By JD
I am a registered Democrat and I vote for Democrats. Not exclusively, but if every vote I had ever cast was counted, there would be more votes for Democrats than Republicans. I am also a gun owner and a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms. Some of you reading this probably think that I’m suffering from a rather severe case of cognitive dissonance; I assure you I’m not . . .
The simple fact of the matter is that I’m not a single-issue voter. Rather, there are a number of issues that I care about and consider when evaluating a political candidate. Sometimes I prefer a Democrat and sometimes I prefer a Republican. Further, not every Democratic candidate favors gun control. While it is very difficult (if not impossible) for me to vote for a Democrat who does emphasizes gun control, it’s equally difficult for me to vote for most Republicans.
As a supporter of the RKBA, it concerns me how gun-owning Democrats are treated by the gun community. Gun forums provide some of the best examples of the dismissive treatment Democrats receive. Rather than being welcomed, the Democrat voter is more likely to be shouted down and told how he isn’t smart enough to understand that by voting Democrat he is voting to give up his guns.
I’m enough of a gun nut that I still visit the forums and websites and just avoid the political discussion altogether. But what about those Democrats who are perhaps interested in learning more about guns and come across these comments while searching Google? Isn’t it possible that they would be put off by the way they see Democrats being discussed and the firestorm that ensues when someone actually admits that they voted Democrat?
The point I want to make is that alienating Democrats and questioning their intelligence is not the way to preserve the RKBA. In fact, alienating Democrats and making them feel as though they aren’t part of the gun community harms the RKBA. Think about it – if every Democrat was for gun control and every Republican was for the RKBA, then we as gun owners would be perilously close to losing some of our rights. However, if just half the Democrats supported the RKBA along with all Republicans then there would be no need to worry about losing our rights.
I believe that getting more Democrats to support the RKBA should be a priority for gun owners. The more Democratic gun owners that exist, the more likely it becomes that the Democratic Party as a whole will change its stance on gun control. Furthermore, those who favor gun control want us to isolate ourselves and alienate anyone who might be on the fence about the issue. The smaller our group becomes, the easier it will be to pass gun control legislation. For this reason, any gun owner should be welcomed with open arms regardless of their voting habits or personal beliefs because that person will be less likely to vote for a candidate who supports gun control.
Our ultimate goal as gun owners, and the only way to guarantee the RKBA doesn’t go away, should be to gain enough support for the RKBA across both parties that it ceases to be a political issue outside of a few zealots. Alienating potential gun owners because they aren’t single-issue voters or wouldn’t fit in with the NRA crowd will only hinder achieving this goal. I fear that if we as gun owners don’t become a more diverse group (politically and socially) by welcoming new members to the club that we face losing many of the rights we have today.
Hear, hear!
Amen to that. I’ve left many a gun forum for *daring* to have a similar opinion. Its not that I swung left, its that the Republican party swung right. What’s a centrist 2A supporter to do?
Find a moral compass and regain your bearings? 😛
Here in NJ, all gun control laws are shoved down our throats by a straight party line vote. Democrats have been the party of civilian disarmament since the 1960’s. If you are person of the gun, there is no other choice. If you don’t want to be a Republican, become an Independent. A candidate’s view on gun control should be your first priority, and everything else comes second. (But be careful of the Manchins and Gores out there, that sell us out to their party platform). Also, watch out which church you attend. I resigned from the United Methodist Church years ago after it gave a grant to start Handgun Control Inc.
Get with other centrist Democrats and throw out Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Chucky Schumer, etc. etc. and all of the anti-2a leaders of the Democrat Party.
I admit I have a hard time separating the sounds of the centrist Democrats from the overwhelming anti-gun screams coming from the “progressive” leaders of that party. I am not overly fond of many of the leaders of the GOP, but at least their default mode is not anti-2a.
“I am a registered Democrat and I vote for Democrats, and [I am] a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms.”
You can’t be for liberty and then vote for anti-liberty politicians.
Not all Democrats are anti-liberty. In fact, not all Republicans are pro-liberty.
Both parties have issues. That said, I see a lot more problems on the Dems side than Republicans these days. I am wary of both parties, just more wary of one than the other.
They both need a lot of house-cleaning. However, while the Republicans are beginning to see some change it seems like the Dems are doubling down on failed policies. They really need to kick out the “progressives” and outright socialists and get back to being the party of the “little guy”. Something they haven’t really behaved like in well over 20 years now.
Good point. I was raised in a Democrat family back when that party was for the middle class and working class folks. Now at the national level, they explicitly run against working folks, and they even look down their noses at them. Their socialist policies are aimed at hurting the middle class. It s become the perry of the very wealthy and the subsidized poor, and guess who gets stuck with the bill for most of that subsidizing–the guy in the middle, who really can no longer afford it.
I put off becoming a Repub for years because they suck in other ways, but the current Dem party is so horrible now, I haven’t voted for one in 10 years.
+1
I cannot stomach becoming a Republican. I tried it for a couple of years and they just do too bad of a job for me to be affiliated with them. I keep an open mind but the last 10 years or so I have voted almost exclusively for them. The one exception is local races. If it is between a Republican and Liberatarian, I vote for the Liberatarian. If it is between a Republican and Democrat, I vote for the Republican. I have cast one Democrat vote since 2000.
Sadly, even 20 years ago the Dems were changing into what they are today. It was not fun watching the transformation. Until they remember they are supposed to be the party of the working class, the blue collar, the everyday Joe Average, they will not get my vote except for the extreme exception.
20 years? Try 50 years!
I’m 65 years old, and I have yet to see a Democrat or a Republican who is actually Pro-Liberty. They’re just fighting over whether the emperor’s throne is emblazoned with a D or R.
As long as the DNC is controlled by the Progressives, they will never give up on civilian disarmament. They are collectivist authoritarians. Having the little people retain any measure of tangible power and autonomy is completely antithetical to their world view. They will never be happy until all the proles are packed into urban hell holes where they can be watched and controlled, living where and how they want us to live, reading what they want us to read, eating what they want us to eat.
There are authoritarians in the GOP too, of course. We need libertarian pushes in both parties. Fortunately, I think more and more young people are starting to understand what the Progressives are doing to this country.
“There are authoritarians in the GOP too, of course. We need libertarian pushes in both parties.”
No, that’s putting lipstick on Frankenstein’s Monster.
To get to Liberty from here, we need to turn 90 degrees from the one-dimensional R-D paradigm. Thankfully, we still have secret ballots, so, when you’re in the booth and nobody’s looking, click (or punch) the L, then don’t tell anybody! When they ask, just say, “I voted for the one I think is the best.” If they pressure you, say, “I don’t have to tell you. Am I being detained?” 😉
So you shouldn’t vote at all? because it isn’t like either of the main parties or most of the minor parties don’t have a single anti-liberty position.
So, you don’t vote for Republicans either then, right?
Most republicans are pretty anti-liberty for the sake of crime or morality. All depends on whether you agree with the ends of the restriction.
@dwb, uh…..bullshat.
Because there are some politicians who are on the side of liberty right? Wake up. The political dynasties in this nation want to quash your freedom so they can keep right on getting re-elected.
A Danny G. right on!
Ironically, my entry was about how I became a one issue voter.
All the same, yes, I am a bit tired of the Democrat bashing that goes on. I still hold to a few liberal beliefs even though I typically find myself right-of-the-center these days.
It seems like a majority of the population is pro-gun. It is the Democratic POLITICIANS that seem to be anti-gun. At some point they need to keep getting punished over this that they finally take it off their platforms. As it is, many of them are running away from that position but since it still seems key to many platforms in blue states I don’t think it is enough.
Back in 2012, 37% of registered Democrats were willing to tell complete strangers that they were gun owners and 42% were willing to admit to the same group of pollsters that they had guns in their house even if they wouldn’t cop to being the owner. GOP voters’s numbers were 38% and 47% respectively if I recall correctly.
I’m a Liberal who got hit square between the shoulder blades by the Firearms plank in 2012. If that is what Corey Booker could come up with as a Mayor and Potential Senator (he got the nod for NJ’s vacant Senate seat) and is what is embraced by the DNC (it is) then all it would take is for the Greens or the Justice Party to stand firmly for the right for folks to own firearms and the DNC would potentially blow away as it would have lost almost a third of it’s voting base.
“It is the Democratic POLITICIANS who seem to be anti-gun”. Quite so. And it is the POLITICIANS who make the laws. And it is the “I am pro-gun, but I am a Democrat” voters who make them POLITICIANS by voting them into office. Pointing that is not “dismissive” or insulting, it is a bare fact.
Because pro-gun is not always every voter’s top priority.
Just because I have become a single issue voter does not mean I expect everyone else will. I wish they would, but I know better.
I’ll go with that–but when the [literal] enablers of the gun grabbing politicos ask for my sympathy and/or support as a fellow 2A advocate, it just doesn’t compute with me.
@ Another Robert, you are correct sir!
This is what happens when we knowingly or unknowingly define ourselves as “liberal”, “conservative”, “Democrat”, “Republican”…
There is cognitive dissonance because many of things on both platforms end badly when taken to their logical conclusions…
But by all means, let’s continue to box ourselves in and keep the label generation going!
Preach!
I’m not sure, but I do believe this has to be one of the absolute worst posts of Demosoviet pablum misinformation I’ve ever read.
I think you’re proving his point
@PGT, and you just proved mine.
and people like you make it harder to get dems to switch sides on the 2a issue
The Dems don’t need anyone “make it harder” for them to “switch sides” on the 2A issue. The Party leadership does it all for them. It’s a matter of record.
@dakiwi13, wait, what? So you think that by speaking the truth it will run Demoturds off? THEN SO BE IT.
Agreed. WWhenever Republicans start taking advice from liberals on how to behave, what policies to support and what demographics to reach out to, then Republicans lose. Just ask Presidents Dole, McCain, and Romney.
@Jonathan-Houston, very true. And don’t forget to add “no new taxes” Bush, Sr. Placating the Demosovs didn’t serve him well then either.
Oh, Bush I didn’t impose any new taxes – he just doubled all the old ones! 😀
Word.
Those of you who think the author is insane for owning guns and voting D ought to check out some demographic charts.
Hate to be the voice of reality ,but the White Guy voting base is rapidly eroding -as is the GOP who relies on that voting bloc. More and more minorities and women are voting, and the GOP repeatedly is on the wrong side of nearly every issue those new voters care about. Pretty soon the Democrats will have a permanent lock on the White House .
The GOP is a stock on the decline. We can either as gun owners diversify the political portfolio and give women and minority voters a reason to support the Second Amendment by backing the Dems-or we can keep riding the “Gays go to hell / illegal immigrants to jail” train all the way to insolvency.
Before someone pipes up about how illegal immigrants should be deported and arrested, I’d like to hear a logistically feasable plan for rounding up tens of millions of undocumented residents. It’s not about politics anymore, it’s a practical reality that these people are a part of American society whether you and I want them to be or not. It’s cheaper to dispense with the pretense of “cracking down” and just make them citizens.
We need to dispense with the divisive bull and spend that energy winning the hearts and minds of Democrat voters. If we don’t, the alternative is seeing the RKBA deleted from our national consciousness.
By the way, at the national level the GOP is equally as bad regarding gun rights as the Democrats. I bring you Mark Kirk, Ronald Reagean , and George HW Bush (who signed the importation ban ) .
So no, the GOP is not the White knight for gun rights , any more then the Democratic Party has always stood for racial equality.
While I agree that we need to attract more of the people that are currently attracted by the Democrat Party, we need to attract them to our ideas. It would be nice to convert the DP to a pro-gun party, but that’s less likely than getting minorities and women to be pro-gun, and pro-freedom.
That approach is a non starter.
Why would a woman vote for a GOP candidate who says she doesn’t have the right to control her reproductive decisions?
As a big strong man, let me say that if I had to choose between national concealed carry and being ordered by my government what to do in my own bedroom, I’d vote against outcome two every time.
We need to separate politics and civil rights. Once we make it clear via modern marketing principles that having guns is better then not, the “party problem” will solve itself when those same minority and female voters ask the tough questions we’ve been posting here all along.
Straw man alert.
No one that I know of says any woman can’t control her own reproductive decisions. There are, however, people who, once the woman had made a decision, want to protect the life that has been created.
You’re going to get old and weak, so the fact that you’re ‘a big strong man’ now is irrelevant. Although I do note that you evidently are willing to throw those who are small, weak, and female under the bus. But again, no one is suggesting that anyone tell you what to do in your bedroom (although there are people who would prefer that whatever you do in your bedroom, straight or not, stays in the bedroom).
The problem with your ‘separate politics and civil rights’ idea is that both politics and civil rights are subjective, not objective. And both depend on what premises you start with.
@Scot, bingo.
Enforce THE LAW and they will self-deport in mass. Just as they did in massive # during the Obuma economic downturn. Take away the gravy train and they will leave.
The stupid are forcibly put on a bus/train/plane and deported. You’re willing to fund providing these deadbeats food, housing, medical care then calm we can’t afford to deport their butts. Get a backbone.
If they are in the US it is because they have a better/easier life here than in the cesspool they came from. Therefore they have had a HUGE GIFT bestowed up them. Many have had years of education at huge expense. Nutrition, Health care. Now they need to get the hell out and go fix their nation. If you want to arm them DO SO. Perhaps you can go down there and help them fight.
If you think deporting them back to their original “cesspool” is going to solve the problem, good luck.
What wouldn’t you do for your family? Do you really think a plane ride back to their home country is a deterrent for deportees when the alternative is starvation and probable death for their families?
A recent DHS report I read stated matters plainly. Some of these folks have made the trip to and from their home countries often enough to qualify for frequent flier miles. It’s so bad that our deportations are exporting US street gangs to other countries, who then decide to make the trip up here for “the good life” after they join.
No, arrests and deportation is not a viable solution, no matter how ones personal opinion may be on the subject. We may as well try to deport migratory birds .
First thing first, you have to stop talking about any type of Amnesty or steps toward Amnesty period. Anytime a D or R opens his or her mouth about how we need to be compassionate, it sends a message to flood the borders or stick around until the politicians give in. If we have to say mean things and tell them that violating the law and illegally being here under any circumstances will not be tolerated than so be it. After the chaos has subsided and the laws actually enforced (both border and employer aspects) and I don’t see official signs around Southern Arizona saying “Warning, entering high drug and human trafficking area. Be advised” than we can talk about what to do with the ones still here. Until than, no.
I for one would be more than happy to round up and deport illegals. I work in LA, so I can tell you that those without a social security number don’t pay income tax, send their kids to school, and get free healthcare from the ER. Illegals also disproportionately use social services, and unlicensed drivers are usually at-fault in traffic collisions. They are also arrested at a higher rate. None of those things are a financial benefit to the parent country. Perhaps the company who employs the laborer gets cheap labor. So people work for cash under the table and don’t get taxed, while others don’t work at all and get my tax money. The Democratic party at large seems to be perfectly happy with undefended borders, whilst simultaneously whittling away at my gun rights. No thanks.
I’d like all the pro-illegals to explain to me how one individual picking oranges for $10 / hours is worth free healthcare, zero income tax, and multiple children going to school and using other taxpayer services.
Pardon, but name the last time democrats demonstrated flexibility or compromise on…anything? When is it their turn to ‘move to the middle’? “Compromise”, and all that happy horse-sh!t?
Sorry, that Jedi mind trick doesn’t work anymore. You can keep your left-wing BS.
@SD3, Jedi mind trick indeed! I’ve been seeing this more and more. SOP for a Soviet style disinformation campaign.
I have always believed that if we are to be successful in protecting and expanding our gun rights we must reach out to “Non-Shooters” and turn them into “shooters” so that they have a vested interest in defending their own rights. It does not help our cause to alienate “non-shooters” regardless of their political party affiliations.
That all said… since you lean toward the Democrat Party… can you please explain to me why it is that the Leadership of The Democratic party does not accept that each individual among us has to potential to be a horrible tyrant if given the opportunity and the the Second Amendment was put in place so that the majority of Individuals can keep potential tyrants in check.
I have always been honest with myself… I firmly believe that I could have outdone even Caligula in Ancient Rome if given the chance.
JD, I wholeheartedly agree. I have voted Democrat most of my life, and I registered as one in California. However, the Democratic Party under Obama has become more uniform in its calls for gun (and citizen) control. I have HOPE that once he’s gone, things will CHANGE, but it’s clear the far-left progressives are drunk on the possibilities Obama opened up, and want more. The reason gun owners are frustrated with Democrats is the moderate ones always cave to the Statists. Perhaps you can evangelize within your circles, but from the outside, all gun owners see is Obama, Holder and Feinstein hating on our rights AND our culture.
Good points, however, Hillary, the presumed nominee, has recently announced her support for gun control. Her competition, Biden, is even worse than she is, so I don’t see any improvement for the Dems at that level once the current incompetent is gone.
Agreed. Clinton was a liability for the Democrats before, but with the party leaning far to the statist left, she seems to be the favorite daughter now. The question is who will the Republicans put up to challenge her?
Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and Ben Carson.
Accur81, every single one of those candidates would lose against Hillary except maybe Walker. Rand Paul might be able to pull it off by grabbing young libertarians who vote (D). Ben Carson? He may be smart, but his main qualification is the left hates him. Tea Partiers and establishment Repubs better get serious and put forth a candidate that shows wisdom and gets votes, not just says sh!t that fires up the base. Does anyone like Nikki Haley?
I’m a liberal but I’m definitely not a democrat for obvious reasons. Republicans and Democrats are just in cahoots to get cash and keep screwing us over. Republicans will bring out their anti-gay rights issue to distract us from stuff that is really important and the Democrats do the same with gun control. It’s all a bunch of nonsense anyways.
If you believe that Republicans are worthy of undying loyalty you should reconsider your politics.
If you are conservative, the republican party should offend you on at least one issue. Foreign policy.
What about SS, medicare, medicaid? Why do people that bash everything slightly progressive as communism vote for politicians that hold SS as untouchable?
How about legislating morality? Is that conservative? Is that loving liberty? Straight couples get tax, legal, and financial benefits through marriage, but gay couples are second class citizens?
I consider Republicans to be a slightly less evil option to Democrats.
“Straight couples get tax, legal, and financial benefits through marriage, ”
And single people get stuck with the tab. End the institutionalized discrimination against the single, and the “gay marriage” problem will evaporate.
There is no clause in the Constitution authorizing the government to meddle in interpersonal relationships or show favoritism and unequal treatment based on what religious ritual one has undergone..
You sir, have the right idea.
And again I’ll go with that.
If you actually did your homework on the marriage issue, you’d know that married couples above what is now a fairly moderate income level, actually pay more in taxes when they file joint/married than if they each filed individually.
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/my-money/2014/03/11/how-much-the-marriage-tax-penalty-will-cost-you
Indeed. My (straight) marriage carries no tax benefits whatsoever.
You are correct. It’s called “The Marriage Tax” and two-earner married couples have been paying it for generations.
>> above what is now a fairly moderate income level
According to the table you have linked, to, the “fairly moderate” income level is above $148,000 combined family income. I don’t know what definition of “moderate” you are using, but the median household income in US was $51,000 – so half of all American families get less than that.
Here is the distribution graph of household income for 2010. Add up the columns to the left of $145,000, and compare it to the columns on the right. You can estimate this visually by looking at the area.
(this isn’t to say that “marriage tax” is not a bad thing – it is – but the vast majority of married Americans do get a tax break when filing jointly)
There must be some kind of payoff that’s unavailable to the unmarried, otherwise why would they be screaming for it?
IMO- Aligning yourself with the Democrat party is equally stupid as aligning yourself with the republicans. At the national level, two major parties exist to present the illusion of choice, and to scratch each others backs. The parties ARE the problem!
I couldn’t agree more. We have more in common than just the 2nd Amendment.
Gun owners shouldn’t fear calling out anti-gun pols.
However, labeling all as good or bad is not a solution.
I know anti-gun Republicans in Illinois and I know many more pro-gun Democrats in this state.
Bashing Democrats (or liberals) for the sake of bashing them serves no useful purpose.
We, as Guns Save Life, welcome gun rights supporters of all ideologies. All races, religions and sexual preferences as well.
John
I agree 100% and would also add: “Gun owners shouldn’t fear calling out anti-gun political parties”
As soon as the Dems drop it from their party ideology, I will be happy to single out individual anti gun Dem politicians. Until then I will paint them all with the same broad brush. Why? Whether pro gun or not, every Democrat politician signed on the dotted line to their political affiliation and know full well what their party’s stump issues are. Credibility and trust is undermined when you agree with something that you don’t really agree with. Outside of that I don’t usually call individuals out on their political beliefs. Alas, some democrats (individuals) don’t realize the nuance and personalize it anyway.
I’m not a member of either Democrat or Republican parties so I may not be a good sounding board for this question… is it possible to criticize a political party without criticizing a follower of that party?
The point I want to make is that alienating Democrats and questioning their intelligence is not the way to preserve the RKBA.
Unfortunately, so long as Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, and Chuck Schumer remain in positions of influence in the Democratic party, voting (D) isn’t the way to preserve RKBA, either.
Sorry, but that’s how the system works.
I live in IL. None of those people represent me. Why are you painting me with their brush?
I ask you how alienating the minority democrats who own or could own guns helps the RKBA?
Seriously, if all you do is make them like you and those affiliated with the RKBA cause less, you are making them less likely to vote in a way that helps the RKBA.
But, go on, select the second barrel of your shotgun and aim it at your other foot. I won’t stop you.
So tell me what 2A supporters your Illinois national Senators are. Or the President that got Ill’s electoral votes. Is that brush OK?
It’s just that an expression like “Pro-gun Democrat” is kind of like “Military Intelligence” or “Flying Elephant.”
If you vote for Democrats for Congress, you’re voting to keep those individuals in power.
The problem isn’t with ‘Democrats’ in general, it’s with the Democratic Party. Of course, is the Democrat voters that continue to return the Democrat politicians to office. The Democrat Party is much more in favor of restrictions on firearms than is the Republican Party. Whether that impacts your votes depends on where on your importance scale you place gun rights, but realize that when you vote for a Democrat candidate, no matter what the candidate’s personal position is on gun rights, you are voting for a person that will, when the legislature (state or federal) is organized will vote for Democrat control. That is not a pro-gun rights vote.
It may be that you place other issues higher than you place gun rights, and that’s ok, it’s still a more or less free country. But you are placing gun rights lower on your priorities.
>> It may be that you place other issues higher than you place gun rights, and that’s ok, it’s still a more or less free country. But you are placing gun rights lower on your priorities.
Sure, but then a candidate or a party that would offer a solid pro-gun platform without bundling all the other things that many people would consider a no go (generally speaking, it’s social conservative things like anti-abortion or homophobia) would drain those votes from Dems, and make for a larger pro-gun coalition.
Interesting that you only think of things that you personally dislike when you talk of things that are a ‘no-go.’ Libertarians as a whole aren’t very good at attracting those on the right either.
If you put killing fetuses and meaningless changes in marriage laws ahead of gun rights, that’s your privilege, but you should realize that there are people who have the opposite view as well.
The only question is the use of force. If you initiate force to get your way, then you are wrong by definition.
@RG
300+ million people with no law, no property rights, etc. Interesting world you want to see. How many people do you think would have to die in order for your utopia to be able to exist?
Thanks for putting words in my mouth, bonehead!
I have always supported private property rights. That is one of the very few legitimate functions of government. Please note, anarchists don’t make wars; bad governments make wars.
Unlike anybody else’s utopia, zero people “need” to die to be free, assuming everyone who seeks freedom can protect herself from the tyrants.
I believe in enough government to secure property rights, but it is criminally insane to give the Registrar of Deeds the power to dictate with whom you may have sexual relations.
@RG, but you also support slavery. Now…is it any wonder folks are confused by you and your skin Buffalo Bill?
@RG
Logical consequences of your POV
Anarchists don’t make wars, they’re not organized enough, which also means that they can’t do national defense.
Anarchists may not do wars, but they do chaos quite well. Riots and the like. You may believe in private property, but it isn’t generally part of the anarchist POV. Rules in general aren’t part of the anarchist POV.
Are you perhaps an anarchist-lite?
The world you’ve suggested would not be possible with the population level we currently have.
@Scot, please sir…if you and others like you would only accept everyone else’s skin as being a barrier, we skin bearers would have utopia!
+100
@RG, so if I use force against someone trying to take my life, I am wrong? I’m supposed to let him into my skin? I thought you said my skin was mine and mine alone?
“@RG, so if I use force against someone trying to take my life, I am wrong?”
No, and don’t bother with the red herrings. But you want to use force to prevent a woman from seeking whatever medical care she wishes. That is an act of aggression against her, which is unacceptable.
@RG, but you think its ok to allow her or her murderous “Dr.” Gosnell to use force? Ah…I get it.
I’m talking about things that are a no-go from the perspective of a liberal-leaning gun owner. I don’t claim that this is a universal list for people of all political bents.
If you’re a socially conservative gun owner, then you are already well represented by the Republican party. My point was that there are a bunch of people who are pro-gun, but not really represented in that way politically because 1) they’re not single-issue voters, and 2) the party that is otherwise closer to their preferences on all other issues, including higher-priority ones, is generally in favor of gun control. The obvious way to solve this is to find a place for these voters to express their pro-gun leaning without compromising their stance on other issues – that way you get more pro-gun votes overall.
@int19h
You’d not get more pro-gun votes, because you’d alienate some voters. Your point is that the GOP is a good place for conservative gun owners (in the Russell Kirk sense of conservative). Do you really think that they’d be attracted to a socially liberal pro gun party?
Not to mention that realistically you’re only going to have two parties, because of the organizing legislatures thing. Even in sane parliamentary systems there really only are two major parties. Once you start dividing parties by the tiniest ideological differences government becomes even more dysfunctional than ours is now. If you were to get a pro-gun, socially liberal party, either it would be too tiny to matter, or the socially liberal anti-gun party would be too tiny to matter.
@int19h
System won’t let me reply, keeps giving me a syntax error.
“find a place for these voters to express their pro-gun leaning without compromising their stance on other issues”
That’s what the Libertarians are here for! Take off your blinders!
The notion that a “sane” political system must only have two parties that matter is plainly false. It’s only true in systems with first-past-the-post, winner-take-all electoral systems. More modern ways of counting votes and assigning shares usually give more diverse parliaments, where, yes, you still get two dominant parties, but you also get a bunch of smaller guys who can still make themselves heard by entering into voting agreements with the bigger parties in exchange for supporting some of their platform.
This does not result in an insane or dysfunctional government – people always bring up Italy as an example of such, but completely ignore the fact that most other European countries (UK excepted) have some form of proportional representation these days, and it works just fine for them. Germany uses mixed member proportional system, for example, and their parliament currently has 3 major parties and 2 minor ones, with no ill effects to the stability or efficiency of the political system.
The only reason why the two mainstream American parties extol the non-existent virtues of the existing system (by disparging others as “unstable” or “inefficient”) is because they profit immensely from it. So long as they can convince you that it’s lizards either way, you’ll keep voting for the “right” one so that the “wrong” one doesn’t get in, and he can cash in on that.
@int19h
Perhaps I shouldn’t have used ‘sane’ as shorthand for ‘effective.’
The minor parties in those parliamentary systems that have them along with the ‘sane’ two major parties, tend to force one of the majors into more extreme positions than they otherwise would take when neither of the majors wins a majority, the party with a plurality is forced to make concessions to a minor party in order to form a government. Whether that’s a better system for anyone other than those with fringe minority views is arguable. At least in our system those with minority ideas are forced by the system to attract enough people to their ideas to make a large enough voting bloc within a party, which is why our parties more even today still more coalitions than pure ideological parties.
I don’t think that touting the fact that the Greens, for example, can force the SPD to the left, or that some similar small party with a small constituency of the right could force a party to the right is something to be proud of. Giving more weight to minority views than they can earn on their own seems to be a way to distort the politics of a nation.
But they don’t “get more weight than they own”, unless you imply that 10% of the vote should translate to 0% of input on government policy. They can push the other party in their direction, somewhat, but it is still ultimately limited by the number of seats that they actually control and can offer for a trade – and as a minor coalition partner, they in turn have to support some of the policies of the other side, and usually more of them.
@int19h
Yes, 10% of the vote should translate into 0% of input. I’m not sure where I’d put the threshold, but more than 25% and maybe as high as 33% or 45%
So what happened to no taxation without representation? By your logic, if a single party gets, say, 40%, and the remainder of the vote is split between three parties with 20% each, then those parties should get zero say on any issues – even on those on which all three might agree between each other (and disagree with the plurality party). So you’re basically in favor of the minority setting policy contrary to the desires of the majority, so long as that minority can gang up on every single issue.
@int18h
If you’re going to define ‘representation’ by someone having the member of the House from their district, and their Senators (or at least one of them) being of the same party as the voter, I haven’t been ‘represented’ for at least a decade (since 1997). (Congress has the taxing power.)
The phrase ‘no taxation without representation’ referred to the fact that the Colonies didn’t send any members to Parliament.
The voters **choose** to split their votes (as some did yesterday in the stupid open primary in CA), no one is denying them the ability to get together and get a candidate past the post. If they believe that the issues that divide them are more important than the issues that they agree on, that’s their choice.
As the saying goes, ‘politics ain’t beanbag’ and no group is owed representation that they can’t earn.
If the majority can win elections, they get to set policy. If they can’t win elections, how can you truly say that they’re a majority? Elections are the only polls that count.
Who chooses electoral districts where you live?
Agreed. One of the big reasons we have hope of protecting the RKBA is that support for the right is bipartisan.
When you help put a Democrat in office you ARE helping the side that wishes to take your guns. Even if that particular Democrat is pro-gun. It’s just a fact and remember “Obama is not coming for your guns.”
Exactly.
Just a reminder… Nixon was a Republican who was against Gun Rights.
Almost all people in Power don’t want to see their “Underlings” armed.
That is because Armed Slaves don’t stay Slaves for too long.
So was Reagan. Google “Mumford Act”.
I don’t see how one can be a Democrat and hold true to being a supporter of the RKBA… the entire party ideology is against the principles which form the bedrock of our rights and freedoms.
Granted, the same is also true of Republicans, who tend to be pro-gun, but anti-other freedoms.
The issue here is that there are few politicians who fight for all our freedoms equally, and we’re forced to vote strategically. Tying our fates to the Republican party is short-sighted, but then again, what alternative do we have?
I just realized some folks on the TTAG community might be older and from a more conservative time in the US,so I’ll break down the modern political reality for the next generation.
As a 28 year old guy, most of my peers in Urban America don’t even consider the GOP to be an option. When I’ve asked them why, I can’t say I disagree with the reasons. Backwards attitudes on modern social issues like gay marriage, women’s rights, and an equally rampant tendency to say one thing and do something else are very good reasons indeed.The way the young and the minorities see it, if we’re going to get a crooked liar in government either way, we may as well get someone who at least pays lip service to modern social issues.
I say again-if you , Mr Conservative Gun Owner, don’t make an effort to separate the RKBA from party lines, you will be around to see the day when those same gun rights are repudiated in the highest halls of government .
Why? Because, like now, we aren’t making an effort to reach out for the Democrats, who are destined to remain a part of our government for the foreseeable future, if not take it over by a decisive majority. Unless we give the future Democrat voters a tangible reason to preserve the 2nd Amendment, they won’t.
I say this because I honestly think most gun owners don’t have the vision to understand that, and I wish to deprive everyone reading this the right to say no one warned them .
As a 30-year old guy, I can understand where you’re coming from; however, my problem is that the Democratic Party will not make an effort to separate the RKBA from party lines. How can I vote for people who will ultimately bow to the party line and rubber stamp every gun control bill that comes along?
I’ve written my state and federal legislators asking about their positions on gun rights, and I’ve looked at the platforms of candidates for the same positions. In every case, the (D) has meant that, “[they] support the Second Amendment, but…”
I ask in all seriousness: what do you really think my options are in my voting habits besides: 1) Vote 2A-friendly GOP candidates, or 2) Accept that the people I help vote into office will act exactly opposite how I desire them to act regarding what is possibly my strongest-held issue?
In the end, I cannot vote according to my many other concerns when the RTKBA is at stake, and I don’t see that as a failing in my voting habits so much as in the campaigning and political habits of the various candidates.
I agree. When asking candidates if they support the second amendment. from their replies. I get the feeling that it would be ok to own a musket. or maybe a bolt action rifle for hunting, But never a straight answer.
Don’t vote for Democrats. Instead, make Republican party policies on things other than guns sane, so that urban and younger voters can actually vote for them.
That’s just it. If you accept the limited-government, fiscally-conservative part of republicanism, but lose the theocrat wing and the drug warrior wing and the interventionist wing and the antichoice wing – wait. Then they’d all be Libertarians!
Just wait until you are 40 or 50. What is the saying?…“If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” …. attributed to Winston Churchill
It’s partly true, but it should be noted that support for specific socially liberal policies has been shown to not diminish with age (i.e. if a guy was pro-gay marriage at 20, he will still be pro-gay marriage at 50) – it’s just that the definition of “liberal” and “conservative” shifts over time such that today’s conservative was yesterday’s liberal on many things, and society as a whole is getting more liberal.
“most of my peers in Urban America don’t even consider the GOP to be an option”
Are these the same peers who used to appear on JayWalking and don’t know anything about anything? The same people who vote for tax-raisers, then complain about their taxes getting raised? The same people who thought Obamacare was wonderful because they were too freakin’ clueless to find out exactly what it entailed? And now they are complaining because the monthly rates are high and the deductible is through the roof? The same people who think guns are icky? Those same peers?
Yeah, not impressed.
Do you honestly think that if you approached an average “Red Stater” they’d appear to be an erudite, worldly sophisticate?
Get over this (false) left-right nonsense. Divide and conquer is working just the same as it has centuries ago. All of this ridiculously out-of-proportion polarization is why things are the way they are.
The people at the top – “left” or “right” – do not want you armed.
Do you honestly think that if you approached an average “Red Stater” they’d appear to be an erudite, worldly sophisticate?
Do I think the average conservative knows more about the issues than the average Obama voter? Hell yes!
@Danny Griffin, you aren’t the only one.
Sorry, young voter, but that’s not how the system works. Congress is not a buffet. The majority party controls the agenda based on their monolithic platform. After the election, it is all or nothing for the winning party’s platform.
I’m 15 years older than you, and I disagree completely with the R official platform on gay rights. I’m neutral on abortion. However, I prioritize my right to defend myself with adequate force over gay rights. Sorry, but that’s just my priority. And it is why I vote R even though I don’t agree on the social issues.
Figure out your priorities and vote accordingly. I hope one day the R party will be less disagreeable on social issues and immigration (when the older, socially conservative types retire from politics, probably). In the primaries I vote that way. But in the general election, R only.
ST, as a someone who is only slightly older than you (38) and was a lifelong fiscal-conservative Democrat, maybe it would help to explain my journey away from that party. I was a Democrat because of (some) of the social issues that you noted, and I viewed the Democrat party as the party of individual liberties. The party of the ACLU. The party that railed against the expansion of police powers and the erosion of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments during the Rehnquist Court and the Bush Administation. Over the last few years, however, the Democratic party has started to view individual liberties as a barrier to its preferred policies, while the GOP has seemingly found “religion” on the Bill of Rights. If the GOP keeps embracing individual liberties, then younger people and minorities will find their way to the party. This is particularly true when some of the social issues of the past are no longer at risk. There is 40 years of legal guidance on what is and is not permissible in terms of restricting abortion. While it is discussed a lot, it is almost a non-issue politically. Gay rights has won the culture war. Plus, in the end, America always finds it balance. No party will ever have complete control, while the other goes to the dustbin of history. Even if the GOP goes “Whig,” another party will step up to replace it that will embrace most of its ideals.
The next stage in evolution is when each person realizes that they have no master; they are the master of their own life. And other than a map room, government is completely superfluous.
@ST, really? Wow…so in order to keep my 2A, I have to give up all of my other principles as stated in the Constitution? No thanks. Want my guns? Come get ’em dude. I’ll keep my guns and my principles thank you very much.
Great…another I’m a Democrat gun owner ‘but’ posts………….
While I am no longer a Democrat, nor am I Republican, it never ceases to amaze that the ONLY time you find a Democrat voting gun owner is a random blog post such as this. You never see them calling out the Democrats they vote for when they push gun control, you don’t see them at 2A events, you sure as hell don’t seem them when haters come hating and blaming gun owners for everything, or when haters call gun owners as terrorists, or mass murderers, or rapists in waiting…..it’s like all Democrat gun owners are invisible.
Sometimes I don’t know which is worse, a FUDD or a Democrat gun owner…..at least we all know how a FUDD stands.
I’ve been known from time to time to lurk in progressive websites like the daily kos doing recon on the pulse of American progs. You’d be surprised at the love shown to gun owners /sarc
If Dems wanted to do something positive for the cause then they’d preach the “gospel” in some of the Dem affiliated hang outs instead of coming to a board like this where tolerance is already tolerated. We don’t need to break bread, we just need to be our enemies enemy.
Democrat gun owners…they’ll be the first to line up when the call goes out to turn in their guns before confiscation happens, cause that’s what good sheep do.
Do you call out gun control Republicans? Do you call out Republicans on “too big to fail” and on their role in devaluing your money through Quantitative Easing and inflation?
The “left” and “right” both play equal parts in all of these things, at the top level. You are placated by having some guy with an R next to his name giving you the illusion of choice.
As a matter of fact I do call out Republicans, and fellow gun owners who are Republicans, but keep their lip buttoned on anti gun Republicans.
As for the ‘too big to fail’ bull$hit, I honestly don’t care. I’m here for 2A issues, if I want to discuss devaluation nonsense, there are other more appropriate places for that.
But hey, nice try in derailment.
“Devaluation nonsense”.
Being able to purchase less and less with the Dollar is “nonsense”? Interesting perspective, friend.
@xaer, I can’t speak for anyone else, but you better believe I damn sure do. Makes no difference to me the R or D label when it comes to shit like that. Most constitutional conservatives in fact, do call a spade a spade.
@Chubby, its because the people you see making these posts are Demoturd operatives. It’s SOP in Soviet circles…Alinsky TTPs, divide and conquer.
I have to wonder if you’re the plant; you can’t be for real.
@xaer, yep…very real. I’m your worst nightmare. A dude that speaks truth.
@El Mac: In my 8 years of being involved with gun rights, and trying to educate gun owners at the local level in a deep blue state, I have only met only ONE Democrat gun owner. Openly admits, he votes Democrat, and actively vocalizes his disapproval of anti gun laws, and stands up to haters when they hate…..(yeah, I know he votes for these people, but that’s another issue).
So where all the other Democrat gun owners? Why is all the outrage coming from center to right leaning gun owners when gun owners get called terrorists, baby killers, rapists, and mass murders in waiting?
I know a couple of Dem gun owners. The ones who are in the construction unions (IBEW, etc.) say they vote Democrat because their union tells them to, and when you are outside construction like that, you basically work for the union, not the company you are temporarily hired out to for a project.
Since their union does not know how they vote, that never made sense to me, but that is their mentality.
>> You never see them calling out the Democrats they vote for when they push gun control
They (we) do it all the time, it’s just that when we do it, you can’t distinguish us from you guys most of the time.
>> you don’t see them at 2A events
You do, you just don’t know they vote Democrat, and they (we) don’t advertise. Try asking around some time, you might be surprised.
I’m fine with democrats who are gun owners and support RKBA…not democrat politicians. Why? Simple: You can’t get the party nod without towing the official line. Maybe once you could, but in an era where a die hard liberal like Joe Liberman can get kicked out for not playing ball, it’s just not in the cards. If the platform changes, we can talk. But electing someone with a D after their name is not sound advice for those who do not wish for greater state control on guns. In the meantime, you, the voter who votes democrat, are welcome to join me as a friend and a fellow supporter of gun rights. I might give you some friendly grief over your voting choices, but I would expect the same in return.
yep. We all saw how Dem senators were bribed and threatened to vote for Obamacare, and they all voted for it, against the will of their constituents. So did the Dem representatives. When it comes to a close vote, Dems will toe the party line, no matter what they’ve promised in the past. That’s why so many got tossed out of office in 2010. The people were pissed.
I have a litmus test. My test whether to take such opinions seriously is as follows:
Which anti-2A Dems have you knowingly voted for?
If the answer is greater-than-zero, and it wasn’t a mistake … you can just stop there.
JD: Thank you for your contribution to this forum. Excepting for gun rights and a couple of other issues I regard your support for Democrat politicians generally misguided. Nevertheless, to be faithful to my ideas of liberty I must applaud your contribution here and welcome you to the public square just as I would welcome any other respectful contributor whether I agreed with him or not.
I find most Republican politicians unreliable; so, my dissatisfaction with government is bipartisan.
What we must always remember is that ad homonym attacks are counterproductive to our cause. We have to stick to the issues: guns; and, everything else (in other forums). Despite probable disagreements with 2A-supportive Democrat politicians we should thank them for their support on the 2A. Likewise, we must thank Democrat voters for their support for 2A politicians of their favored party.
Yeah because we want the whole country to be like California, New York or Detroit. Sorry. Democrats are the Fascist party. Church it up any way you want, but trying to get along with the Fascists has got us where we are today. I am not a single issue voter either. But I strongly believe in the individual over the state, and I am a firm believer in liberty. That pretty much means I have little reason to vote Democrat and I sure as hell will speak against them as they continue to be the party of Fascism. That don’t mean I am a Republican either, they are not much better. Reagan was a gun banner, Bush 1 was an NRA basher, and Bush 2 did jack squat for gun owners other than not continuing the AWB. In the meantime, the Democrat bashing will continue just as you continue to vote your freedom away. I don’t like when people try to self righteously tell me how to think or act (which Democrats love to do), or that I should coddle Fascists.
I’ll never vote for another Democrat as long as I live, but I think the poster has a good point.
Perhaps those of us who loathe today’s Dem party should be railing in forums and comment threads against Progressives (in both parties) instead of Democrats. Progs are the ones pushing socialism and big government control of the citizens.
“Perhaps those of us who loathe today’s Dem party should be railing against Progressives (in both parties)”
Where have you been? Conservatives and liberty-minded people DO rail against “progressive” and liberal Republicans!
@Danny Griffin, spot on sir!
Democrats vs. Republicans White vs. Black Middle class vs. Lower class all smoke screens for the few to own the majority. 200 people own as much wealth as the bottom 25%. They have exceeded the 20’s robber barons and we squabble like sneetches
this^1000.
If all of you anti “left” people want to test the so-called difference between Democrat and Republican: ask your Republican politicians to stop devaluing our currency with QE infinity, stop the corporate welfare, audit the Fed, etc. Then you’ll see how much difference there really is, and realize that you’re being fooled into bickering amongst yourselves over (imaginary) party differences.
Being a gun owner and RKBA supporter means nothing if you willingly vote for those that continue to introduce and pass socialist policies into law that destroy our country, usurp freedom from the people and transform it into an increasing measure of control over them, and push this country closer to the point of having to bear those arms in the name of that freedom. This isn’t saber rattling talk either; this is in conscious acknowledgement of how much more common a topic that thing has become over the last few years among more and more common people.
To say nothing of the fact that politicians with a D after their name are exclusively those that introduce anti-gun legislation. Yeah, keep voting for them and keep them in office so they continue to have the opportunity to introduce said bills. You’re a gun guy at the end of the day so it’s all good.
If this isn’t a new ploy by the left to have their own infiltrate the pro-gun crowd to water down their effective solidarity in defense of their rights in the face of anti-gun legislation, I’m surprised.
It’s not a ploy to have Democrats infiltrate the gun community. It’s a ploy to have gun-rights activists infiltrate the Democratic party.
If we (the gun-rights activists) can get enough Democrats shooting, sooner or later the Democratic party just might drop its idiotic anti-gun plank.
This is the long game. Parties, unlike leopards, do change their spots. A few decades ago, the Democratic party was conservative and the Republican party was “progressive.”
“If this isn’t a new ploy by the left to have their own infiltrate the pro-gun crowd to water down their effective solidarity in defense of their rights in the face of anti-gun legislation, I’m surprised.”
Oh good heavens. Do you really believe that we left-of-center gun owners are agents provocateurs? Have you considered that we’re frustrated as hell with the Democratic Party’s pro-gun-control stance and that many of us believe that the true liberal and true left-wing position is that of gun rights? (and that we can’t bring ourselves to support conservatives because of the Republican Party’s antipathy toward women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and the rights of people of color?)
The rights of people of color? Are you saying that conservatives against black people now? Wow.
@DG, no…what she is saying is that she is a Democrat operative….what Lenin referred to as a “useful idiot”.
Sadly, there are many on TTAG (the majority of posters, actually) who live up to the stereotype of blaming everything on Obama, “liberals”, “libtards”, “leftists”, etc.
Well, they have been in power for the last six years – are you still blaming Bush?
@Rich Grise
I never blamed Bush to begin with; I’m no Liberal. I’m also not a 5 year old who believes that a figurehead actually controls everything.
Care to try again, and know what you’re talking about this time?
@xaer, yep…tis true. But I also lump in the French Retardicans as well.
@Wendy, koolaid much?
OK, so what does a “left-of-center” person say about taxation being theft? If I meet you at the bank teller window while you’re depositing your paycheck, and point my gun at you and demand 30%, how would you react?
Then howcome it’s OK for 51% of your neighbors to vote to send a man with a gun to demand that 30% of your paycheck?
At what number of people is theft no longer theft?”
Of course he believes that. He does believe that Democratic Party is a socialist party, after all.
The more Democratic gun owners that exist, the more likely it becomes that the Democratic Party as a whole will change its stance on gun control.
Sure. And if frogs had wings, they wouldn’t thump their asses when they land.
There’s only one party with gun control as part of it’s national platform. It’s part of Democrat DNA. The big-money people who dominate and control the direction of the Democrat party, like George Soros, the Hollywood clowns, Bloomberg, Anne Cox Chambers, the City of London crowd and international tycoons are wildly anti-gun. It’s what your party is all about.
So you’re not a “one issue” voter. Well, I am, especially when that one issue is freedom.
I’m glad I read down this far in the thread to find a fellow old man who has his head on straight.
Ralph, you’re exactly correct: The “party platform” or “planks” in same aren’t binding, but the Democratic Party is the only one of the two major parties that has as a plank in their platform a statement calling for the re-instatement of the “assault weapons ban:”
From Democrats.org:
“Firearms. We recognize that the individual right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans’ Second Amendment right to own and use firearms. We believe that the right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation. We understand the terrible consequences of gun violence; it serves as a reminder that life is fragile, and our time here is limited and precious. We believe in an honest, open national conversation about firearms. We can focus on effective enforcement of existing laws, especially strengthening our background check system, and we can work together to enact commonsense improvements—like reinstating the assault weapons ban and closing the gun show loophole—so that guns do not fall into the hands of those irresponsible, law-breaking few.”
Bolding is mine.
They want “…an honest, open national conversation about firearms.” Trouble is, every time they want to hold a “conversation,” what they really want is “we talk, you peons shall listen to your betters.” And honesty? Pfah. Don’t make me laugh. If we’re all supposed to be entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts, then the first place the DNC needs to start is recognizing the actual facts, which they have been loathe to ever do.
As I’ve told people here on TTAG countless times before: This isn’t my first rodeo with these clowns. I’ve seen their mendacity in the late 80’s and into the 1994 Brady Act and “Assault Weapons Ban.” They don’t care about the facts. They never have.
Oh, and in the late 80’s and early 90’s, I used to be a registered Democrat. The 1994 legislation, and the derision heaped on me by Democrat big-whigs, especially Jews, put an end to that forever.
I couldn’t agree more. The Democratic Party has increasingly embraced statism whilst whittling away at individual rights. The Party of “more free stuff” is not the one to vote for.
For the record, I’m an Independent Constitutional Conservative.
I might also add that all this “freedom” that the gay marriage component is advocating is also responsible for shutting down Catholic adoption agencies. Those who advocate marriage not only want to marry – go for it – but to *force* me into celebrating and serving their lifestyle. Take a Christian wedding photographer who chooses not to film a gay marriage – you’ll immediately get sued out of existence.
Dyspeptic, I tend to think of myself as mature rather than old. Thus, anyone older than I am is a superannuated old fart; anyone younger than I am is an adolescent young punk. See how that works?
Man I really wish there was a place for all these poor gun owning folks stuck in the DNC. Like some other party that supported liberal social issues, maybe we could call it the liberty-tarian party or something like that. You think that would work?
+1
But the problem is that Dems remain unconvinced of the harm wrought by their social programs and do not trust the free market to raise all boats, as it were. Otherwise they wouldn’t still be Dems.
Lets bring back the Constitutional Party!
I’d vote for that in a heartbeat.
Better yet, let’s all think for ourselves on a case-by-case basis and not belong to any parties.
I couldnt agree more, how do we classify ourselves as a group of like minded thinkers however?
There already is one and they’re not. The only party whose platform consists of “Follow the Constitution” is the Radical Libertarian Loon party.
The plain vanilla Libertarians are the closest to Constitutional of any of the others.
Libertarians are exactly what true liberals should be, which is why the “progressives” are working so hard to demonize libertarians. And it works, unfortunately.
Libertarians are not just socially liberal, they’re also economically liberal. The two don’t necessarily go together. I’m pro-gun and pro-taxes, so I’m not libertarian.
(Having said that, if I could vote, I’d vote libertarian over most Democrat candidates.)
Same here, except I vote 100% Democrat. I love my (many, many) guns, but I also have to put food on the table. For that reason, I vote 100% Democrat.
Would Republicans or Libertarians or TEA Party politicians make you eat dog food?
Then you should look up the term “Useful Idiot”
Because there are so many fiscally responsible Democrats out there, I suppose.
/ sarcasm
@AL, apologies accepted.
You should head to Detroit. Their staunchly leftist policies have done wonders for that city’s prosperity.
Both of the big two parties are for using government coercion to enforce their moral & ethical positions on any who do not agree with them. RKBA is not the only issue that necessitates people such as yourself having to straddle a great divide in the public consciousness.
But know this, regardless of your feelings, the divide is widening and you can either pick a side, fall in, or support a party that actually values individual liberty.
You cannot continue to pick, on an issue by issue basis, between the lesser of two evils and hope to have a positive outcome in anything. The Left cannot socially engineer a crime free equality utopia without resorting to force, anymore than the Right can engineer a militant heaven on earth without resorting to the same force.
Wake up!
There are many reasons I distrust politicians in both parties. The main reason I vote R when it’s between R and L, however, is this: if you’re a Republican politician, you rely on the middle and upper classes to get you elected. Which means in order to broaden your voter base, you need to make more people wealthier. Democrats, on the other hand, claim to be the champions of the poor and downtrodden. Which logically dictates that in order to broaden their voting base, they need more poor and downtrodden. And since the unarmed poor are easiest trodden down and kept there, that’s what they push for.
I prefer the party who wants me to succeed, rather than the one who wants to keep me dependent. Oh yeah, and I believe killing babies and destroying families is wrong.
While your analysis has much to say for it, I think there is a flaw in premises. (Note that we both recognize these are tendencies, not absolutes.)
The super-wealthy and big businesses are, overall, very much in the Democratic camp, and make their political contributions in that vein. No surprise: the Democrats are best at protecting them from competition. Those without much income are beholded to the government for support, and tend, therefore, to vote for politicians who provide such support — even at the cost of having more opportunity to gain wealth by working. The third current leg of the Democratic coalition consists of government workers: big government means more power and jobs.
The Republicans tend to draw from small- and medium-size business owners and tradesmen, economic libertarians, social conservatives, and non-union middle class.
Both parties have statist elements, many of those which have a good amount of Republican support (ethanol requirements, drug laws) *also* have a fair amount of Democrat support.
I really get tired of hearing how people who insist on towing the party line diverge based on a single issue. It’s like dividing by zero, does not compute. Either you vote on issues or you tow a party line with the exception being if your siding of the issues falls entirely with the positions party lines take. Sadly our representatives have been avoiding the issues in lieu of towing the party line which jams up any rational discourse. There is no exception. if you value your 2A rights, democrats are not in line with you. If you value the rights of gays as equal to everyone else, republicans are not inline with you, if you value free speech, neither party is in line with you, same goes for limited government, personal freedoms, including bearing arms and the ability to marry whomever you please. Politicians are painfully divisive which is why they *all* have gotta go and term limits for whomever steps must be applied. Alienating the democratic party from the gun rights discussion is pretty easy to do when the majority of irrational gun control initiatives comes from one source. What’s hard is for a freedom loving atheist such as myself to nod in agreement with Ted Cruz when it comes to gun rights, when he’s flatout wrong about everything else. Take the issue up with your party of choice, not those who find more than just the Democrats hatred of 2A to be abhorrent.
There’s a problem with believing “D and R are all the same, I don’t like either of them.” There’s a problem with saying, “Sometimes I pick D and sometimes I pick R.” Congress is not controlled by individual representatives. Committee memberships and control of the floor, which are THE KEY to getting anything done/not done in Congress, are given to the PARTY that has the most representatives. The winning PARTY gets to choose who the majority leaders are and who will chair each committee. Thus the winning PARTY gets to determine what is voted on and what will make it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
This is why it is foolish to vote for individual candidates with no concern for party. This why you waste your vote when you go for a libertarian or 3rd-party, which will never have enough votes to control committees. You should vote for the party, R or D, that most closely matches what you prioritize. No party can fulfill your every desire, which is why you need to know your policy priorities. Sure, take the person–and their 2A views–into consideration during the primaries. But during general elections, always, always, always vote the party.
Regardless of politics, the goal should be to get people to handle a firearm. I find that a lot of the anti rhetoric goes down the toilet the minute one fires a gun for the first time. It might be a quick fix, but at least it gets the people who normally wouldn’t pick up a gun into the loop and discussion.
silly me i thought this wall of responses would have lead to something other than what i see in every damn post on this blog.
It’s a tragic thing, isn’t it?
Sadly I’m forced to conclude that there is no such thing as “the people of the gun”,per se. As long as the topic in question is about Glock pistols or Isreali supermodels, everyone’s on the same pages.
Mention making changes to politically influence the nation, and we devolve into splinter groups. The die hard old timers can’t think past Jeff Coopers Cold War attitude on politics, the new shooters are wondering why the old white guys have a problem with gay marriage, and the minorities and women are just keeping their heads down . One guys voting Libertarian because he’s sick and tired of the corruption, the Republican votes R because Obama and Gang have all but declared war on gun rights, and the Democrat supporters can’t stomach living in a Christian religious state-which in some ways is exactly what the Old White Guy R voter wants on a plate.
At the end of the day, no one has any vision and no one wants to think outside their lanes. Meanwhile the gun grabbers laugh all the way to the opinion polls.
If one day the RKBA is voted out of commission, it won’t be because of the antis. It’ll be because we gun owners would rather bicker and whine about our differences all the way to the confiscation line.
No, it will be because people voted anti-RKBA politicians into office. Period.
“If one day the RKBA is voted out of commission, it won’t be because of the antis. It’ll be because we gun owners would rather bicker and whine about our differences all the way to the confiscation line.”
It will be because Gun Owners above dont boil it down to that being the single issue, theyre gun owners and ____,
or maybe theyre _____________ who happen to own guns.
This is a direct result of the ONLY 2 party system, Us vs Them. Look at the history of muck raking going back to our founding days.
All I want to is to be left the hell alone and have no man try to lord over me or mine.
“Not all muslims are terrorists, HOWEVER, all the terrorists were muslim”…
Except for the ones who aren’t.
Did you bother to actually read what I wrote, or did you just “skim”…???
Yeah, did you?
If you are from a blue state, you may be part of the problem. If you have a (D) after your name, the problem is part-of-you.
IF WE ONLY STICK TO THE FIREARMS ISSUE (which is to allow other huge injustices to crush us, but. . .let’s try to run through this quickly).
[TERMS, J.M.Thomas R., 2012] The 2nd Amendment does not ‘give’ the American citizen anything. It is an affirmation by the U.S. Government (a group wholly comprised of U.S. Citizens [neither seeking, nor obtaining any ‘higher-office’ than that held as a “citizen” by their acceptance of such a commission]), that the U.S. government will not prevent the average U.S. Citizen from throwing the U.S. government out, if it violates any of your other GOD given rights [GOD given – the U.S. founders did nothing if not start this experiment in shrinking awe of my LORD].
All other laws/rules to the contrary be damned or else such an offended citizen would have to spring from the womb a fully formed adult, armed to the teeth, and expend all of its days attempting to counteract the hugely ignorant things that too many may consider “precedent”.
The enemies of America would not benefit from America’s citizenry being “armed” therefore anyone attempting to disarm U.S. citizens should be believed to be working for the enemy in disarming us for the next Civil War (or coming war with China). Any anti-gun campaign should be met with an immediate background check/investigation to determine where the supporting funds are coming from.
@JD — You might want to find a different label other than Democrat
See this article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/30/charles-and-david-koch-the-minds-behind-libertarianism-3-0.html
There are many people that believe in the fusion of social tolerance with fiscal responsibility as well as general freedom. These people may have had a self label as Democrat or Republican what they really may mean is Libertarian. There is a third alternative that values Constitution versus DNC or GOP.
Sure, its fun to vote libertarian until you realize that control of congress (committees, majority leaders) are given to the winning party. Libertarians have never placed more than a handful of people in Congress and therefore their seats, and the votes to get those seats, are wasted. I don’t see an end to the 2-party system in our lifetimes.
And this is why we cant have nice things. How much vitriol can we get in a group where we all believe in the same thing. I’ve been voting a third party for so many years just to keep them in the race and not a sect of the two party system. I have very simple political views:
1. Keep your religion off my politics
2. Keep your politics off my body ( or anyone elses)
3. Try and help,
You’re Americans. Act like it. We’ve saved Countries during war, put a man on the Moon, And created the information age. Yet a few decades later we’ve let corporations destroy our economy, seen our educational system plundered, and still our citizens can go hungry when we have the best food production in the world.
The rich get richer and the poor get screwed. But its the elected ones doing the deed and trying to make you feel good about it.The only good thing about a two party system is that equal Force applied to each other only gets you stasis. Nothing happens, nothing moves. We’ve learned to work inspite of our government rather than with it.
So i’m going to keep my guns, and try to vote these idiots out on both sides, and lend a hand where I can.
You may want to look up Wernher von Braun and Operation Paperclip before you tout America’s space achievements. The Space Race was America’s captured German scientists vs Russia’s captured German scientists.
“If Werner von Braun had never been born no one would ever have landed on the moon, he is god’s gift to rocketry” Get over yourself you Nazi fanboy.
http://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro?autoplay=0
How do his facts make him a Nazi fanboy? This place is wacky.
Simple solution for those who tire of having to excuse hypocrasy: dont affiliate with a party.
“I am a Democrat – a member of a group that works hard every day to cripple and gut the United States, dismember the family structure of poor and minority Americans, slaughter tiny children in their mothers’ wombs, and enact other radical policies, including stricter regulation of the people’s militia weaponry.
Stop being so mean to me.”
If you don’t like your reception among gun-owners, cut your ties with that hate group known as the Democratic Party.
“group that works hard every day to cripple and gut the United States, dismember the family structure of poor and minority Americans, slaughter tiny children in their mothers’ wombs, and enact other radical policies”
What does the above list have to do with gun ownership?
“… it concerns me how gun-owning Democrats are treated by the gun community.”
Democrats are about 90% responsible for all of the gun-control laws that infringe on our rights. Anyone who votes for the democrats that in turn vote for gun control laws deserve the ire that they receive.
Too bad there isn’t a viable in-between party.
I tend to lean republican, simply because they don’t usually have a boner for gun control.
In no way do I like abortion, but I’m all for a woman’s right to choose. Marriage equality too. Unfortunately, voting left means I have to sacrifice my freedoms, for others to gain theirs. That is unacceptable. To much is at stake here.
Too bad there isn’t a viable in-between party
TEA Party?
It appears to me that TEA Party candidates run not as a separate party, but as hard-right, more-conservative-than-thou Republicans. Am I wrong?
They’re fiscal conservative hard-liners, yes. TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already. But not on the personal level; they don’t buy into the Puritan wing or the Bloodthirsty Warmonger wing of the R’s, and so the Puritan and Bloodthirsty Warmonger R’s hate and fear them.
Rich is right, the Republican “establishment” does not like the TEA Party and have worked against TEA Party candidates running as Republicans.
@DG, right on again!
Except that the Tea Party is about the same stuff as the fundamentalist right wing of the party + economics.
It’s not even close to true to say that the Tea Party is all about lowered taxes and smaller government.
Depends which tea party group you ask. It looks like there are dozens.
Different TEA Party Groups have different objectives. Some may be more local on issues, other more Federal. Some are outright political, other groups actually do non-profit and educational work. Some of them are just a group of grassroots citizens, some are nationwide fund-raising campaign movement that rival any PAC, while another may just be a loner with a Facebook page. Some strictly deal with the finances and budget, others get into social conservative aspects. It’s a movement, not a wing or party like the media likes to simply portray it. It’s also easier for the TEA party to work within the R party, since they are more accommodating of their views and the D party is just lost at this point.
What’s in between being boiled in oil and being flayed alive?
I think that would be stretching or the hot bucket on your chest with a rat inside.
In no way do I like abortion, but I’m all for a woman’s right to choose.
I’m totally in favor of abortion and I don’t think we have enough abortions in America, but c’mon. Right to choose? I think the woman exercised her right to choose when she chose to let the guy ride bareback.
Because pregnancy resulting from rape is a gift from God? Or, was it that if it’s a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has ways to shut that whole thing down?
1) What percentage of pregnancies are from rape?
2) Adoption
So your 1) signifies your agreement with the statement “I think the woman exercised her right to choose when she chose to let the guy ride bareback,” applies to rape?
And your 2) signifies that yes, she should be thankful for that gift from a loving God?
No, I can’t see how you guys are losing women voters. Not at all.
Your analysis of his point is invalid.
It’s always interesting that whenever abortion is discussed, in the context of choice or not, y’all always bring up rape and incest, as if those two comprise a significant percentage of abortions.
Why don’t you lead with elective abortions for sex selection? Or, like a former co-worker, abortion because she couldn’t be bothered with birth control? Why lead with a small percentage of abortions?
It’s not invalid because you don’t want it to be valid. He’s the one who stated an absolute about it.
And bringing up rape and incest is the quickest and easiest way to determine how extremist someone is when it comes to denying a woman her reproductive rights.
Don’t even call it “reproductive rights.” Call it Self-Ownership. That’s the bone of contention, after all – who gets to determine what use your own organs are put to? The skin is the final property line, and one legitimate function of government is protection of property rights.
@RG, I don’t think the issue here is what one does or does not do with one’s own organs. Rather, the issue is what one does with someone else’s organs who has no voice and has no self defense.
It is physically impossible for you to determine that there is any “someone else” without violating the person who is already there.
But you fetus-worshipers don’t even acknowledge that women are human beings. I call that slavery. Some call it the War on Women.
The fact that one wants an abortion pretty much certifies that there is an ‘other’ there.
Biologically the fetus is a separate being, with separate DNA and all that.
Irrelevant. It is inside another person’s skin, which puts it outside your jurisdiction.
@Rich Grise, skin fetish much Buffalo Bill?
The skin is the final property line. What is inside your skin is your property. Those who do not acknowledge that are advocating slavery.
@RG, so the skin of the unborn child doesn’t count? And I guess, based on your logic, being inside the skin of the mother makes the unborn child the mother’s slave? And being her slave, the mother can choose to mutilate and torture that slave? So you approve of slavery? Interesting position of a “libertarian”.
Sheer genius!
“@RG, so the skin of the unborn child inside the skin of the mother is the mother’s slave?”
Property. It wouldn’t be a very effective slave, now, would it? But yes, it is as much her property as tonight’s dinner. and none of your damn business.
You want to initiate force. That makes you wrong by definition.
@RG, well Buffalo Bill, if the mother use’s force or allows her doctor to use force, skin against skin…invasive skin procedures….you don’t see anything wrong with that?
@Scot, thank you!
@RG, well now, right there you have demonstrated you are full of shit. Slinging a dumbass comment like that. Not worth further discussion. (something to chew on ignoramus: fetuses can be female)
@Jon, I’m curious….how many women do you know that have been raped and gotten pregnant from said rape?
“2) Adoption”
Great! So when they picket the clinics, howcome instead of signs that say, “We Will Adopt,” they terrorize those already vulnerable girls with grisly photos of botched operations?
I’ll believe any of them is “pro-life” the day I see them camped out on the White House steps demanding an immediate end to all of Bush and Obama’s wars. I guess if they’re making war, it’s OK to abort them in the 78th trimester.
No, it’s invalid because it’s invalid. You are setting up straw men to knock them down.
Bringing up rape and incest, rather that addressing the monster in the room, which is that the overwhelming majority of abortions are not based on either, just shows that you aren’t interested in a real discussion, you’ve got a conclusion, and to heck with anyone that might have a reasoned opposing view. Sort of like how the hoplophobes always point to mass public shootings, when overwhelming number of guns and gun owners are never involved in any crime at all. Generally that type of ‘argument’ such as it is, is evidence of a lack of a valid position.
There is no reason why incest should be a separate category anyway, it’s either rape or it’s voluntary so should be included in one of those categories.
Once again you are conflating ‘reproductive rights’ with what happens to the new entity created when the woman engages in sex.
@Scot, solid right there!
@RG
No the bone of contention isn’t ‘self’ ownership, it’s ownership of what is arguably an ‘other.’ If you want to make a ‘property rights’ argument, the fetus has been invited in, in most cases.
Also, there are enough people wanting to adopt babies that they have to go to other countries to do so.
No, there is no “other” that you can legally or morally take control of. One pregnant woman is not two people.
And once again you’re conflating “entity” with “collection of chemicals that may one day become a person”.
There’s zero medical or scientific consensus that human life begins at conception. None. Indeed, that’s why the courts had to deal with the matter at all, eventually deciding that viability (after 1st trimester) is the fairest dividing line. Is it perfect? No, but like most judicial decisions, one grounded in the really real world.
I’d be happy to hear your medical, scientific peer-reviewed evidence supporting your position of when life begins.
@Jon, keep telling yourself that bro.
“I’d be happy to hear your medical, scientific peer-reviewed evidence supporting your position of when life begins.”
I prefer the Biblical definition: “Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7
Breath of Life => Living Being.
When it breathes, it’s a being. Before that, it is the property of the one who created it inside of her womb.
But the fetus fetishists apparently know better than God.
@RG, spoken like a “Buffalo Bill”! Lampshades anyone?
@Jon,
I think you might want to rethink “There’s zero medical or scientific consensus that human life begins at conception.” There is a new life that starts at conception, it has it’s own DNA and all that. If it’s not human (homo sapiens sapiens), what is it?
However, even if your assertion were to be true, it is also true that there is zero medical or scientific consensus that human life does NOT begin at conception. (Not that science works by consensus anyway, except in the minds of those on the left. Truth, which is supposedly the goal of science, doesn’t depend on how many people believe it.)
So basically when life begins is subjective, personal opinion. I know I’ve heard some people, including Peter Singer, a professor of bio”ethics” at Princeton, argue that infanticide should be acceptable under some conditions. Not sure that he’d agree, but I did once hear a person argue that merely not wanting a child should be good grounds for infanticide.
We’re way off topic, though.
@Ralph, BOOM! There it is!!
“However, if just half the Democrats supported the RKBA along with all Republicans then there would be no need to worry about losing our rights.”
If, when you say “Democrats”, you are referring to voters, you are very wrong. A majority of voters who are democrats in any given ward/precinct/district would be needed to choose pro-gun democratic candidates in the primaries — who would then feel compelled to vote pro-gun on legislation for fear of losing the next election. Half of democratic voters who clamor for their politicians to vote pro-gun but are guaranteed to re-elect them, no matter how they vote on legislation, will not change anything.
That’s why people should vote Libertarian. It picks the good parts from both parties (personal liberty, fiscal discipline, border defense) and tosses the rest.
The Libertarian Party has been preaching that same mantra for at least 20 years, and have gotten absolutely no closer to winning the hearts and minds of the voters than they were at the beginning.
Libertarians don’t seem to realize that people choose the cafeteria politics that they prefer, so throwing out half of each sides issues isn’t really going to gain them anything.
Heck, Libertarians, whether small ‘l’ or large ‘L’ can’t agree among themselves what their policies should be.
Sure we do! Don’t hurt people, don’t take their stuff, and don’t get involved in other countries’ disputes. That’s pretty much it!
Is “Live and let live” really all that horrifying?
@RG
Those my be your personal policies, but those aren’t universal polices among Libertarians or even among libertarians.
And ‘live and let live’ is definitely not a universal value among humans.
I’m curious, (I really am, this is something that bugs me about the isolationist wing of the libertarian philosophy) you’re opposed to the idea of getting involved in other country’s disputes, do you also apply that policy on the local level? Do you oppose having the police get involved in domestic disputes? Or in gang turf disputes?
Non-intervention is NOT isolationism.
What drives you to meddle in others’ affairs?
The “gang-turf disputes” are caused solely by the racist War on (some) Drugs. Do liquor stores have turf wars?
@RG
Maybe, I tend to doubt it, causation is generally much more complex than people with simple answers believe; but decriminalizing drugs would no more get rid of today’s gangs than the repeal of Prohibition got rid of the gangs that existed then. They’d just find something else to do.
It is interesting that you use the highly regulated and government controlled liquor industry as an example of how to do things. Hardly seems very libertarian of you. Both liquor stores, and sellers of prescription drugs, have their status enforced by the police powers of the state.
“It is interesting that you use the highly regulated and government controlled liquor industry as an example of how to do things.”
That is an inaccurate statement. I do not use the liquor industry as an example of how to do things. I use the repeal of liquor prohibition to show what a dramatic effect ending prohibition has on crime rates.
And anyway, there is no Enumerated Power authorizing Congress or anyone else to throw kids into an iron cage to punish them for smoking dried flowers.
Ending prohibition didn’t reduce crime rates.
Can you point to anyone who is in jail merely for smoking a joint?
Yes, it did, in fact the reduction in violent crimes was huge. Here is the graph for homicides – notice the sharp decline after 1935.
And then another plateau at max right around the time of Tricky Dicky Nixon’s War on (some) Drugs.
@int19th
Correlation is not causation. One could just as easily argue that economic prosperity was connected to the homicide rate. Or that the large number of demobed soldiers from WWI were a cause.
Could you share the source for your graph? This one
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/06/long-term-trend-in-homicide-rates.html
has less detail, but looks a bit different over the 20th Century. If you have access to back issues of the journal Demography the article previewed here:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2061893?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104256627133
appears to discuss the problems with homicide numbers during the first half of the 20th Century. Unfortunately I don’t have immediate access to it without visiting a university library.
There was an article in Mother Jones (not my favorite source, but it’s interesting) that attempted to correlate homicide rates with lead in paints showing 20+ year lag.
Another interesting article by a Berkeley sociology professor, who notes the drop in homicide in the early-mid ’30s, but who, when mentioning possible explanations, doesn’t mention the repeal of Prohibition at all
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/06/16/a-crime-puzzle-violent-crime-declines-in-america/
Actually, your graph looks very similar – steady growth up to mid-30s, and a sharp decline from there.
And yes, correlation does not imply causation, but it gives support to any logically derived causative link, if one can be made. Furthermore, there are other numbers that strongly hint at correlation here. For example, it’s well known that prisons were overfilled with people put there for alcohol-related crimes during Prohibition, to the extent that they had to resort to occasional amnesties (very much like today with drug offenses). And we also know that sticking people in prison for a long time is good at one thing, and that is making career criminals out of them.
Libertarians are pro-border now? ???
Well, I can only speak for myself, but I’m pretty sure that there’s something about a secure border somewhere in the Constitution…
“Section. 9.
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”
So let them come to the door and buy a ticket! 😉
@RG
You do know that the first paragraph of Article I, Section 9, was a pro-slavery provision, right? It had/has nothing to do with secure borders.
No, I didn’t know that. I learned something – guess I can go back to bed.
@ Scott
I view Article 9, Section 1 as not so much of a “pro-slavery” more as “importing of new slaves only till 1808” since in 1808, Congress did follow up with a law to ban importation of slavery into the colonies.
@Yellow Devil
It was pro-slavery in that the slave states insisted that it be included or they’d sit out the new Constitution. It was part of the various compromises that were made by the Founders to get the Constitution ratified.
Well, the Constitution provides for an army and a navy, what they were meant to defend was probably understood to be “the border.” I could read it again, to see if I missed anything about the national border, but I’m too lazy at the moment, and I’ll have forgotten about it in 5 or 10 minutes anyway.
@RG, perhaps a better way of explaining it would be to equate the national border to our skin. (except for the unborn….of course, they have no border despite their skin)
This is another area TTAG could jump into to increase lreadership. Polarizing pro-gunner’s into two groups serves the grabber’s well (republican/democrat, black/white, progressive/retarded(?), liberal/conservative, OC/CC, good/bad). The response a Democrat would get from a typical pro-gun advocate is predictable as is the anti’s response to a Republican because we have been taught to react this way. This type of information manipulation (propaganda) is critical to identify and overcome as we as a society get our information from mostly the same internet sources run by a media with an agenda to change how we think probably in collusion with the Federales.
The result of the stereotype is we focus on dividing issues within the overall pro-gun group making us less effective against the grabbers. This is a tough one because it is subtle and easily dismissed as neurotic. Additionally the media and feds have this pretty well mastered.
+1
“As a supporter of the RKBA, it concerns me how gun-owning Democrats are treated by the gun community.”
As a supporter of the RKBA, it concerns ME that most of your “gun owner democrats” are I support the 2A but types …..
Furthermore, you can be registered to whatever party you like, when your party’s platform on guns IS GUN CONTROL and literally it has been cut and pasted MANY times in here into comments, Democrats = gun control, pro gun democrats = unicorns who think they are helping freedom by still registering as a democrat.
Give up the label that you have so dearly clung to, the 2 party system is the problem. 2 groups of business men that all they can agree on is No term limits and more money.
+1 Ralph & Danny Griffin. Don’t give this guy a gun. He’ll just vote in a demo to confiscate it. Like a bunch of black folks & Jewish people you have a knife at your throat. I do agree the Republicans aren’t much better. NOTHING will make me ever vote democrat. BTW where are these pro 2A democrats in Illinois???Name one John Bosh… who is ANYWHERE near Cook County. It’s a lost cause where 7 million people live. From an OFWG married to a beautiful black woman…25years tomorrow.
Congrats on 25! My 1st is next week.
I don’t see how people are enticed into voting either Democrat or Republican anymore.
The Democrats left me almost 40 years ago, and now the Republicans, at least the establishment wing has abandoned me and millions of Americans fed up with the status quo. If the GOP gets its head right and nominates a candidate with solid libertarian leanings, they will win and win big
The GOP could probably entice a lot of libertarian thinkers if they’d drop the bloodthirsty warmonger wing and drop the puritan eyes-in-your-bedroom wing and drop the school prayer/creationism wing, but then they’d be Libertarians!
This, in a heartbeat.
And they’d lose a lot as well. There is a constituency for national defense, and the other two things aren’t major issues (can you find them in the party platform?)
You mean like if it said for example, “We support the public display of the Ten Commandments as a reflection of our history and of our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage, and we affirm the right of students to engage in prayer at public school events in public schools and to have equal access to public schools and other public facilities to accommodate religious freedom in the public square.” – ?
Religious freedom: You’re free to be a Lutheran, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, or a Roman Catholic.
And after the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, they say their Oath of Obedience to the President, and the Our Father.
Problem is, what the regime has been doing with the military ever since the end of WWII has had nothing to do with actual defense.
@Jon (and RG)
By the conflation of ‘school prayer/creationism’ I was under the impression that RG was saying that the GOP supported the idea of forcing prayer and replacing evolutionism with creationism. I don’t see anything in that quote that does either.
Do you have a problem with the fact that the nation has a Judeo-Christian heritage? Or with student’s engaging in voluntary prayer at public school events? Or with religious student organizations having the same access to school facilities that other student organizations have?
@RG One is free to be a member of any religious belief system that one cares to, Christian or not.
Whether what has been done with the military since WWII has anything to do with national defense is subjective opinion. Arguments can be made either way, although I haven’t heard any compelling arguments to support your side unless one starts from an odd premise.
Explain to me how murdering Afghani women and children with stealth drones makes me safer.
The American populace has a Judeo-Christian heritage, but the American government most certainly doesn’t. In fact, the early government went out of its way to establish itself as a secular government, so I’m not sure what you’re asking.
And if you think that large swaths of Republican don’t want to institute teaching Creationism (or Intelligent Design, which it started being called after Edwards v. Aguillard) in a science class, you haven’t been paying attention to Republican-led school boards throughout the country or to political rhetoric from Republican leaders (Bush, 2005).
When you get to the idea of forcing prayer, it gets lost in a mix of what’s real and what isn’t. Certainly, I think the current standard, praying on your own time and not disrupting class, is sufficient and I wonder how it would be received by most Republicans if they knew it. But that would mean they’d actually have to be informed of the Supreme Court rulings (and defended by the ACLU I point out) instead of just hearing the slogan that kids can’t pray in school. So instead it gets thrown in the platform as a monument to ignorance, unless you advocate faculty-led prayer of what the Supreme Court has deemed a “captive audience.”
By the same token, I have no problem with equal access for organizations, but that wasn’t the point.
Of course, the proper solution, as with everything else, is to get the government out of the school business. When I was in school in the ’50s, the closest that the government got involved in schools was that the School Board piggybacked the bond issue payments on the property tax bill. But our ancestors have let the government get involved, and they’ve let the teachers unionize, which pretty much signed the death warrant for quality education.
@Jon
The early government quite clearly recognized the Judeo-Christian heritage of the nation/government. Which doesn’t conflict with a secular national government at all. Franklin proposed that Moses parting the sea be on the Seal, and he wasn’t doing so for religious reasons.
Creationism and intelligent design are not the same thing, you’re setting up another straw man. It is interesting that you evidently believe that evolutionism is sufficiently weak that it can’t deal with questions.
You might want to actually get to know Republicans, rather than relying on your clearly misinformed and biases view of them. You suggest that they should actually read Supreme Court cases, implying that they (we) are ignorant, yet you have a cartoonish, and contrary to fact view of them.
That you appear to blindly accept the propaganda of the left (your comfort zone) while evidently excoriating others for believing the propaganda of their comfort zone seems rather hypocritical.
Thanks to the Republican Party, a guy (Republican, of course) who said:
“”God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.”
is not only in Congress, but is also a member the House Science Committee (i.e., the party saw it fit to nominate him for that position!). That tells you all you need to know about the Republican take on science and religion.
Well, being a metaphysicist and a nut case, I’ve discovered a paradigm in which both creationism and evolutionism are true. They’re simply two different accounts of the same course of events, told from spectacularly widely disparate points of view. The Big Bang was when God said, “Let there be light,” and there was Light. Then, since spirit has no sense of time, since it is infinite and eternal, the condensation of the original hydrogen into stars and galaxies, and the evolution of life on Earth, Looked to him exactly as if he were literally sculpting clay into beings.
But it’s time for the clay to speak up – we are sentient, and we have very important information to deliver to Spirit, and that message is, there was never supposed to have been a cosmic Boss of Everything. Free Will must be free to live. God is supposed to just radiate Light, and then the Will receives the light and turns it into beauty, which God is supposed to simply accept and love unconditionally.
But there have been a couple of flies in the ointment, leading to governments and wars and stuff, but those evil spirits are being vibrated out of the Mother’s energy field. Free Will will win – the only question is, will I?
@RG, that all depends on what you do with your free will granted to you by God.
Rich, what you describe is actually more or less what the official Catholic stance is on those things. The Universe began with a Big Bang several billion years ago – and it was God who caused it to happen. Humans and apes both evolved from a common ancestor over millions of years, but it was God who set up the world in such a way that evolution would happen and result in a human. And so on.
And yes, while it’s not a scientific stance (it’s inherently unverifiable and unfalsifiable), it has the distinction that it doesn’t contradict observable facts, just adds a metaphysical dimension to them.
I have a(an?) hypothesis that the humans and apes diverged from the proto-hominids when Prometheus brought fire to the Earth, i.e., some brave (or crazy) proto-hominid smelled cooked meat in the embers of a recent fire, and found out that it tasted awesome, and that the embers kept him warm, and if he kept the fire going, that the beasts stayed away; from that point our body hair migrated to our faces within a handful of generations.
@RG, how does that explain humanoids that have still have body hair all over their backs, buttocks, and so on? Is their skin somehow different? Perhaps those humanoids with massive quantities of hair remaining actually are closer to the missing link thingy you speak of?
The standing anthropological explanation for how humans speciated, and why they’re hairless (compared to the apes, anyway) is that they evolved to be “endurance hunters” in the African savannah, filling the heretofore unfilled niche of a savannah species that could actively hunt at the peak of daily heat outside of tree cover, when more conventional predators like big cats have to chill out, and don’t compete for prey.
“Endurance hunting” here is literally stalking the prey to death, by chasing it for longer than it can sustain running. Obviously, to do so you need to be able to efficiently dissipate heat, so fur becomes a hindrance. This also meshes well with the fact that physically fit humans can run distances longer than any other animal (more even than horses) with no rest – marathons etc. It also explains why humans sweat so much (we share the top 3 of that ranking among all animals, tied with horses and camels); again, it’s all about cooling, which is necessary to endure those marathons. There’s a bunch of other hints, like certain physiological traits of human leg that seem to be designed for efficient running compared to other primates.
That’s the way their parents trained them to vote, and they’re terrified of being separated from the herd, because crocodiles.
My father was a lifelong Democrat and a very strong believer in the Second Amendment. It was through him that I developed my beliefs in the right to bear arms. I also had a couple very liberal coworkers while we did not see eye to eye on the issues, we did agree very strongly on gun rights. We should be inclusive to all gun owners regardless of their views on political and social issues. It will be very hard for antis to get traction when gun owners unite, regardless of their party affiliation, choice in religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender, race or ethnicity.
It’s long, long past the time to stop voting Dempublican and Republicrat altogether. All they are, all they have ever been, and all they are ever going to be is two sides of the same political coin. They serve themselves exclusively, and they all step on all of us in order only to line their own bottomless pockets with tax-payer dollars, cushion their fat asses with useless desk jobs, and reap platinum-plated binnies.
Politics has always ever been a pay-to-play shell game with bread and circuses for the masses while the country’s infrastructure and vital services rot from the inside out. ALL politicians are absolute bottom-of-the-food-chain scum by default.
All they are, all they have ever been, and all they are ever going to be is two sides of the same political coin.
People who say the two parties are the same are clueless. If you think Romney or any other Republican would have nominated Elena Kagan or Sonya Sotomayor you are greatly mistaken.
+1
If a democrat is for gun ownership are they really a democrat? I thought that was one of their significant dividing lines. Maybe we could use more than two parties?
What a complete load of crock. Voting Democrat means keeping Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and all the rest of the old anti Vietnam Nam war, free speech, hippie socialist gun banners in power. “Pro gun” democrats have absolutely no influence on that Party’s agenda – period. Voting Democrat means you value “gay marriage”, and whatever other social issues float your boat, over gun rights issues.
I’m a single-issue voter. I vote for politicians that support and defend the Constitution (this type of politician is in very short supply).
Our Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, is under siege. Nothing else matters until our constitutional rights are secure again.
Bush and Cheney were Fascists and did severe damage to our rights. Obama, and the current batch of Democrats, are Statists and are doing just as much (or more) damage.
Have you ever voted?
Obama is Bush’s fault!
The Communist Party of the USA endorsed Obama for president twice and tends to support Democrats over Republicans. For the democrats out there maybe you should give that fact a little bit of thought. Not all Democrats are anti-gun bigots but I bet there are more of them than Republicans. Having studied the works of the Founding Fathers, there is almost no way that I would ever vote for a democrat again. Voting for anti-gun politicians will not help maintain our failing Republic….
As a wiser man than I once put it, “The main problem with being a gun rights activist is that the left hates guns and the right hates rights.”
Perhaps not the most appropriate comment on an article calling for an end to the sharpening of the partisan knives, but heartfelt nonetheless.
If you want my support, make the fight for the 2nd Amendment about right vs wrong, not right vs left.
Thank you for your comments, JD. I agree 100%.
Democrats are the enemy of the Second Amendment. There are “Pro-Gun” Democrats only because if they voiced their true anti gun feelings they would lose reelection in their purple state. Republicans are the enemy of the Second Amendment. Many Republicans would sacrifice some of our Constitutional rights in the name of “compromise”. There is a need for a Constitution party, and no more R vs. D nonsense. There is no room for compromise in the Constitution, ESPECIALLY not the 2nd Amendment.
Anyone who votes for Commiecrats is not supporting either the 2A or the country, not that there isn’t some Republicans that are just as bad.
Democrats are the party of Obama. Obama is most definitely anti-gun. Therefore, the Democrats are the party of anti-guns. The only reason the president hasn’t further pursued gun control is this years mid-term elections. The majority of the democrats are federalists, while about half the republicans are federalists. The libertarians are the true freedom loving voters, but they don’t get much of a chance with our two party system. It’s fine that you vote democrat; not my business at all JD. But when you say you’re not a one-issue voter, don’t kid yourself into thinking that RKBA is in the top 3 issues. Vote pure freedom across the board and you’ll line up with the libertarians. Vote Jesus and golf with the republicans. Vote for social redistribution and encroachment on individual rights with the democrats.
Reply with the name of known democrats who adamantly and seriously have track record of supporting and defending the 2A WHEN IT COUNTS. Don’t say Wendy Davis, be serious.
<>
Davis is, no matter how much that hurts.
Try these:
http://www.gunsandammo.com/2012/09/12/8-surprisingly-pro-gun-democrats/
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/05/robert-farago/spotted-wild-pro-gun-democrat/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/06/AR2010100606329.html
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pro-Gun-Democrats/212033992198412
Thanks for the list. Having gone through them, I’m noticing a lot a NRA C & D ratings. That’s not what I had in mind. Secondly, most of these Dems are from obviously pro-gun southern and western states. They’d have zero chance of being elected without the NRAs rating. Thirdly, they ALL voted to confirm Judge Sotomayor (sic), a notorious anti-gun judge. So I’d say my qualifier of “when it counts” has not been met by about 2/3 or of those names listed .
Don’t get me wrong, you could fill pages with similarly rated republicans, but I’d say that 1/2 to 2/3 are vigilant supporters of the 2A.
And Wendy Davis is just trying to get noticed. If Abbott says “go” on OC and Davis doesn’t agree, the TX Governor election might as well not even take place. (Wendy Davis is an absolute snake; check her actual history.) if somehow, Wendy Davis wins the election, I’ll put everything I have on her killing the OC talk. (I think Abbott will let it die too, hard to imagine blue-metro areas like Houston going along.)
Politicians vote with their party by default. The preponderance of dems support gun control and legislators don’t read bills thoroughly so that’s why I’m a straight ticket conservative republican.
ITT: Lots of democrats and gutless democrats (libertarians) protest that they’re progun but should be allowed to vote for anti-gun politicians without being derided for their disloyalty.
What, you’re single issue voters when it comes to drug legalization and abortion but you’re not single issue voters when it comes to guns?
Such hypocrisy.
Everyone’s a single issue voter now: how much in freebies can I score from Uncle Sugar at taxpayer expense in exchange for selling my vote and surrendering your rights?
There’s no appealing to these bloody leaches on any particular demographic basis or issue. There’s no out-Democratting the Democrats and outbidding them for your votes paid for with the wealth of others.
Welcome to Taker Nation.
Couldn’t agree more.
A friend was citing the laundry list of reasons no one should vote for Hillary, let alone any progressive, after the utter devastation of this presidency. I told her that whoever ran on the Democrat platform was already a lock for president in 2016. She asked how that could possibly be so, and I said that all the candidate has to do is promise to keep giving away free stuff.
People ask how something like that can happen in American. They don’t realize that this isn’t America anymore.
I smell astroturf. There is no dissent in the Dem party these days except for a purpose. Usually nefarious. Slick website you’ve got there. Soros-funded? Bloomberg?
Speaking as a pro-gun Dem, we’re actually funded by the Fourth International. It’s all a secret plot to introduce a foreign substance into your precious bodily fluids; the gun rights things is just a distraction, to be honest.
“However, I would hope that our system of checks and balances would reign in a tyrant before the populace needed to take up arms against him.”
Rein in. Reign is what the tyrant is doing.
Good, balanced article. There are plenty out there – like myself – who appreciate firearms but otherwise don’t buy into the Republican agenda.
And how this thread became a rant about immigration policy is hard to fathom but some people just can’t get beyond their hate. Which is sad.
boo-freakin’-hoo……
Government is inherently evil and corrupt. No matter who you vote for, you’re simply voting for one flavor of slave master or another. Unless you’re willing to embrace and fight for Anarcho-Capitalism, you’ll be a slave your entire life. You’re never truly free. Government controls you utterly.
That being said, if you want to at least lighten your chains, never vote for anyone with a D after their name. I’m not saying Republicans are good, I’m saying every single bit of anti-gun and pro-socialist legislation has been authored by Democrats. You can be a gun guy all you want, but when you vote in people who take away my rights, you’re the enemy.
That being said, I’m fine with classic Democrats. It’s the “progressives” and their ideology that are the true enemy. I highly encourage Democrats who have enough of a conscience and brain to not become progressives, but also don’t agree with the Republican platform, to choose libertarianism. Forget how the media paints it. Look it up for yourself and you’ll see why the left fears and demonizes it.
How do you propose that an anarcho-capitalist society would keep, say, Russia, from taking Alaska back, or Mexico from absorbing the Southwest? You don’t think that it is even slightly possible that all nations would somehow become anarcho-capitalist, do you?
Government is inherently amoral, neither evil nor good. But given human nature, where you do have both evil and good, you’ll never get a successful anarchic society of any type. Utopias are bad.
“How do you propose that an anarcho-capitalist society would keep, say, Russia, from taking Alaska back, or Mexico from absorbing the Southwest? ”
A Rifle Behind Every Blade of Grass. Armed people would not submit to any foreign ruler, and are getting a little itchy about the domestic ones!
The government knows this, and is terrified lest the people find out, because then all will know that they have no reason to be.
Really?
The ‘anarcho’ part of anarcho-capitalism stands for anarchy. You really think that a bunch of anarchists are going to defeat the Russian Army in Alaska, or the Mexican Army in the Southwest? Military success requires organization, not something that those who oppose organization are particularly known for.
You’re not thinking that those who post on libertarian or right-wing web sites comprise a majority, are you?
You never answered my question about whether you extend your stay out of everyone’s business to domestic crimes.
“You really think that a bunch of anarchists are going to defeat the Russian Army in Alaska,”
No, I’m saying that a bunch of anarchists don’t really give a hoot what language the tyrants in the stone buildings are speaking, because nobody is obeying them anyway.
“You never answered my question about whether you extend your stay out of everyone’s business to domestic crimes.”
Doesn’t everybody already know that I won’t stick my nose into the middle of somebody else’s fight? If someone is yelling for help, and it is SO CLEAR who the bad guy is that even when the cops get there I won’t get arrested for assaulting the apparent perp, then maybe, if I can do it safely. Naturally, if it looks like violence, I’ll call 911. But I’d really prefer that the would-be victim take responsibility for his own safety, and not depend on me.
Libertarians make lousy lifeguards. 😉
http://marienlaura.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/libertarian-lifeguard.jpg
Anyone who says something to the effect “I support the 2nd amendment BUT…” doesn’t and can’t; ever.
Don’t be fooled. Demoncraps traditional mode of operation has always been and will always be to infiltrate, divide and conquer. An effective policy in war to be sure. So does that mean the demoncraps are at war with the USA? Well, yes. Yes it does. They most certainly are traitors to a man.
I’m sure there were citizens in Germany in 1939 that something to the effect “I don’t like the National Socialist Party BUT at least the trains run on time.” And what a price the world paid for all those BUT’s.
(Spare me the Godwin’s law BS – if the shoe fits…)
Can’t we all just get along…..
I reach out to anybody who cares to learn about guns. R or D makes no difference to me. If they want to learn, damnit I’m gonna learn em.
I would love to vote for a libertarian. I would also love to vote independent. I would REALLY LOVE for either one to get enough money to buy votes in the electoral college.
THATS ANOTHER THING, the electoral college. THEY STRAIGHT UP TELL YOU IN SCHOLL THAT THEY PICK THE PRESIDENT. Who the hell elects them? Why do they get to decide who governs me?
“Yeah we shot Dr. King. But your history books say otherwise, therefore we didn’t kill him.” -uncle sam
Evidently they didn’t teach you enough in school.
The Constitution is set up so that the *states* elect the president, not the people. I generally think that’s a good thing, but it’s important to understand that if you want to talk about the Electoral College.
The Constitution also permits the states to decide how they will choose the electors in the Electoral College, and currently they all choose them by ballot in the general election (when you vote for President, you’re not voting for the person, but rather for a slate of electors who is committed to that candidate).
Evidently you are correct. I’m happily learned now lol. Then again I’ve been out of school for 5 years now AND I was taught common core in high school…
I hereby stand corrected.
And you were cordial with your response! I tip my hat to you.
School*
Eh….whoops.
THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS.
It’s spot on and I’m sad to see a fair share of the types of forum comments you mentioned in your article popping up here. Well, I guess it just reinforces your sentiments. Everything you said is exactly what I mean when I try to tell hardcore pro-gunners that they need to change their approach to pushing their gun agenda.
The most disturbing thread I have ever read on this site. Making common cause with liberals about guns? Yes, if you’re a Democrat you’re a liberal because liberals steer the ship in your party. DiFi Feinstein belongs to you, not conservatives (“Mr & Mrs. America, turn them all in!”).
Given all the pro-RKBA victories & liberal defeats over the past year & a half, it appears that some liberals have decided that if you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. “Hey, this liberal likes guns & shooting!”
I call it liberal taquiyah. After spending seventy five years saying that citizens shouldn’t be trusted with guns & now saying you embrace RKBA, you’re no different from Muslims who say, “I disapprove of al-Qaeda, I would never personally kill an infidel!!”
Liberals aren’t fooling anyone except some on this thread who now apparently believe in a `big tent’ view of RKBA.
What a liberal who owns guns really thinks, like Di-Fi, Jay Rockefeller & all the other members of the Coalition of Conscience is:
“Guns for me, but not for thee”. A liberal told me years ago (retired colonel, broke my heart) that he would turn in his guns “only when they make you rightwingers turn in yours! Until then, I need protection!!”
Hypocrisy or deception – it’s one or the other.
Insert applause emoticon here…….
I have been out of my mind busy for the past month and don’t have time to peruse the threads like I usually enjoy doing.
I read the article, then threw up a little in my mouth looking at the “hear, hear!” comments then came to yours and thought “well at least I am not the only person who hasn’t been assimilated yet”
Thank you for your post.
Well, I’m a registered Democrat in Maryland, continuing the guerrilla revolt. Being registered means I can vote for eminently defeatable (D) boobs in the primary and worthy Rs in the General Election.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat in a single party state.
Yeah, hows that working out? By the way Maryland democrat, you have any guns that will soon be outlawed let me know, I’ll take them off your hands.
I’m not being racist when I as this. I side with Israel 99.9% of the time but why are so many Jewish people Democrats? I really want to know. The only Jewish person I know of who isn’t a democrat, is Mark Levin.
Is there a secret handshake that I don’t know about?
To the best of my knowledge Jewish affinity for liberalism goes back a century to the days when immigrant Jews were victims of discrimination for not being Christian. During WWI there were attempts in the press to depict Jews, especially Askenazim, as secret allies of the Germans! They championed New Deal liberalism & its programs even though FDR was less than helpful about the plight of Jews in Europe as WWII approached. Jews were the most numerous white allies of blacks during the early civil rights era (this would change when the militants took over).
What is strange is American Jewish partiality to all of liberalism’s pet projects, including a so-called Palestinian state, to the point that many of them are anti-Israel, a staunch U.S. ally which to many is a crime in itself. There is a huge divide between Jews in Israel & Jews in the U.S. whose slogan seems to be,
“You can be liberal without being Jewish, but you can’t be Jewish without being liberal.”
However, there is Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO). Might want to check them out.
Check out articles by Dennis Prager and Michael Medved, both politically conservative observant Jews on the issue. Additionally, Commentary magazine had a symposium issue on the topic as well.
“The point I want to make is that alienating Democrats and questioning their intelligence is not the way to preserve the RKBA.”—
Nor is it o.k. to call Republicans as knuckle dragging slobbering idiots as so many of your fellow Democrats do. The sad fact remains that in nearly all anti-firearms legislation there is a (D) for an author or co-author. And in fact most other individual rights diminishing contemporary legislation has a (D) attached to it as well. The modern Democratic Party is not the same party of John Kennedy NRA life member. Maybe you could be like my wife, a lifelong Democrat from Chicago who re-registered as an Independent.
I’ve never heard of an antigun Republican, but both POTG and republicans have their share of knuckle-draggers.
Peter T. King, for example (at least if you trust the NRA ratings).
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