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- #261
You may have a misunderstanding of my position on all this. I'm a left-leaning Independent, and I don't disagree with most of what you said. I think this is one of the several issues on which the Right just becomes paralyzed by its ideology and is just unwilling to give an inch. While there are some on the Left who want to take it too far, most of the proposals I've seen seem perfectly reasonable. But the pro-gunners are conditioned to not budge one inch. They have been conditioned to equate cooperation with capitulation.If I were King (I'm working on it, but the RED TAPE is HORRENDOUS), this whole gun debate would be going in a very different direction.
Certain forces are keeping the debate about guns on regulation and banning and even confiscation, forcing gun supporters on the defensive. These forces are ignoring - and, I think, purposely - the real problem here, which is a sick and decaying culture that is spitting out more damaged psychopaths by the day.
If I had my way, the gun supporters would bend and allow for some basic (and perfectly reasonable) regulations on the availability of guns to certain people. The Left says (and I agree) that there is room for increased regulation on the margins that won't cramp the lives of law-abiding gun owners.
Why are these forces purposely ignoring the bigger problem, the real problem, of our culture? Because, obviously, they are profiting from the movies and music and television shows and video games and societal divisions that are creating the decay. No wonder they want to avoid that discussion. Seems to me that if gun supporters were smart, they'd give an inch or two and then go after the real problem loud and clear.
Doesn't seem all that complicated. But the gun supporters refuse to give an inch, and they don't see they're being played. The longer this issue remains where it is, the worse off they are.
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I'm late to the party, but not too late to face off against you on this one.
The reality is,in the course of my life the gun owners have compromised and accepted the ban on full auto weapons, the ban on semi auto imports, the ban on our own M1 Garands and M1 carbines being allowed back into the U.S. We've accepted the Lautenberg Amendment (totally unconstitutional) and we let the left have the Assault Weapons Ban (which predictably failed.) We set back and even allowed the Brady Bill to pass. I can name numerous times gun owners have done nothing.
Okay, I've chastised the right for not putting a counter-proposal on the table many times. They simply won't respond, so first let me do that publicly:
If the right does not put a counter-proposal on the table (besides arming teachers and making schools look like prisons) YOU WILL LOSE THIS FIGHT. In order to WIN, you have to exhaust all of your non-violent legal and political avenues of redress before resorting to extraordinary actions. And you might think well when they come for them... we all know the rhetoric. We're going to resist a tyrannical government when we cannot agree long enough to have a conversation on a discussion board?
We can severely cut violence down to minimal occurrences without gun control We don't have to spend a lot of money; we don't have to jeopardize anybody's rights; it can be implemented within weeks. The anti gunners will not join the effort because what they really want is a gun free society.
The gun control fanatics do no have any legal, moral, constitutional, or ethical basis for threatening to take people's firearms. They cannot even do the math
400 MILLION privately held firearms
Over 125 MILLION individual gun owners
VERSUS
A U.S. military with UNDER 1.5 million personnel- a few of which will NOT draw down on their American brethren.
That said, I do believe there is a deeper issue, and that's a society in decay. We expose our young people (including, of course, young people who already damaged in some way) to an immense amount of mind-numbing violence and gore and hatred within our popular culture. And as much as the Right is unwilling to give an inch on guns, the Left is unwilling to admit that our popular culture is playing a role as well.
That's why I'd like to see the Right make some concessions, so we can turn our attention to our societal decay.
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