Gun Control and the Future of the Democrats (Grab a tarpaulin)

New York Magazine ^ | April 24, 2013 | Jonathan Chait

[2ndDivisionVet]

After Al Gore lost the electoral college in 2000 in a way that first revealed the contours of the red-blue divide, the Democratic Party made a strategic decision to abandon gun control as a central plank of its agenda. The Newtown massacre has scrambled that calculation. It forced President Obama to push for a gun-control law he didn’t plan, and the failure of that law has provoked a furious liberal backlash against the consensus that Democrats have to leave guns alone.

John Oliver’s Daily Show segment captures the incredulity many liberals are feeling:

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)

Oliver’s contrast is to the courage of Australian politicians who supported a stringent gun confiscation measure that has created a sea change in that country’s public safety. If senators had a chance to enact a law like that and failed, I think the moral opprobrium they’re facing would make sense. But they were actually voting on a watered-down version of a piecemeal reform, a bill experts described as “a small step,” and which stood a very strong chance of being watered down or killed altogether in the House.

Alec MacGillis, arguing in a similar vein, assails my defense of red-state Democrats who wanted to save their political hides. My argument, he says, “validates obstructionism … demoralizes supporters … lets off the hook the elected officials who had the opportunity to make a substantive improvement to our gun laws.”(continued)

[2ndDivisionVet]

So they admit they want an Australian-style total ban here?

[FlingWingFlyer]

You’ve got to remember. Liberal males are all “light in the loafers”. Just the sight of a gun causes them to wet themselves. Guns are “scary” to them.

[gorush]

http://biggeekdad.com/2011/10/kellers-riverside-store/

[E. Pluribus Unum]

[M1903A1]

Not the worst article I’ve seen...though still very clueless.

For all the mention of Australia, I see no mention of what Oz did to make it “work”...they didn’t offer a $100 gift card or similar insulting “payment” for the affected guns, they paid MSRP or better for them. (I can understand the appeal of handing over an L1A1 for up to $2500 when it cost about $1400 new from Lithgow. Not calling it *good*, but it did take away the “I don’t want to lose my investment” argument.)

Also interesting to see no mention of what I believe was the real “tipping point” for congressional Dems and gun control...the electoral bloodbath of the 1994 elections, following that summer’s passage of the “crime bill” that included the Brady waiting period and (in particular) the original AWB. The White House and DNC may not have “institutional memory” of that event, but I have no doubt there’s plenty of reps and staffers left on the Hill who remember either themselves or their bosses suddenly being out of a job.

[Hugin]

WARNING!!!

I CLICKED ON THE LINK ABOVE AND GOT AN ENDLESS CASCADE OF NEW WINDOWS OPENING UP. I HAD TO DO A HARD REBOOT, AND RE LOG IN TO FR AS WELL.

[marktwain]

So many lies in the article. First, there was no “courage” displayed by the Australian politicians. It takes courage to oppose a measure that is fully supported by your party and all the media in your country. It is very easy to go along with it.

Second, the Australian ban and draconian regulations have not resulted in a reduction of murder or violent crime. Plenty of papers on that.

Third, while there may be a “liberal backlash” it is only among the 4 percent of people that think “gun control” is an important issue. When you consider that 9 percent of Democrats were “very happy” that the Senate bill failed, you can see why this is a losing measure for Democrats.

It is likely a good thing that the left keep pushing this. It means that a repeat of the 1994 elections is likely.

[marktwain]

Gun Confiscation in Australia Not Shown to Reduce Mass Shootings

http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2013/02/gun-confiscation-in-australia-not-shown.html

[GenXteacher]

“Oliver’s contrast is to the courage of Australian politicians who supported a stringent gun confiscation measure that has created a sea change in that country’s public safety.”

Courageous...horseshit. It takes more of a statesmen to side with liberty than it does to be a petty bedwetting leftwinger who creeps toward a communist dictatorship. And again- there is nothing about other countries on this planet that the US should care to emulate. The idea that “they do it better somewhere else”- well, liberals, if you think it is so great, MOVE! Quit polluting our country and leave. Go to the socialist countries you love so much.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Wow! That didn’t happen when I was there.

[kcvl]

Chait, the son of a doctor and a small business owner, grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and is a graduate of the University of Michigan.

He lives in Washington DC and is married to Robin Chait, an education-policy analyst at the Center for American Progress think tank. (George Soros funded)

[ought-six]

Just the very word “gun” sends them over the edge. I knew a lib who broke out in hives when he saw a copy of “Shogun” on a bookshelf.

[Misterioso]

(Grab a tarpaulin)

[Vigilanteman]

Liberal contempt for the second amendment is mainly because they see it as a deterrent to their equal contempt for the first amendment and all of the rest of the constitution.

[Frank_2001]

As far as I am concerned, his comparison with Australia is WAY off base. Australia does not have a Second Amendment. We do. End of discussion.