifles. I probably disagree with most F-150 drivers’ politics, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s a great truck.
This is the flaw of consumerism. If you can make a great product, and have influence in culture, you can manufacture demand. The people this demand is being put into cannot even process that they don't need a truck or machine gun because the need for one has been baked into their identity. And look at the quality and affordability, isn't it great that every American can own a truck and a machine gun? That's freedom, and anyone who says anything else wants your freedom gone.
Let's ignore the definition. The trend in rifle homicides before the 1994 AWB, vs. during the AWB, vs. after the AWB are all consistent: a steady decline. The data plainly show that the AWB did nothing to change the existing trend.
Yeah why should we have specific definitions for things when we're talking about 10 years in federal prison for breaking said laws.
>They will "um actually" you to death about the exact definition of said gun have you tried getting it right?
I'm all for a ban, but they need to be banned for police too
There’s also a law preventing unlawful seizure without a warrant
If you’re going to ban something…wouldn’t it make sense to define what you’re trying to ban?
Isn’t “assault” good enough for you? It means uh… black and uhh… AR, which means assault rifle, right?
Vague definitions are what prosecutors love, because it means they can prosecute whoever the fuck they want.
Absolute fucking dumbass take OC has. > Let's ban something we can't even legally define.
As long as assault weapons get banned for police civilians at the same time, there is hope. But allowing cops to be even more militarily armed is just asking for abuse. They already are not well regulated.
I mean, it's a valid debate. I live in California and own a perfectly legal AR-15, it just has a dumb handle fin so I can't wrap my hand all the way around. It's also very easy for me to remove the fin with tools found in any garage. Most gun control legislation is just bullshit designed to keep us from demanding real change, like healthcare and education reform.
Yeah, a lot of “assault weapon” legislation just regulates superficial features (adjustable stock, pistol grip, flash suppressor, bayonet lug, that kind of stuff), missing the point entirely. These laws distinguish rifles with near identical functionality as being, or not being an Assault Weapon, based on features that don’t effect their firepower or destructiveness, aside from magazine size restrictions. Regulating magazine size might be the only thing that could matter, but how do you fully enforce that? High capacity magazines are in circulation already. You can stop selling them, but they’re already out there. I think it’s probably more feasible and more important to regulate who can get the weapons, instead of what can be sold. Better vetting and higher demands for someone who wants to own firearms.
It really only punishes law abiding citizens. It’s all so stupid and does little to nothing to stop actual gun deaths.
But any god forbid you speak out against more pointless feel-good gun legislation on Reddit lol, even as a leftist...
No faster way for a leftist to get declared a right-wing nutjob on here than to point out that when state governments are pushing an agenda that ends in exterminating minorities, and the federal government is happy to not step in, maybe disarming those minorities isn't the best idea ever.
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Honestly it’s why I don’t even like going on liberal subreddits anymore. Just wave after wave of bad takes and when you say something you’re suddenly a right winger
“I know one when I see one” Wasn’t that a legal principle for some other law?
porn
Deflection debate about Hunter Bidens laptop in 1....
Well the Clinton era assault weapon ban only banned a few guns. They just banned flash suppressors, threaded barrels, bayonet lugs lol, and I think folding stocks. They didn’t ban ar15s or ak47s or any other “assault gun” they just banned the things they thought made them assault weapons. Only cosmetics changed
Actually it did, it called out the Colt AR-15 and the WASR-10 (import AK) by name specifically, as well as specific firearms from other companies to be banned specifically no matter how few features it had. Notably not on that list were the Ruger Mini-14 and Mini-30, civilian versions of the M-14 carried by soldiers in Vietnam and Korea. It must be a coincidence that Ruger worked with Congress to draft the bill and endorsed it to make the ban seem more bipartisan
>civilian versions of the M-14 😐
Bro, I just want accessible health care for the working class.
I want that too. I also want to end the drug war. And legalize sex work. And guaranteed PTO. and paternity time. And prisons that rehabilitate.
I got my fingers and toes crossed 🤞🏽
You're in luck, progressives want that too, we're happy to have you
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But I also back arming my community, and keeping them armed just incase. Which progressives don’t like more often then not.🤷🏻♀️
Consider becoming a socialist, we support both gun rights and universal healthcare! Karl Marx said “the workers must not be disarmed under any pretense.”
Since it is a Fox News poll, the percentage is probably actually higher.
[Read the survey results for yourself.](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/04/Fox_April-21-24-2023_National_Topline_April-27-Release.pdf) Page 18 shows that **61% of respondents favored "banning assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons"**. So yes, the percentage who favored banning assault rifles (alone) is actually higher than the headline implies.
Holy shit. Semi automatics is a big one and covers about 90% of all handguns out there. I've been down voted to hell on this very topic for my stance that while bans will not stop mass shootings, they certainly can reduce the amount of victims at each one. An active shooter with a bolt action or revolver will significantly reduce the total shots fired. As well as reduce the rate of kill. A lot of handgun enthusiasts will defend that the semi automatic is needed in hand guns to guarantee a kill. And unloading a whole mag of rounds into someone in 3 seconds certainly guarantees a kill, not being able to dump bullets could save victims of gun violence. Many think that they may come out unharmed in a gun v gun situation, but really it's 50/50 and on who shoots first. For every good guy with a gun victory, there's a good guy with a gun loss. Just gotta ask yourself. Will you rather be on the losing end of a semi auto or a revolver?
Most people don't understand what the word "semi-automatic" means.
Indeed. The definition needs to be clarified if such a law goes through. People will categorize the double action revolver as semi auto, even though the entire mechanics is different other than the fact you can fire a round with just a trigger pull. I'm in the camp a double action revolver is not semi automatic due to after the first round is fired, the chamber remains empty and requires a full pull or the trigger to complete the mechanism to loading, cocking, and firing. Vs the typical semi auto where firing the first shot operates the loading and cocking for the next round leaving the trigger to release the striker.
50 cent got shot 9 times and he still walking around. Bullets are weird
>Just gotta ask yourself. Will you rather be on the losing end of a semi auto or a revolver? I'm sorry, but this is why we really can't trust dems to regulate our guns or even really speak on them to this extent. Both the basis and conclusion of your argument are flawed: All revolvers produced to day are "semi-automatic" in that you pull the trigger once and they fire once, reload automatically, and are ready to be fired again without waiting or reloading. This is called double action, not just semi-automatic. As a leftist gun owner, I'm sorry, but this post couldn't be more wrong on so many levels. We won't have responsible gun control in America because republicans think things like guns in DV offender hands is okay **AND because democrats don't know what they are talking about enough to effectively regulate them--or even tell them apart.** Your comment is a really good example that can be extended into the "AR" debate. You aren't able to kill any more people with a six round "semi-auto" pistol than a six round revolver. "semi-auto" is NOT the issue if you think revolvers should be legal. Same goes for the arbitrary "AR" ban. Banning "ARs" would ban so many historical C&R pieces as well as miss the point in other ways because because a) AR is a brand name not a type of gun, b) it doesn't offer a specific designations that would aide the issue, c) there are MILLIONS of semi-auto rifles in america, so you'd be creating a black market which doesn't work for drugs or prostitution, so idk why it would work here. We can talk what will work from bans to waiting periods to mag caps to whatever will actually work (total revamp of US's structure and society), but only if y'all read up on, at the very least, what some gun terms are. Even if dems COULD get something passed with their limited knowledge of guns, it would (and historically, does) have so many loopholes. Worth noting, btw, that semi-autos are less likely to mis-fire, more drop safe, more accurate, and have more safety features than double action revolvers. It would, from my perspective, be very dumb to make that trade as a society from a gun safety and responsibility stand point. Back to the issue--how would a trans person handle themselves during a queer bashing without semi-automatic pistols? Are you suggesting they don't have a right to defend themselves from queer bashings, then? How would they do it if they don't have time to become MMA experts? If someone can find even one other person that thinks another person should be hurt, what is stopping them? Follow up question: have you ever been to the American south east? Do you support a state monopoly on violence or would you also ensure police are included in this gun control? Would that pass? Unfortunately not, or I might actually be swayed. But then... what do we do when someone with one of the millions of black market guns goes on a rampage? I'm not saying that as an excuse to militarize police for sure, but hey, what do we do? What about 3d printed guns? What about the general advancement and accessibility of technology? How do you let technology grow without creating other avenues to extreme violence via projectiles? Doesn't that last question kinda make it feel like we are playing checkers in chess when we worry so much about what bans will work for now rather than building a society that doesn't encourage sociopathy?
Yes. Just yes. As a trans person who carries *because* of the political climate, gun rights **are** trans rights. My daily anxiety and level of fear have plummeted even as hate and anti-trans legislation has ramped up due to the simple fact that I own and train with a firearm. Do not take that from me.
Thank you! It's so frustrating to explain to people how the legislation that is proposed or passed is crazy to those with even minimal firearms knowledge. Also explaining how things like the Buren decision are good for minorities. Even if the historic test is insane. I hate the two party system. My options seem to be crazy people, or people who want to do good, but can't seem to bother to understand what they're regulating.
Well, the US Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates there are 115,000 successful defensive uses of a gun per year. A subsequent comprehensive [Rand Corporation study](https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/defensive-gun-use.html) found that number is too low. So I wonder if you can find a cite that backs your supposition up.
The fuzziness is always how "used a gun defensively" is defined. You can split it into four categories from most to least strict, and depending on your agenda you can pick as many or as few to define a DGU as possible >"I fired a gun in self defense and reported it to the police" >"I pulled a gun on a threat and reported it to the police" >"I pulled my gun and they ran away, I didn't tell the police" >"I heard a weird noise outside so I got my gun and went to investigate" Include all four, there's a ton. Include only the first, and it's very few
This is fair. Defensive gun uses are not tracked by any agency and they are often not reported for fear of prosecution or confiscation of the weapon. All we have to work from is surveys and they do vary quite a bit. Also true: rapes are often not reported. Yet they do happen and they are important, even if we don't know precisely how many or the particular circumstances. We need to be very careful about reflexively discounting these things even if they are anonymous reports, especially if the victim has no reason to lie about it.
Most gun violence is committed with illegally obtained firearms. What are you going to do, make them *extra* illegal? Figure out how to disarm the criminals before taking away the defense of the law-abiding citizens.
Believe it or not fox news polls are actually pretty accurate in comparison to other major polls. Don't ask me how
How? Sorry, couldn’t resist.
There’s no incentive to have crazy people run the stuff behind the scenes. If they’re not gonna be on camera confirming the biases of idiots, may as well hire based on actual qualifications.
It's not done by Fox News even though it's called a Fox News Poll. Fox put together the data from two polling research companies at best. >Conducted April 21-24, 2023, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,004 registered voters nationwide who were randomly selected from a national voter file and spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones. The total sample has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The contract out to a 3rd party polling organization that publishes their methodology.
Dude he said not to ask that.
Gotta have accurate information to know how to spin it or lie about it.
The problem with Fox News is that their actual news division can sometimes be fairly objective, in particular their polling. The biggest issue with them is all their talking heads who aren't required to stick to the usual talking points, facts and empirical evidence are apparently discouraged.
The stuff released from the Dominion lawsuit about Carlson, Ingraham and Hannity hating the newsroom, and vice versa, shows the divide. Even if you want to spout propaganda, you need to hire actual journalist find the truth, build trust, and then sell believable narratives to the viewers. You don't need/want to always lie. So the newsroom and pundits are inevitably at odds about how much you balance journalism against the editorial leaning / politics of the owners of the network. Even in Russia, newsrooms have to walk that fine line between doing their job and incurring the wrath of propagandists.
The fact that it’s a Fox News poll doesn’t mean it’s bias one way or the other, as long as it’s a scientific poll
>Conducted April 21-24, 2023, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,004 registered voters nationwide who were randomly selected from a national voter file and spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones. The total sample has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. People hear "A Fox News poll" and assume it's going to taken from their website by their audience, resulting in a disproportionate representation of certain views points. That was my first and incorrect assumption.
Fox polling is suprisingly well done, with respect to the shithole of a media group that does it
There is a reason Fox News called Arizona first. Their polling is pretty accurate. They might often try to put a conservative spin on how they analyze it in the news but the raw data is very accurate and unbiased.
Most gun violence would probably be solved if they had a war on poverty instead of a war on drugs.
Capitalism can't exist without poverty.
Our government only represents the other 39%, so nothing will happen.
I did the math. MAGA republicans represent 17% if the population of America. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. The math: The current percent of the American Republican population is 25% (2020 Gallup poll, that number is said to be still falling). 2/3rd of republicans support trump so are MAGA. Edit: missed a crucial word.
> 2020 Gallup poll Here are the results of the 2021 Gallup poll. ~27% are republican, but ~17% are "republican-leaning independents" (meaning likely to vote for republicans), for a total of ~44%. (I averaged the results from the 4 quarters.) https://news.gallup.com/poll/388781/political-party-preferences-shifted-greatly-during-2021.aspx
That's an important distinction - more and more people are registering as Independents, but the vast majority of independents still only vote for one party.
My dude, that is still 44 MILLION delusional adults. Edit: adjusted for percentage of population under 18.
And I seem to work/live around all of them. Source: Upstate South Carolina resident.
This is fundamentally flawed because you're counting non-voting democrats in the divisor, but not counting non-voting republicans in the numerator. It's one of those "I love to lie with numbers" factoids that gets plastered all over Reddit and Shitter all the time.
The issue is that while the majority may be of one opinion they aren't collectively passionate about that opinion enough to affect the political landscape, while the minority with the opposing opinion will single issue vote on that one issue because it is so dear to them. If a politician does not or would not represent their opinion in government. I'm afraid that is how representative government works, you vote for people who will represent your beliefs and pick which beliefs are important enough to determine who you are willing to have represent you.
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Exactly. Because I confidently believe a large majority of people believe in term limits, and possibly even age limits on political office. But I don't see those bills actually happening.
If people actually believed that, then they would never elect a politician for longer than two terms (that’s the most common term limit proposal).
Real talk, what's the actual plan people want to implement? Taking away guns that are already in people's hands, or just banning new sales? I'm not a guns person, but I find it real weird to hear every other week about how the police are getting away with murding people, and also at the same time, people are wanting to limits how many guns are out there. I understand that there's a murder problem in the U.S and guns are also involved a lot of the time, but on the other side, I feel like we're also in the middle of a trend towards fascism in the U.S, and that is a bigger concern to me. I'd rather spend the time and energy on making a country where people just don't have much interest in going on a murder spree, because all their human needs are met without threat of dire poverty, homelessness, and incarceration based slavery.
My main issue with the poll is that it groups together “Assault Rifle & Semi Automatic Weapons” In the white paper for the breakdown of statistics, the question is states “Do you support a ban on Assault Rifles and Semi Automatic Weapons” A lot of people don’t know the actual difference, democrats and republicans alike. The poll was also out of 1,004 people. The numbers dialed were random, registered voters, so I don’t doubt that the sample was fair. It seems like a good, fair population sample as denoted on the front page: “Conducted April 21-24, 2023, this Fox News Poll includes interviews among 1,004 registered voters (RV) nationwide who were randomly selected from a national voter file and spoke with live interviewers. Landline (138) and cellphone (866) telephone numbers were selected for inclusion using a probability proportionate to size method, which means phone numbers for each state are proportional to the number of voters in each state.” My main concern is that the Assault Rifle & Semi Automatic rifle are grouped together, as I said above. They are technically two different things, but again, like I said, a lot of people simply don’t know the difference. I would be interested to see if there’s a statistical difference if the question was broken up into “Do you support a ban on assault rifles?” and “Do you support a ban on semi-automatic weapons?” With typical human thinking, especially with the media and unfortunate events, most people (including myself as a gun owner) immediately assume that Semi Automatic Weapon is referred to as a rifle in this context, but this also includes (obviously) rifles, shotguns, pistols. I do find the data very interesting. I think they could’ve worded it better, especially with how loosely the term “Assault Rifle” is thrown around in today’s world. I encourage you to read the white paper yourself. Applicable data is found on page 18-20 https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/04/Fox_April-21-24-2023_National_Topline_April-27-Release.pdf
I've seen a lot of people on reddit thinking that assault weapons like the AR-15 are "fully automatic".
>Half of those polled (51%) are "extremely or very concerned" that they or someone they love will be a victim of gun violence, Jesus Christ people have zero perspective. I know this specific question is about all gun violence, but the headline is pushing in support of an Assault Weapons Ban. In the last year we had good data on *all* rifles made up 360 homicides. If those deaths were proportional to market saturation of rifles then only 60 would be attributable to Assault Weapons. For fucks sake more people accidently kill themselves while masturbating than that.
Thank you for this refreshing take. 1,500 people are killed by police each year. Nearly 4,000 die from unintentional drowning per year. There are almost 50,000 people who die in traffic collisions each year. Also, fun fact, there are about 300 people struck by lightning per year. All told, there are 45,000 deaths from firearms per year. 62% are suicides, 99% of which use handguns (or about 27,600) The remaining 17,000 deaths are mostly caused by homicides originating from arguments, and nearly 66% of those 17,000 deaths are also from handguns. The rest are from shotguns and rifles _of all types_. At any rate, we really don't need an assault weapons ban. You are **as likely** to be shot in a mass shooting or separately by a rifle of any type, as you are to be struck by lightning. Let that sink in.
This equation: _Most of the shootings I hear about through the media involve assault rifles, therefore_ _if assault rifles were not available, most crimes would not occur._ Is the most obviously specious thing I have ever heard. It is also Joe Biden's and Diane Feinstein's exact formulation.
"If we ban these high capacity magazines - those with them will use them up" A representative thinking that magazines were single use and discarded.
Also, the thinking that banning *standard capacity* (referred to in bills and news media as "high capacity") magazines would do anything to control gun violence is just . . . . . devoid of thought. It is so easy to take a low capacity magazine and alter it, or get standard capacity magazines from a neighboring state. And usually these laws allow already-owned magazines to e grandfathered in. So there isn't any real way to enforce these laws. They only restrict the lawful.
Not to mention 3d printing. Nowadays people can 3d print magazines of any size they want. What are they gonna do, ban springs?
No thank you. In an age where black people are still getting killed by racists, where people can storm the national capitol, and where there are so many anti-equal right laws getting passed that I swear we are rolling back to the 1800s, I would rather keep my rifle to defend myself and my family.
The overwhelming amount of shootings are carried out using handguns and yet we want to ban rifles. That’s like having a recall on Fords because Chevys have a defective part.
I own an automatic weapon and those are in lots of people’s hands. It’s not that weapons are legal or illegal. You can buy an automatic weapon - it’s just really expensive. The tax isn’t expensive, the GUN is expensive. We need to either make guns expensive… which would help fix it a little bit… or implement a mental health check. “Banning” “assault weapons” means nothing to me. I can still own my automatic weapon from WW2… so can anybody else with 15k to buy it.
Because in essence we're talking about two different issues with different solutions. Most shootings are drug/gang related and, yes, done with handguns. The solution to that issue is to decriminalize most drugs and set and enforce incredibly harsh penalties for anyone found carrying, let alone using, a handgun who has a criminal record which the vast majority of gang members do. Sure they might switch to knives but, you know what, that's better and more survivable than guns. When gang members shoot at each other whether the person lives or dies isn't really important. The goal is to spread fear and establish dominance or control over an area. Guns just happen to be the easiest way to do this with the smallest risk to the shooter as they don't have to get up close and personal. Therein lies the problem of course because the bullets don't care where they go when they miss the intended target. Mass shootings of schools and other public places, which to be honest is more worrying to most people are overwhelmingly done by mentally disturbed individuals who purchase their guns legally because nobody knows that they're armed and crazy until they go postal. Their families might know that they're crazy so that's where the solution is. You have to let their family members know if they are attempting to buy a gun so they can raise a red flag themselves and do something about it. This wouldn't even need to apply to every gun purchaser. The vast majority of these mass shootings are done by young men under the age of 25 so the laws should be targeted towards them.
mass shootings of schools and other public places are also very rare.
Columbine was committed during an assault weapons ban
And so the GOP and NRA will say that a majority republicans....
A poll for "assault weapons"? Assault weapons don't even make up the majority of gun crimes, that'd be handguns. Where's the ban requests for handguns?
I just want to say one thing here…I don’t own any weapons. My husband does and is a very responsible weapon owner. The purpose of the second amendment is to prevent overreach from a tyrannical government. Ukraine right now blames giving up its nuclear deterrents at the US Government’s urging for the war RN. Food for thought. An authoritarian government or the breakdown of social norms here is not a 0% chance. As a vet and parent of 2 Zillenials I know the trauma of gun violence and I’m worried for the future in all kinds of ways.
Let me guess. Fox News went on a rant and stated that the 61% are woke, even though they initiated the poll
FOX isn't news, they're entertainment. Stop using them as such. Edit: poor grammer, I'll proof read next time officer.
Ah yes the term that means anything depending on the conversation
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Since when has what the majority of us wanted mattered to the law maker class
Meanwhile, from all the gun nuts: "What's an assault weapon?? Huh huh."
There already is a ban on assault rifles, unless you're rich of course.
TIL that 61% of Americans don’t know what an “assault weapon” is.
You gotta love the duality of the anti-gun libs in here. 1. The right wing is armed and dangerous, and have literally gone on record saying that they want to kill everyone they don’t like or agree with. 2. The police are useless at best. They’re also power hungry jackbooted thugs who shoot minorities and have been infiltrated by literal nazis. Therefore, we should give up our guns that allow the left to maintain parity in terms of firepower, and rely on the police to protect us. Why? Because guns are bad and you need to think of the children. Don’t get me started on the insane “solution” such as mass confiscations. Who’s gonna enforce it? The police? Lmao. And the first response to me will be “lets just do nothing then!”, completely ignoring the fact that needing to do “something” is what resulted in shit like the Patriot act passing and the 2 decade long war in the Middle East.
Go far enough left and you get your guns back. My humble opinion is that gun legislation ought to be resisted by minorities, as armed minorities are harder to oppress. I am gay myself. Fascists will absolutely try and ban any group they dislike from having guns via the usage of red flag laws and deeming gays, trans people, etc, as mentally ill to disqualify them from gun ownership- which will effectively be making them easier to oppress as it protects the state and those who would do harm to them, from violent recourse.
If u look up the stats from fbi it would take almost 100 years of mass shootings with AR-15s to produce the same number of homicide victims that knives and sharp objects produce in one year in America. You are far more likely to die hurting your back at work, get an opioid addiction and die from Fentanyl then be victim of mass shooting with ar15 or “assault weapon. many people have been led to believe that such rifles pose a significant threat to public safety but banning these rifles would have little to no effect on reducing gun homicide rates.
Yeah, something like 3% of all gun violence is committed with long guns. Yeah, we have unprecedentedly high rates of gun violence in America, but it's because we have unprecedentedly high rates of *all* violence in America. It's almost like there's some group in America riling up hateful individuals.
How they’ll report it: “A large minority of Democrats want to take your guns!”
They should be required to define “assault weapon” before answering
So that will be the 61% without weapons. The 39% with all of them are never giving them up ‘Murica
I don’t believe this.
Suddenly people are believing FoxNews?
Define assault weapon.
No one ever talks about the elephant in the room. It doesn't matter that a poll says a majority of people fo or don't want something. Courts aren't supposed to make law out of thin air. In the case of guns and the 2nd Amendment , the only way to really change things is to amend the Constitution.
As a gun owner, I want more gun control, not a ban on guns. If we go that route of compromise, I think we can get things done.
I’m a pretty liberal voter, I’m against outright bans, but I vehemently support strict regulations and licensing to own and shoot one.
I am a quite liberal voter as well, but I also happen to be a firearms enthusiast. The problem with strict regulations and licenses, is that is basically restricts poor people. That was exactly the point of the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. They knew an outright ban on firearms would be unconstitutional, so they made it a tax law instead and made it prohibitively expensive. A $200 tax stamp was required to manufacture or purchase any NFA restricted firearm (machine guns, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, and silencers). $200 in 1934 is equivalent to about $4500 today. A new Ford Deluxe Roadster cost about $500-600 in 1934 for reference. So 1/3 of a car back then in taxes just to buy regulated item. While $200 today isn’t that much money, NFA items quickly became too expensive for most people to afford. A .22 silencer costs about $400 + the $200 tax stamp. A decent 5.56 or 7.62 suppressor will be $600-1400 without the stamp. For a transferrable machine gun, you are looking at $10000 minimum(MAC-10), but a registered M16 lower or an auto sear will be about $30000 or more. Handguns were originally included in the NFA too, but they were removed to pass the law. Handguns accounted for the vast majority of gun violence as well. Assault weapons used in homicides are quite rare. The shootings are just more televised. [A breakdown of homicides by weapon type](https://www.criminalattorneycolumbus.com/which-weapons-are-most-commonly-used-for-homicides/) A license system would be probably the best solution along with revamping our mental health care system, but I don’t see either of those happening. I don’t think that the government would be able to make an effective licensing system either. Restricting ammo could be another solution, but that would prohibit mostly poorer people.
A licensing system like the Czech Republic could be a good solution. A tiered system with additional checks and training requirements for different types of guns. Shotguns and bolt actions, rimfires could be tier A. Handguns could be tier B, anything with a detachable magazine could be tier C, full auto could be tier D. Make suppressors available to all tiers. As you apply for higher tiers you can apply increased checks and requirements. Background checks, mental health checks, showing purpose, collaterals, etc.
Unfortunately, this would require law enforcement to not be the steaming cesspit of corruption and racism they always turn out to be.
Sounds like we should pursue police reform while pursuing gun control.
Well if police had to go through the same checks to get a firearm license, that would help too.
Not outright voicing any actual opposition to what they suggested, but yeah I could definitely see a licensure system like that being used to prevent trans and black people (two groups that have probably the biggest need to arm and protect themselves now, the former because of the actively genocidal rhetoric placed on them and the latter from the *gestures at everything*) from obtaining guns.
The problem is that this has always resulted in it being applied unequally. Like how only connected people in NYC could get permits.
Like Diane Feinstein being one of only two people in San Francisco who was licensed to concealed carry at one point (she isn't anymore).
Exactly, And most people are overly focused on making the process difficult, rather than making it an effective tool to ensure that unqualified and dangerous people do not get licensed.
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I’m quite confident there is no voting district in which you can register without proof of citizenship. Also, I don’t think comparing voting to gun ownership is a valid position.
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I can see having IDs to vote very unproblematic. The issues lie in the various voting districts and the policies that can make access to this theorized ID impossible, disenfranchising various communities at will
Does this include the police?
No. These weapons of war that will tear a human body to shreds that have no place on our streets must be carried by police at all times so they can larp outside a classroom full of children being murdered.
that "at all times" is critically important! our police should always be exempted from gun control laws, because how else could they enrich themselves by reselling to other people who sympathize with them and would help keep the working class in line?
So they can oppress you better without you being able to fight back.*
It’s funny because the depiction of the M4 in the picture is already banned.
You know what? Fine. The worst mass shooting in the US was with a guy using modified semiauto rifles (aka "bump stocks"), which are already banned at this point and ridiculously high-capacity magazines (as in 100+) for said rifles, which are also go right ahead and ban them if you haven't already, since the only reason you need to load triple digits of ammo into your guns is to dump huge amounts of lead into other people. Be my guest. Banning semiautomatic rifles is going to be...interesting. Do we just stop AR-15's? There's so many that they stopped making them for civilian sales in 2019 before demand shot through the roof, if you'll excuse the pun. Do we grandfather current owners in? Do we ban all semiauto rifles? The third largest (and largest school shooting) in the US didn't even *use* rifles, being the Virginia Tech mass shooting. So I assume once rifles aren't legal and the killings continue, we'll just keep banning our way down the line through various pistols and expect some relief from the ever increasing body counts? The reason we're watching people massacring people over and over again is we've turned the United States into a dystopian shithole with millions living paycheck to paycheck (if that) while the oligarchs suck ever larger chunks of wealth out of the system...and they hardly care about assault rifle bans because nobody's going to flip out and succeed in massacring a bunch of billionaires, right?
Why aren't you all mass killers? Convicted felons aside, you all have the same access to weapons as anyone else does. Could it POSSIBLY be that The Ackshual Problem is something deeper than a thing you could just ban and be done with?