Agreed. I read through it, and there’s plenty of bits that are ridiculous. Manatory licensing will never happen because the 2nd Amendment is a right, not a privilege. Also, it doesn’t make sense that they’re trying to ban online sales, because those require delivery via an FFL, which means all of them get a background check.
I agree it’s a cultural issue, but where we’re gonna disagree is that the culture that promotes this degree of gun violence is one that loves guns so much it absolutely refuses to try and take any steps to fix the issue.
I wholly disagree. What Europeans don’t seem to understand about gun violence is that the largest predictor is the gini coefficient of an area, which is a measure of income inequality. The US has the highest gini coefficient of any developed/western country, and because of that correlation you see the largest rates of violent crime.
If you want to want to reduce the rates of violent crime down to match that of Canada your best bet would be to enact legistation to reduce the gini coefficient to a comparable level to Canada. Achieving that by reducing gun ownership in the US would require removing more guns than actually exist in the country.
Furthermore, you don’t actually know what leftists want in regards to gun control, since you’ve likely heard a lot of it from right-leaning sources
No. Just… no. First off, this discussion started off about Democrats, not leftists. And they are definitely not the same.
Second, go look up quotes from Democratic political candidates like Beto O’Rourke. There’s a rather prominent one where he promised to take away people’s ARs - exactly what you’re claiming doesn’t happen.
Third, go look up some of the legislation that has been pushed into Congress over the years. Particularly House Bill 127 in 2021.
I am what the Americans consider VERY far left (A centrist by European standards)
I’m really tired of this claim, because it’s not true and it gets more superfluous the more it gets repeated. The US has a decent share of extreme left-wing individuals, even by Europe’s standards. I know several avowed socialists and communists and the only reason I don’t know more is because I don’t want to wade further into that mess. Not only that, conservative parties in Europe have been growing in popularity, especially in Italy and Spain.
You should be able to have a gun, but you should be licensed
The issue here is that gun ownership is a right, while driving is a privilege. Privileges can require licenses, but if you require a license to exercise a right then it’s no longer a right.
Requiring every gun owner to have a license would have to be done as a constitutional amendment, and invalidating part of the Bill of Rights is unprecedented
or at the very least dialed it back substantially.
From what I’m aware, Beto O’Rourke completely dropped gun control as a campaign issue when he ran for governor in Texas. Granted, he was also the biggest advocate for gun control of all the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 election, so I don’t think anyone trusted his reversal
Third, many liberals are openly willing to kill a hobby that most gun owners enjoy without harming anyone
I honestly think a lot of the left’s stance on gun control stems from culture wars. Otherwise you wouldn’t see people reacting so much to pointless things like foregrips, suppressors, or painting guns black.
laws against people with histories of serious psychiatric illness having access
Tbf this is already a thing. If you’ve been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital (morning brain is preventing me from having the right term, sorry) that will show up on a federal background check.
Also, interestingly this and red flag laws can have a negative consequence: it can lead to individuals trying to hide their symptoms and not seek treatment to avoid having their rights taken away, which merely exasperates the problem.
I’m not opposed to having restrictions on gun ownership based on mental health, but there needs to be some way for affected individuals to gain their rights back after seeking treatment (similar to felons regaining their voting rights after a few years), in combination to making said treatment significantly easier to access (preferrably bia universal healthcare).
My personal stance is is a combination of an observation that an armed population is harder to oppress, and that gun control tends to have a disproportionate impact on minorities and oppressed groups.
Since LGBT and minorities are the most likely groups to be attacked by political opposition, we shouldn’t be trying to hamstring their ability to defend themselves.
Plus, a contributing factor to why the alt-right and fascists have gained so much ground in the past decade is because of the perception that only the political right has guns, and therefore they think that they’ll win in a fight
I would recommend most people at least have professionals install the hardware going directly into and through the roof to avoid leaks. Unless there’s nobody reputable you can hire and you are sure what you’re doing.
Home repair is often fairly simple and can be done easily with some basic online tutorials, but there’s so many people that don’t do that and think up terrible solutions off the cuff.