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Given the myriad social problems contributing to America’s rising violent crime rate, and the extraordinary increase in gun ownership over the past couple decades, the GOP hopefuls’ inability to have even the beginning of a cogent conversation on gun violence, or on big-picture social investments, is a huge problem.

DeSantis—who went into the debate on Wednesday as number two in the race but likely will come out with falling ratings thanks to his hopeless debating style—can play the demagogue when it comes to talking about Angel Moms. But where is he when it comes to engaging with the moms of gun violence victims killed or injured by people who aren’t undocumented immigrants? Why is his party MIA when it comes to having even the most rudimentary of public discussions around gun control?

— Sasha Abransky in Republicans Want Us to Be Afraid of Everything but Guns

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

73 COMMENTS

  1. Yet another insignificant wannabe tyrant and moral busybody.

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” C.S. Lewis

  2. Leftists always live harping on about these so-called social problems yet don’t want to do anything tangible or real to deal with them.

    As if to say “there are a load of lunatics and maniacs running amok among the population so let’s take away everyone’s rights.”

    In their minds that’s a reasonable solution.

    Absolute leftist rule has been on display in some regions for decades. The dept of Ed has produced falling scores for 70 years. They’ve sold off every livable wage job the average person could get to foreign countries the response to which is encouraging millions of poor and working class people to go tens of thousands into debt chasing useless degrees in a saturated market. I know, there’s just never enough money for the great things they want to accomplish for the American people. How about another trillion for Ukraine?

    You all complain too much, remember too much and notice too much so your rights need to be taken away. Here, have some newly legal drugs to take the edge of despair off just a touch.

    • “Leftists always live harping on about these so-called social problems yet don’t want to do anything tangible or real to deal with them.”

      Except to throw buckets of someone else’s (the public’s, not their personal) money at it, and damn the financial consequences to the nation as a whole while doing it… 🙁

    • The left never blame the person making the decision. They always blame the environment. In the book “crime and punishment” from 1866, they were still blaming the environment rather than the decision. To the left, even in this book, no accountability or blame is set up the one making the decision. It’s always instead if the environment – if humanity was set upon different rules there would be no crime. That’s how they are.

    • The most succinct and best stated critique of the liberal mindset I’ve seen in a long while.

    • The ” myriad social problems contributing to America’s rising violent crime rate” are a direct result of democrats policies, laws and their encouraging people to break the law by not prosecuting them.

      In today’s world those who are inclined to break the law know they will often get off with no punishment. The Youts of today see it and say “why not”.

      The democrat (communist party USA) is winning.

      Be Prepared !!!

  3. Or abortion…let people self-control their population how they like.
    How about a compromise? No controls on abortions for no controls on guns and gun parts?
    Yeah…never gonna happen.

  4. Why is it that Democrats are so fixated on guns that they fail to understand that it is the finger that pulls the trigger, rather than the other way around? Are they so really so obtuse that they can’t bring themselves to the understanding that bad and violent people will use whatever tools they can obtain to maim or kill in pursuit of their criminal activities?

    • Yes, they are that obtuse. Witness our own resident trolls who prescribe “moar lawz” as the solution to violent criminals committing violent acts.

      Passing laws that restrict the law-abiding, while criminals would just add to the pile of laws that they violate while criminaling, is much easier than actually addressing the root causes of violent crime.

      • The only real power a government has is to crack down on criminals. But when there aren’t enough criminals to support the bureaucracy, they simply make more by passing more laws that turn formerly law-abiding people into criminals. They want those laws broken. There is no way to rule innocent people.

        • Incredible insight!

          Moreover, it occurs to me that there is varying appetites for enforcing various genres of laws on various segments of the population.

          It became evident that J. Edger Hoover wanted to pursue bank robbers but not organized crime. It suited his ambitions for the FBI to pursue the flashy crime of bank robbery where catching the criminals was easy and low-risk. Pursuing gangsters would cause his Special Agents to die or become corrupted.

          Our current legislators and CJS actors understand this as well. They will pursue the taboo crimes (e.g., drug crimes) of marginalized groups while ignoring violent crime by segments of their political constituencies. They are rationalizing their own behavior to their own priorities. Not to the priorities of the society.

    • As someone has mentioned on here before, most people don’t logically think through any of these positions or policies. That’s why tribalism is so important for Democrats to win. All they have to do is demonize their opponents. It works because the population has literally been dumbed down.

      Public schools are passing students who can’t read at any level — all to avoid blaming teachers, lawmakers, and bureaucrats.
      https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/public-schools-passing-students-who-cant-read/

    • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD, did you make that “68% of Republicans” up? To put it point blank, I call BULL SHIT. MSN is NOT a legitimate source of anything but Leftist propaganda.

      • he keeps pushing for something that will infringe upon our rights….but have very little impact on criminal activity…they could care less about background checks….

    • Enforced?
      More so than what is already on the books?
      Granted there are some failures of our current system that need to be addressed, like getting mentally ill people on the NICS list as not able to purchase. That would include all Democrats. Hey, if you cannot define what a woman is, you have a mental illness.

  6. That’s right sasha abransky everyone should gather around an agenda History Confirms is Rooted in Racism and Genocide and sing Kum ba yah.

    The Problem is definitely not the law abiding using firearms, bricks, bats, knives, fists, feet, vehicles, etc. The problem is sicko Gun Control nazis like you sasha abransky and the Criminal Misuse of firearms, bricks, bats, knives, fists, feet, vehicles, etc.
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=WlItbl9SOAg&feature=shared

      • Was about to say nobody said it benefits the citizens. Also were they trying to play off of manifest destiny just with civil liberties instead of territory?

    • If by “strict gun control”, you mean laws that restrict the rights and freedom of good citizens, supports red flag confiscations, closing FFLs for no good reason, waiting periods for purchases that places women and others in grave danger, abolishing the 2nd Amendment then let it be known that I am firmly against that definition of gun control.

      However if by strict gun control you mean, a steady hand on a firearm of choice, a firm stance, keen vision in which to sight and take aim, strict trigger control and range days that bring much enjoyment to good citizens, if those are the things of which you speak, then I can clearly state that I support that definition.

    • rue gun control IS beneficial to all of society; It is achieved when every law abiding citizen fully cotnrols his own guns such that they are never used to harm innocents, and always availble to protect innocents. AND carefully kept from the hands of those who would use them to harm innocents.
      THAT is good gun control. Soemthing sadly lacking in places like Chicago, Noo Yawk, Baltiless, Noo Joisey, Smog Angeles, FlimFlam Friskum……

  8. Lol
    It isn’t about Republicans accepting anything. This isn’t even about the Republican party at all.

    This is about the rule of law. Gun control is not legal. The Democrats are only interested in doing things that are not legal to do.

  9. Crime levels are spiking because the Libertarians Liberals and the Left demanded that the police stand down. And they say there are too many people locked up in America.
    They say compared to other countries. They call for emptying the jails.

    They believe children molesters, murderers, and rapists should spend less time in prison.

    And they don’t believe in killing to protect private property.
    But they’re comfortable with the state killing to protect state property.

    • Benefits of gat control? Like putting gun toting criminals in jail? Or putting them to death? BREAKING: 2 women shot IN THE STANDS at White Sox park in Chiraq’s southside. Boo-lits found. “No one else at risk”🙄🤓😀

    • Yup. They want to cause disastrous social and economic destruction. They want the chaos to be pervasive and so painful that we will beg .gov to save us, no matter what the cost to our freedoms.

      That is, for those of us who are left after the clot shots, Chem trails, GMO foods, and cricket-meal.

      Does this text make me look cynical?

  10. The violent crime rate increased throughout the 1960s, 70s , and 80s. It peaked in 1991, and decreased until the 2020 “summer of love”. Gun ownership and legal carrying both increased dramatically while the crime rate was declining, proving that more guns does not equal more crime.

    The increase in crime since 2020 is due to democrat-led soft-on-crime policies that mirror those of the 1960-1980 period, and due to a general decline in our society. It has no relationship with the number of legally owned guns.

    • Correct, Papa. Also note how long it took before people Democrats had enough, and decided to do something about it. Decades.

  11. A brief survey of the books Sasha Abransky has written reveals a thoroughly Marxist mindset. He is an unapologetic follower of Brother Marx in the footsteps of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Obama and Biden….with maybe a little wishful Pol Pot thrown in.

    Another Leftist demagogue who believes that only his view of Humanity is the correct one and neutralization, by any means, to anyone who doesn’t see The Truth of his “wisdom” and “vision”.

  12. Moderated…again…too many “trigger” words.
    Nothing vulgar, yet Net Nanny still disapproves.
    The fight for thought and word control continues unabated.

    • Lol
      I’d forgotten about Net Nanny. I would have thought we could have moved beyond that by now.

    • OGIM,

      Sometimes, I wonder whether the real purpose of the censors is simply to frustrate us into not posting; leftists enjoying inhibiting the free speech of Constitutionalists. TTAG pays a leftist organization to police our freedom of expression. I guess there are no centrists or right-leaning organizations that offer a moderation service (uttered in a mildly snarky tone).

  13. The reason we can’t “appreciate the manifest benefits of strict gun control” are because there are none.

  14. What these disarmament fools forget is the simple fact laws only effect the law abiding. Criminals and those with evil or criminal intent don’t follow the law.
    The next fact they ignore is that firearms have no shelf life. I have a number of very functional firearms well over a century in age that function just as well as they did when new. And, if given minimal care in storage, a firearm manufactured today could easily be in functional condition a century from now.
    Next fact ignored. There are 4oo million firearms at least in the USA today. How do the idiots plan on tracking down and registering them? You can’t regulate what you don’t know about.
    How many will disappear into the lake or be stolen should the demand for registration or confiscation be realized? Or perhaps sold to some random guy at the gun range etc.
    Next ignored fact. Criminals will find a way to arm themselves and give themselves an advantage over their potential/intended victims. If a firearm isn’t available, a knife, club, rock, brick, chain or other item will be used.
    If gun control and disarmament is such a great idea, let those demanding I and my fellow citizens be disarmed lead by example and dispense with their armed security and disarm the government agencies and military.

    • You assume their intentions are grounded in good faith.

      We’re dealing with an ignorant horde of emotional reactionaries being led around by malicious actors seeking wealth and power. One stupid and should be ignored. The other evil and should be expelled.

      No sense in arguing with logic or reasoning with rationality.

  15. What moron at Fedgov let a “British-born freelance journalist and author who now lives in the United States” reside in the US? NOT a critical economic sector that has a shortage of insane prog labor.

    GTFO.

  16. The three L’s, these fools have helped to castrate local police departments. So now many of the residents are calling for, the national guard to come and “save the day.”

    Do any of these supposedly liberty loving fools, really believe it’s a good idea, to have the National Guard as a permanent police force???

  18. Mom’s Demand Action let’s the truth slip out… This should be all you need to see. (this is the democrats ‘strict gun control’…that an innocent man who defended himself would be sent to prison or sentenced to death to be ‘held accountable … in other words the Democrats manifest benefits of strict gun control means imprisonment and/or death for the innocent they don’t like … and they wonder why Republicans don’t go along with them on it.)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CirtgH3xs68

  19. Here’s the problem with civilian disarmament: Currently we have Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). If a civil war were to break out today, with the left in control of the White House, the left would win and the right would be destroyed. However, the costs both physical and economic would destroy the nation and the government that emerged would not in any way resemble the one that exists today. The US would also become vulnerable to our adversaries which only Biden wants. By refusing to give up our arms we can perpetuate MAD and, hopefully, prevent civil war until wiser minds prevail and the left’s influence on society is significantly diminished. My chief fear is that Dobbs, although correctly decided, destroyed the right politically because men want to bury their mistakes and they’ve convinced women that their freedom depends on their ability to discard their offspring on a whim or because they would be inconvenient. This means that the left’s influence will be increased rather than diminished and an eventual attempt at disarmament will bring about an unwanted and unwinnable war.

    • Who’s got the most gats? The right. By far. The po-leece,national & state guard and the military AIN’T a monolith of leftards. A % would not go to war against their fellow countrymen. And the good guy’s know where a lot live🙄This isn’t 1861…

  21. I hired a medium, to make a conference call to Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and Idi Amin Adada. We do indeed see the advantages of strict gun control. It is so much easier to exterminate undesirables when the undesirables are unarmed and defenseless.

  22. Some people keep breaking windows with rocks.

    Let’s ban rocks.

    Yeah… that’s the ticket. Yeah, just ask my wife… Mooooorgan Fairchild. That’s right.

    • I actually had a guy walk up to my place of business and tell me I should pick up the brick laying outside because somebody might use it to break a window.

      The brick was sitting in a landscaped flower bed bordered with 6″-8″ stones and river rock.

      But that brick, yeah, somebody may break a window with it.

      People are not as dumb as you think. They’re far dumber.

    • @.40 cal

      Interesting to watch and the step-by-step commentary was concise and relevant.
      Thank you for posting this.

  24. Republicans?
    Democrats?
    Hows this for the truth about presidential candidates.
    ” We will say whatever it takes to get your vote.( votes dont matter, it’s just a litmus test to see if the people still believe the lie).However what we say and what we do are two different things.”

  26. “When it comes to specific laws, some bipartisan support can be seen. For example, when it comes to enforcing background checks, 93% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans are in favor of enforcement.”

    Diving into the survey specifics, when they say “background checks,” the question’s specific phrasing means background checks for ALL sales, including at gun shows (which is already done) and private sales. IOW, “universal background checks.”

    More importantly, the methodology of the survey is as follows: “The poll surveyed 1,165 adults using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population …”

    Note: this is not a random sample survey.

    “Data were collected using the AmeriSpeak Omnibus®, a monthly multi-client survey using NORC’s probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. household population. … During the initial recruitment phase of the panel, randomly selected U.S. households were sampled with a known, non-zero probability of selection from the NORC National Sample Frame and then contacted by U.S. mail, email, telephone, and field interviewers (face-to-face). The panel provides sample coverage of approximately 97 percent of the U.S. household population.”

    If you take a glance at the other surveys and results, it is apparent that the panel has a bias — https://apnorc.org/

    Examples of other survey results which tend to run counter to prevailing views on each subject:

    “A year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, most adults still believe that abortion should be legal and most are in favor of Congress guaranteeing access to legal abortion.”

    “Most adults, regardless of political identification, race, or ethnicity believe the Supreme Court should not prohibit the consideration of race and ethnicity in the admissions process.”

    “About half of adults say Donald Trump acted illegally in his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia and 54% think his actions following his loss in the 2020 presidential election threatened democracy.”

  28. Sasha Abransky was born and raised in London, England. He’s a professor at UC Davis where he says: “I specialize in political reporting and social justice journalism, with an emphasis on reporting on poverty, immigration, the criminal justice system.” He’s received 2 Crime and Communities Media Fellowships from Soro’s Open Society Foundations. His wife is a Chinese-American self described environmental and social justice activist.

    Abransky nothing but a modern day Bolshevik, a commie extremist who is dedicated to “fundamentally transforming” the United States.

    He and his ilk are enemies who want to enslave us.

    • Without slave labor, how will they build the Great Lakes to Seattle canal using only hand tools?

      • There’s a lake up Canada way called Great Slave Lake.

        Coinkydink?’ I think NOT. Or at least as little as possible….

  29. Probably everyone who is a regular here has seen the gun control cake cartoon/meme. If you haven’t, search for it, it is easy to find. While not the most sophisticated description of the mindset of those on either side, it is pretty close to spot-on. That is why those who champion gun-rights won’t have, “even the most rudimentary of public discussions around gun-control?”

    Those discussions have been had, gun-control has already gone too far, I want my damn cake back.

  30. “Given the myriad social problems [which include, I imagine, suicide], . . . the GOP hopefuls’ inability to have even the beginning of a cogent conversation on gun violence, or on big-picture social investments, is a huge problem.”

    The OP seems to be unaware that 60-66% of gunshot deaths are suicides and that an equal number of suicides are by means other than guns. If there is a “big picture” in this “myriad of social problems” he seems to be blissfully unaware of it.

    The problem of suicide is not a gun problem. It’s a suicide ideation problem. And there is a readily-available, fast-acting, cheap solution that could resolve as much as 60% of all suicides. But he wouldn’t be interested. He is only interested in guns. He is not genuinely interested in a “big picture” in this “myriad of social problems”.

    Of the remaining 40-33% of the gunshot deaths problem, we are pretty sure that the core is to be found in early childhood development. That looks like C-PTSD; or, PTSD itself. Is he interested in a “big picture” in this “myriad of social problems”? No.

    By coincidence, the same readily-available, fast-acting, cheap solution that could resolve as much as 60% of all suicides is also equally applicable to C-PTSD and PTSD. But he isn’t interested. He is laser focused on guns. And gun-control can’t solve either of these two major problems: suicides; or, early childhood development or PTSD.

  32. Sashay,

    I believe in deterrence. Until your various equations “proving” manifest benefits include terms accounting for deterrence, there’s little to discuss.

    Y’all could be more full of shit. I don’t see how, but you are good at it, keep trying…

  33. Translation: Why can’t Republicans and the rest of Americans appreciate having their Second Amendment eviscerated, their guns forcibly confiscated (and be shot if they do not comply), and be like the rest of the kuked slaves in other countries?

  34. Always look commenter up … It seems Sasha is a 98 pound weakling, long haired Britsh academic who lives to criticize America. He is not someone qualified to give self defense and firearms advice to me, because it looks like someone who can’t even imagine (much less win) a fist fight? Look up Judges, reporters, etc…so Sasha, which of YOUR rights would you like to negotiate away???

    Because sometimes it’s a 79 year old grandmother in a black robe deciding what you need for self defense and they need to be ridiculed for talking out of their lanes.

    • He’s a product of Soros’ “Open Society Foundation” & married to a fellow Communist, a Chinese one from NYC. Birds of a feather.

  35. Google self-described “bookish” Sasha Abramsky, get a look at his mug, he’s also a Brit (like someone else of his persuasion who often posts here), of course he’s the offspring of Bolshevik parents and Soros’ “Open Society Foundation” alumni.

    #EveryTimeEveryDamnTime

  36. Google self-described “bookish” Sasha Abramsky, get a look at his mug, he’s also a Brit (like someone else of his persuasion who often posts here), of course he’s the offspring of Bowl-shevik (damn moderation) parents and $oros’ “Open Society Foundation” alumni.

    #EveryTimeEveryDamnTime

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