Biden is doing this to drive a wedge into Republicans. The gun nuts and the ones that don’t care about guns will have differing opinions because now gun violence affects them directly. It’s really smart.
Biden looks presidential. Trump has three choices:
-
Come out against AR-15s, for obvious reasons. This makes gun nuts less likely to vote for him.
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Come out in favor of AR-15s. He looks insane to Republicans who don’t care about guns.
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Trump ignores the issue or waffles and looks unpresidential.
Number 3 is most likely. Of course the correct answer is number 4: propose a competing policy that is nuanced. But that’s impossible for trump.
How many Republicans don’t care about guns?
The ones that are republicans for tax purposes.
Is that enough to matter? And is this issue enough for them to change their vote, given the tax stuff? All the other shit Trump does certainly doesn’t matter.
The richest places in America are pretty solidly blue. A lot of rich people like good public schools and colleges, clean water, the arts, etc. and understand that taxes and charity are how those things are paid for.
Other rich people like gated communities and stopped reading books1 when someone stopped assigning them. They’re the Republican rich people.
1 Some will read a book about war or some shitty airport bookstore thing that’s 80% out-of-context quotes about how to be a leader.
Rich people don’t give a fuck about public schools, lmao, they send their kids to private ones.
Private schools often suck. Rich people aren’t smarter. They just have more money. There’s plenty of districts where the best public high school is way better than whatever private schools exist. Half the private schools are for weird religious groups or kids who got expelled.
There’s almost always good public schools in cities. That’s why there’s always loopholes that allow rich people’s kids to go to them.
And in colleges, Harvard isn’t better than UC-Berkeley or the honors programs at most state flagship institutions. It’s just older. (There have been studies that compared students who got into an Ivy League school and ultimately chose a public flagship and the Ivy grads only did better in the first few years after graduation. But then the public flagship attendees caught up.)
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I wonder how many of those hedge fund billionaires down on Wall Street are Democrats. I doubt that it’s many of them. Bankers? Nah. Media and Telcom? Not likely. They’re all based in NYC, the bluest of the blue cities.
They all like tax cuts and deregulation. Trump is the one who’s promising that, whereas Biden promised and already delivered more of both to them all.
I don’t have any desire to defend hedge fund or VC billionaires so I’ll concede the point. There’s a reason San Francisco has NIMBY policies and New York City can’t elect mayors for shit.
Yeah, because the people who own all of the businesses and real estate constantly battle those who work at the businesses and live in all that real estate, which just goes to show what a fucked up and unbalanced role money plays in our so-called democracy.
Bankers? Nah. Media and Telcom? Not likely. They’re all based in NYC, the bluest of the blue cities.
Now you’re just making things up. You can’t just say “nah, not likely” and prove anything. It’s a lack of effort that shows you don’t have evidence.
NYC is a “blue city” (whatever that means) because of these professionals. The actual working class people in NYC make up a lot of the conservatives. That’s why cities are more liberal: because they have more educated people. Those people work in banking or media; they’re not all artists or plumbers or something.
Hilarious. OK, where’s your evidence, then?
EVERY group is big enough to matter. Reminder that the last two elections were determined by around 10,000 votes.
Those republicans already know he’s fucking crazy and they don’t give a fuck what his stance is on guns.
At this point Donald Trump could build a shrine to and start worshipping Obama as a God… It won’t affect anything.
And the ones that are Republicans to fuck over everyone but the rich. They’d definitely prefer “poor folk” didn’t have guns at all.
And who don’t give a shit either way about guns to make any effect
Lots of them. Do you know any Republicans? None of them care about issues that don’t affect them and their families. Even other “conservative” issues. They are not driven by policy.
Only Republicans with guns care about guns. And only 50% of Republicans have guns.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own-guns.aspx
They don’t care about each other. Liberals care about what other liberals think. Stop thinking like someone who cares about policy.
I’ve had to explain this to a lot of people who naturally assume that any organization of people will be organized around some kind of shared values. Most of the time that’s true, but not for Republicans.
Republicans are just a mish mash of obsessive single-issue voters, and by in large they just don’t care about the other single issues that their fellow party members are going on about.
At the head of the Republican party it’s people who want to minimize their tax burden, eliminate regulations on corporations, and cannibalize as much of the US government as they can into for-profit institutions. You could say that’s three issues instead of one, but the overarching theme is to cater to personal greed, no matter the harm to society. These are the ones who are primarily pulling the strings in the party, at least historically.
Just below them is the military industrial complex and gun manufacturers who just want to sell guns no matter the harm to society. They like to rile up 2A fanatics with conspiracy theories that the government is out to steal all their guns so they’ll be defenseless, paving the way for King Biden to ascend to his throne. The industry only cares about selling guns and the fanatics only care about having guns, and neither care about any kind of harm to society.
Then there’s the radical Christians whose obsessions cover an eclectic mix of social reactionary positions and literal death cult worship (e.g. Christians who give absolute support to genocide in Palestine because they think Israel’s conquest is a crucial step towards the rapture, which they believe is imminent). Broadly speaking the people in this group just want to hoist their religious doctrines onto everyone they can by any means available and no matter the harm it causes to society. They literally only care about “God’s Kingdom” in the afterlife.
Then there’s people who just lack any capacity for adaptation or learning. Their obsession is to feel like things are staying the same, or even reverting back to a past that they only know how to view through rose tinted glasses. They can’t be bothered to comprehend the problems we’re facing as a society or how the past was not the idyllic utopia that they mistakenly remember, nor can the old way of doing things sustain a growing and transforming society. These people just want to exist in comforting ignorance by feeling like they get to remain in familiar surroundings, no matter the harm to society.
There’s really only one thing that truly unites them: Each one wants one specific thing no matter the harm to society, and that one specific thing that they each want IS HARMFUL to society. But they work well together because none of them care about the harm being caused by any of the others, and as long as they all tow the same line, each one gets what they want.
I’ve never met any Republicans that were pro-gun-bans. I really don’t believe you’ll be able to find a single one either.
This is dumb as fuck timing by Biden, but I’m sure he can’t help himself because he’s been super anti-gun for decades so it’s probably just like a reflex at this point for him to to off about banning guns after a shooting.
Trump, for one
How many of them will stay home or change their vote because the head of the party they’re still a part of despite all the gun nuts continues acting like a gun nut?
If Biden is trying to use guns as a wedge issue for Republicans, he’s the person we saw at the debate all the time.
Not a lot but every wedge is probably worth it
The ones that are antiabortion or evangelicals who don’t own guns. GOP has the most gun owners but its not even like half their voters. Vocal minorities is all it is.
The only issue the GOP is actually united on right now is how they don’t like democrats.
Gun control, especially banning the most popular and utilitarian platform, is a massive political loser. This is incredibly poor timing for a struggling campaign.
utilitarian platform
What does that mean?
Presumably, “good” in most situations, with extensibility for specialized configurations that are both common and accessible.
The AR platform is highly customizable for different chamberings, sizes, attachments etc.
People who are “into guns” usually have at least one pistol or rifle that is built on the AR platform. ARs are great for everything from target shooting as well as hunting. Very practical.
Narrator: its a made up phrase
Aren’t all phrases made up?
Made up words? Who ulis up to these shenanigans ?
No, it’s like the jeep or old chevy pickup of guns. Does whatever you need well enough you don’t need 5 guns.
Noone needs a gun in their personal lives, thats the point.
There are plenty of uses for them professionally though.
My closest friend (a smaller woman) is only alive because she carries, so I know there is merit. Your comments are as stupid as “why have a smoke detector, how many times has your house burnt down? And don’t get me started on seatbelts!” It isn’t even living in fear. There are a lot of merit to gun regulation and nobody needs to be open carrying an assault rifle, and yes we all know what that term means, come at me with “tHAt iSnT a gUN drrrr”. I could make a case for it in home protection …but I am biased, having trained with an M-4, but even there, regulated ownership is fine…like driving a car.
/WastingBreath
Well, there is currently no requirement that someone be well-trained or understand collateral damage to own and use a gun in America. Some examples of other dangerous to use items that require training: cars, forklifts, surgical equipment. You can trust the people using those generally know how to use them and what bad things could happen.
Using an anecdote of someone who saved their own life with a gun isn’t the slam dunk you think it is. I never said she shouldnt be able to defend herself. There are things besides guns to defend yourself with that are less capable of mass lethal events, such as tasers, pepper spray, small physical weapons/knives. Your friend also could fit into the well-trained group, which if we at least required licenses to own a firearm, she would still have been allowed to own and protect herself with it. I’m sure there would be many women who would want to be licensed to carry for protection.
I’m willing to compromise a bit on the no guns thing, thats why I said professionally. I’ll add that if there were a license with a very short expiration and you have to prove competence in use, safety, and gun law, I think that would be reasonable. Sort of like the CCW permits some states use, but would be applied to all guns.
I’m very skeptical of any efforts to make guns harder to use or less capable as a way to limit peoples behavior, but maybe there are some limited examples of exceptionally dangerous guns or guns with little practical use that would make sense for.
That’s just dumb, bud.
Is it now? What else is it good for?
It’s good for shooting small, very fast bullets. May that be hunting, target shooting or self-defense.
If they want to ban AR-15s, they should ban all semi-automatic rifles otherwise it would be ridiculous. The would-be assassin could have done the same thing with a whole assortment of mostly equivalently performing rifles. Some just as “scary looking” black rifles, some with wooden parts.
If they want to ban AR-15s, they should ban all semi-automatic rifles otherwise it would be ridiculous.
And if they ban all those guns they should finish the job while they’re at it and just ban guns, glad we agree.
Indeed, they would have to go down the route Australia went. But I don’t see this happening in America any time soon.
If piles of murdered kids didn’t do much to move the needle, shooting an inflammatory politician isn’t going to do it. We’ll see how the MAGA respond to this event or hopefully when they lose the elections. Maybe (but hopefully not) they’ll act violently enough to force facing America’s relationship with guns.
Trump ignores the issue or waffles and looks unpresidential.
and that is what’s gonna get him. because up until now, he looked soooo presidential 😂
Any of those options will work fine for Trump. He doesn’t need to have policies, strategies, or responses to anything. His voters can’t remember it anyway. You think they remember that he banned bump stocks in the first place? He could promise to ban AR-15s one day, then criticize his own proposal the next day, and he’ll just get cheered by both sides. Voters are fucking stupid.
All that matters is that he keeps the steady supply of hateful buzzwords flowing. You can’t win chess against an opponent who’s playing hungry hungry hippos.
All of that wastes trump’s time and makes him look unprofessional to swing voters. He can’t win with just his fans. That’s why he lost big time in 2020. The swing voters saw him failing to respond to an actual issue.
Correction: He lost big time because of mail-in votes. Trump in 2020 got the record high for votes for a Republican candidate at something like 67.2 million, which was just about a million votes less than what Obama got during his first election (which was a record-breaking turnout). Biden got around 80 million votes in 2020, breaking every voter turnout record ever.
Swing voters are still crucial because that’s how Hillary lost despite having only 100,000 less votes than Obama did in his second election, but I feel like swing voters have probably more or less already made up their minds. If you don’t see Trump for what he is already, the odds of his reaction here being the final straw seems unlikely. I think if people had better access to voting, we’d easily see a repeat of 2020 even if we were to vote right this minute.
Trump already said he’d take away everyones guns, no questions asked, years ago. No one that supported him even blinked. This means nothing to them.
I’m pretty sure the NRA had a heart attack when they heard that 🤣
That’s just bullshit, he did not. He said the one stupid thing about ignoring due process for red flag law situations. This is pretty far and away from “everyone’s guns”
You made me curious, thank you. The actual quote is “take the guns first, go through due process second.”
Trump will go with number 5: “Did you know socialist immigrant windmills causing cancers kill more Americans than guns?”
He will do #2, and his base will cheer. Not a single person from that camp will think he’s crazy.
This is the kind of Democrat logic that makes me cringe…
Biden is doing this to drive a wedge into Republicans. The gun nuts and the ones that don’t care about guns will have differing opinions because now gun violence affects them directly. It’s really smart.
Or… he just doesn’t want to get shot himself. Just saying. not wanting to get shot is a powerful motivator…
Not that it’s perhaps prudent. or you know, god forbid, actually a good fucking idea.
He can just say nothing. His position is already clear and he just selected a VP candidate who was pictured in social media with an AR15 recently, and openly suggested the ATF doesn’t need to exist.
Option 4: trump and the GOP in general still views his assassination attempt as the danger you have to live with to live in a “free nation”. It’s the cost of freedom. Something something “just because i got shot doesn’t mean taking everyone’s rights away is a good idea”
Growing up in texas, this is a very common view.
Admittedly, knowing the coward Trump is (He literally doesn’t order his own food because he’s afraid of poisoning) There’s a very slim chance Trump will declare the AR-15 is evil and act afraid of it.
Actually that’s a pretty distinct possibility
I guarantee that he will say that the attack wouldn’t have happened if more of his followers had ar 15s there
2 and 3 only matter if reality matters to you. Most people being trump don’t care how insane things look, or if trump “looks presidential”.
What you’re arguing would make sense with logical voters. So of course it doesn’t apply here. When have Republican voters marked ‘D’ or stayed home instead of voting for a pro-gun candidate!? It just doesn’t happen.
And “wedge” issue?? Come on, Republican voters are either all-in on Trump or they reluctantly mark the ‘R’…
It’ll be 2 because the Republicans who don’t like guns are a minority. It’s a cult, there’s nothing Trump can do to lose support. You can’t trick him into doing something stupid, he’s always doing something stupid, people clap for it anyway.
It’s just dumb. The sniper that killed the guy wasn’t using an ar-15. Stopping ar-15’s wouldn’t have done anything to change something like this.
What do you mean, it was an AR-15. I don’t support a ban, just clarifying facts.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear in my statement. When I said “the sniper that killed the guy” I was specifying the the secret service sniper that successfully head shotted Crooks. I wasn’t referring to Crooks.
Pointedly, I was saying that the guy who hit what he was aiming for wasn’t using an AR. Not the guy who failed.
Ah ok, I get you, then. I didn’t downvote your comment.
Guns are tools. And what’s more, “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
FBI special agent in charge Kevin Rojek said Crooks used an AR-style rifle chambered in 5.56mm, a common caliber for such weapons. Authorities said the weapon was identified and traced using records from a gun dealership that is no longer operating.
If that source doesnt work for you, here’s the president of the United states:
“An AR-15 was used in the shooting of Donald Trump, just as other assault weapons were used to kill so many others, including children."
That’s from the linked article.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear in my statement. When I said “the sniper that killed the guy” I was specifying the the secret service sniper that successfully head shotted Crooks. I wasn’t referring to Crooks.
Pointedly, I was saying that the guy who hit what he was aiming for wasn’t using an AR. Not the guy who failed.
So youre saying that since the wannabe assassin missed, that ARs are not effective weapons?
Even if you gloss over the all the heavily published mass murder events committed with AR that the president alluded to in the quote above, are you aware that Trump turned his head a split second before the bullet hit his ear? That this likely is the only reason he’s alive?
I’m saying that AR’s aren’t a requirement or a need for a shooter and that stopping sales of AR’s just means that something else will be used. You don’t need an AR.
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Bernie had this right. Despite being pretty progressive, he wasn’t for outlawing semiautomatic firearms because they were black and looked scary. He believed that the right to arms was justified. This “AR Ban” is a great way to lose a lot of independents, and even some hard D voters like myself. There are a lot of dems who carry, and a lot of them who own the very firearms he wants to ban.
I had a friend that said he only voted for Trump in 2016 cause he felt like he needed somebody to protect his rights to own a gun. This guy that “protected” host rights to own a fun also did massive amounts of damage to other people rights.
I wish Dems would quit talking about guns. It’s a mistake.
What do you need an ar for ?
Actually that is a good question. You don’t need an AR-15 because there are non-AR semi-automatic rifles that will do exactly the same thing but aren’t viewed as bad-ass. (BTW, auto-loading rifles have been around since 1883.) The AR-15 is a civilian semi-automatic and the basis of the M-16, so larpers can fulfill their G.I. Joe fantasies and a cuddle them when they are told to fear something by Fox.
The AR platform is also just useful in general, which is why it’s become so popular.
So when shit hits the fan I can “borrow” 5.56 ammo from the military.
That’s quite a gun fantasy you have.
Can’t run up a flight of stairs, but ready to take on the us military
How’d Afghanistan go?
Or Vietnam, or the Revolutionary War for that matter.
These idiots will take every gun you have right before Hitler v2 seizes power, it’s wild.
Need? I don’t but I wanted one so here we are. AR ban is stupid will only help conservatives in the election. I’m not against gun control legislation that will actually do good.
Fighting fascists.
Why do you need the freedom of speech to write this comment?
Have you ever fired one before? They are way more accurate than a handgun. You could be 5ft away from someone with a handgun and still miss (especially in a high adrenaline situation). It’s considerably more difficult to miss with an AR.
The AR isnt the only rifle that exists.
Yes I’m aware of this.
The AR isnt special. So why are they going after ARs specifically?
As an independent, I could care less about this sort of thing. I see it as virtue signaling to staunch democrats. It won’t win him a single vote, since his entire platform has always been about being a super traditional Democrat.
We need new traditions, not rehashing of old, tired trades against things like specific types of guns and obesity.
The next would be assasin will be forced to use a weapon appropriate for distance killing. They would be more likely to succeed.
The failed Trump shooter used a rifle completely appropriate for the distance. He was just a “comically bad” shooter, according to acquaintances.
He wasn’t against outlawing them because they looked scary implies that he was in favor of outlawing them because they looked scary.
I think you mean he was against outlawing them because they looked scary.
If you didn’t reply within 14 seconds of me correcting my post, yeah. That’s what I corrected it to.
ANSWER FOR YOUR 14 SECOND CRIMES
14 seconds in the dungeon seems only fair
He’s not gonna do shit, he’s just gonna continue to bark at one of the symptoms of the problem.
this right here folks. its a wedge issue and it doesnt solve the real problems
Holy deep fried frankenfuck will the Democrats NEVER LEARN?!?!?!?!
AFTER!
You talk about guns AFTER the election!
What in the actual pogostickingpopejohnpaul is he THINKING?!?!?
The optics are 1000% awful here.
Uvalde wasn’t enough, but a potshot at the planet’s most notorious living felon is?
Nah, I think I’ll keep my shit and wait for the far right to move.
The fuckin scenario we are in I swear.
Far right: let’s kill the left and do fascism.
Democrats: let’s ban weapons right now while there’s threats of violence against democrats.
Really?
Valid
Just wait for it, Dems are preparing to finally kill the filibuster just days before they lose to republicans in a landslide defeat due to running the worst possible candidate, simply because he promised the donors nothing would fundamentally change and actually delivered on it.
Afterwards, they’ll eat ice cream and blame the left for not voting hard enough.
Just as dumb as when Beto said it before his election…
It’ll never pass, and he thinks saying it will get votes, but all it does is motivate idiots to vote trump, even tho he actually did an executive action to try and close a loophole.
It might not have stood, but it worked for a couple of years.
On its own its a dumb idea, but I do think another commenter had it on the money how this is more a ploy to catch trump with his pants down. Trump can either agree and piss off his pro gun base (and look like a coward given his previous statements), he can argue against it and seem like hes inviting more violence and alienate anyone in his base who thinks gun violence is bad. Or he can ignore it and look like hes a doddering old fool oblivious to whats happening around him.
alienate anyone in his base who thinks gun violence is bad
ie exactly nobody
to his base it would look strongbrave to ignore it with the most bigly beautiful thickskin
Banning guns is a losing policy for democrats. It only ever hurts them. I really wish they’d stop lighting political capital on fire with statements like this
I said this decades ago… if Dems dropped the gun shit and embraced safe shooting sports, they would win every damn election.
Gun rights are a MAJOR factor in why many people I personally know refuse to consider voting Democrat.
They will wax poetic all day about how much they detest Trump… but then end with, “At least he won’t take away our guns.”
Which is hilarious cuz trump said he would
I actually know a guy who plans on voting for Trump simply because “They can’t drag me to the concentration camps if I have guns”
He doesn’t think Biden wants to drag him off btw, he thinks Trump will… but it won’t matter because he had guns…
The number of people I know who won’t vote for them because of gun shit is too damn high. There are cheaper ways to solve gun violence anyway. Single issue voters are dumb, but democrats need to accept that they exist and this is the biggest single issue
Rich people would lose a lot of money should that ever happen, so whenever things start to look even a little good, you bet your ass some idiot in the Dems is going to scream “hell yes we’ll take your guns”.
It seems like such a lazy non-solution. Essentially telling shooters “Hey, from now on, you can only use ALL THE OTHER GUNS” as if that solves something.
This is the problem. All banning the AR will do is drive the popularity of another platform up. There’s a crapload of powerful semi-auto customizable platforms out there, it’s just that the AR variant is the most popular. It’s a stupid solution because it’s no solution at all - and I don’t mean that as a “not good enough so we should do nothing at all” thing, it’s just a completely pointless solution.
Noooo you don’t understand, banning pistol grips and front sight posts is totally effective! It totally didn’t spawn an entire new segment of “compliant guns” that had the same level of lethality the last time we did it…
And yet gun deaths went down…
Crime as a whole went down. In fact crime was already on the way down when the super predators bill and the AWB were passed. And the guns responsible for the majority of gun deaths were and are pistols, not “Assault Guns”. If you want to talk about preventing mass casualty shootings then let’s have that conversation. But Columbine happened in 1999. The AWB did not prevent mass casualty shootings.
I’m not even sure the AR is the most popular. It may be the best seller in the US, but I’m pretty sure that the AK-47 is more popular globally, and there’s absolutely no way that they will outlaw the AK-47 in the US since we manufacture them.
The AK is a global weapon for sure. My commentary deals with the popularity of US gun platforms because that’s the country whose laws we’re talking about. So the global popularity of the AK isn’t really directly relevant.
Well sure, but the reason I brought it up is that I’m not entirely certain that the AK or M-16 aren’t more owned in the US than the AR. AR has only been standard issue for the military since after I got out in 2004. I would wager there are far more AKs and M-16s in private hands than ARs
The M-16 and AR-15 are the same gun barring the full auto mechanism. Armalite originally made the AR-15, sold it to Colt, who pitched it to the military, and when it was adopted, was designated the M-16. (Simplified history) So while it may not have been standard issue as the AR, it’s been around for a very long time. Obviously it’s changed up a little over time as manufacturing has changed hands, but I’m not sure if it’s worth debating what’s in private hands other than how they’re designated when they’re essentially variants of the same gun.
Gotcha, they didn’t exactly go into the manufacturing history in boot when they trained us on how to use the thing, and I have had exactly 0 reasons to touch a firearm since boot.
You’d be wrong. The AR platform is the civilian version of the M-16/M-4. And the flat-top carbine length version of the M16A4, called the M4, was standard issue for infantry units being deployed since at least 1999. They were increasingly being sold to civilians in semi-auto only configurations right up to the 1994 Assault weapons ban that named them specifically. That just resulted in a bunch of AR platforms with different names that narrowly skirted the rules of the ban, called “Compliant ARs”. After 2004, when the ban expired, sales of AR’s seem to take off because now they can sell freely under the AR name that got a ton of publicity. And now in 2024 they’re going to start selling the AR platform in Sig’s new 6.8mm flavor. To be fair the Spear itself is different enough it some people may not considerate it an Armalite platform. Other would argue it’s an AR-16 platform.
Technically, the AR was around before the M-16.
The M-16 is the military version of the rifle, not the other way around.
Sure.
I would assume that banning them would include banning all semiautomatic long guns
It never has in the past. It’s always come down to cosmetics and new sales of 30 round magazines. So you’re left with the actual rifle and a magazine well that you’re just not supposed to put certain magazines in, on the honor system…
I clicked down through the article to see what they meant by “assault rifles like” the AR-15, but they didn’t link to any actual source describing what they meant. So I couldn’t tell you what guns are on the list.
Typically 2 or more of: pistol grip, collapsible/folding stock, barrel over x length, semiautomatic firing mechanics, magazines located outside the grip.
See the former Federal Assault Weapons Ban in place from 1994-2004. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban
under X length. Not over.
Which is funny because pistols exist
Yeah, and the cursed AR-15 pistol. Which really hangs a light on the ridiculousness of legislating form factor instead of measurable stuff like rate of fire, or internal function. Like if we had put into law that any weapon capable of firing X number of bullets per second is a fully automatic firearm and thus banned then bump stocks wouldn’t be an issue. But repeatedly we see the most asinine stuff, like banning thumbhole stocks.
This is an issue that Biden has consistently refused to understand to be a political loser well before any suggestion of a decline. He’s consistently vocal on it in a way that would suggest he genuinely believes it to be a winning position.
In reality, it’s practically impossible to do and mostly serves to energize the right and alienate voters in states he actually needs to win. It’d literally be better politically to say nothing on the topic, but he insists on pouring fuel on the “they want to ban our guns” fire.
I have been, on the whole, positive about Biden, but this is a massive blindspot he’s held for a long time.
It’d literally be better politically to say nothing on the topic
Biden need only say three words to clinch the election right now: “He missed. Damnit.”
This is like begging for Republicans to start making up conspiracies about how the Democrats set this all up to take away their gun rights.
Uhh… They’ve been making those up for decades.
Yes, but now he’s basically telling them to.
How is that a conspiracy? Thats literally what Biden is advocating for here
Removed by mod
Removed, civility.
Braindead take, is Biden gonna come to my rescue when some christofascist militia has me on my knees in front of a ditch?
Sounds like a similar argument to how christofascists justify owning military weapons. It’s very disturbing from a European point of view.
The countries with nukes get permanent seats on the UN Security Council.
Maybe once the US has been around for a few more centuries it’ll be different. in the meantime, if the crazies are armed you should be too.
That’s military not civilians, it seems justified as long as there are authoritarian regimes with imperialist ideas. Completely unrelated to civilians having military weapons. Unless you’re saying civilians should have nukes too.
Unarmed protest will not stop putin
…the military will.
Will they though? Last I checked, the EU mostly underfunds their military. They dont even meet nato obligations
This is rapidly changing, all thanks to Putin.
Seems Ukrainian stopped it pretty well without having civilians carrying military weapons outside of military duty.
Not true at all. Ukraine was handing out AKs like candy to any citizen willing to fight for several days before the invasion.
Ukraine was handing out AKs like candy to any citizen willing to fight for several days before the invasion.
regardless of whether this statement is true or not, it would be because they were expecting and preparing themselves for military invasion.
also there was armed conflict already in progress before start of the “3 day special operation”.
Not true at all
so completely true after all… 😆
No, you said Ukraine fought Russia back without arming their civilian populace, then tried to walk it back by saying they were expecting an invasion. Yeah, no kidding. But the fact of the matter is that they did exactly that. They handed out full auto rifles and held bomb making classes for the public. Ordinary people fought back, and a rifle behind every bush was indeed critical to pushing Russia back.
Yes, it is absolutely true that Ukraine fought Russia by having ordinary citizens fighting back with military weapons.
then tried to walk it back
i couldn’t have tried to walk anything back for two reasons:
- i am not the person you originally replied to.
and
- the two statements are not contradictory, so there isn’t “taking anything back”.
But the fact of the matter is that they did exactly that. They handed out full auto rifles and held bomb making classes for the public. Ordinary people fought back, and a rifle behind every bush was indeed critical to pushing Russia back.
that is how it works. you are a civilian, until you are given weapons and task to do, such as fight invading armed forces.
how long you were on a army’s payroll before is just splitting hair. different para-military and guerilla forces are part of the armed conflicts all over the world.
and from the context of this discussion it is pretty clear that “civilians carrying military weapons outside of military duty” refers to some fucking meal team six redneck from some confederate state who only ever saw a war in television and carries his assault rifle to walmart to protect himself against people laughing at his small dick, not people fighting in actual war.
so thanks for playing darling, better luck next time.
Because they were expecting a foreign military invasion, it still is military duty.
Nope. A civilian fighting in a war does not make them part of the military. It makes them a civilian fighting in a war.
Seeing how 2A it almost took down a fascist it’s getting hard to argue against it.
If you think arming yourself because there are organized fascists in the country is a similar argument to fascists wanting guns to do fascism you’re a fascist and nothing less.
Ah, didn’t know you would consider most of EU and the developed world to be fascist, thanks for the insult.
You would have been the worst kind of fence sitter right up until the germans boarded in your house. You are a fascist.
The cops will bring the rope.
Source: George floydd protests
Is this what your life is like?
Soon to be “our”. And not just in America, unfortunately.
I don’t think you know what the world is like outside your gun nut bubble.
I don’t think you know what the world is like outside your gun nut bubble.
Then you should probably be a little less judgy about what folks think they need to do to defend themselves within that bubble.
Since you aren’t from the US, you may not be aware of Project 2025, but “some christofascist militia has me on my knees in front of a ditch” is a plausible eventual outcome for many over here if Trump gets in again.
Then you should probably be a little less judgy about what folks think they need to do to defend themselves within that bubble.
no, he shouldn’t be. folks in gun nut bubble don’t need to defend themselves, they are just gun nuts, that’s the whole point of the argument 😆
Hey I’ve got news for you - all the US is the gun nut bubble, and we all take the impacts from it, whether we own guns or not. You may have heard about our problems with school shootings, for example, or our police who are convinced everyone wants to kill them, and so open fire at the slightest provocation…
hey, i’ve got news for you as well - more guns is not a solution to the problem. more guns is the problem.
How often are you shot at? Have many enemies trying to kill you? Grow up.
I’m not even a gun owner buddy, but I’m not going to pretend the world is going to stay safe for everyone who isn’t (or can’t pretend to be) a white cishet christian if Project 2025 comes to pass.
Edit: They are already ramping it up more, as if that were possible. They want to be ready to hit the ground running on Day 1 of Trump’s second term. https://www.advocate.com/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-rnc
Yeah a ton of people will lose their rights with project 2025, but how does having a gun help you fix that? Are you talking about like civilization declining into groups of people killing each other in the streets?
Gun nut? I’m not replying regarding guns, but the rise of right wing nationalism
FUCK
its like he’s trying to lose
this is not going to get anyone excited about voting for him, but it will galvanize the opposition and push swing voters into staying home on election day at the very least
I’ll give up my guns after the christo-facists give up theirs, not before.
Add the cops to that list for me. Any disarming of citizens while the cops still get more military gear is just class war pretending to be progress.
I’m not disarming, period. Fuck that noise.
I dunno, it didn’t work out so well for Beto.
Sad things is, if the people who voted for Biden in Texas had voted for Beto, Beto would have won Texas in a landslide.
Texas gubernatorial race: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Texas_gubernatorial_election
• 4,437,099 for piss baby
• 3,553,656 votes for BetoPresidential election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Texas
• 5,259,126 for BidenShows you how the independents and left aren’t strictly anitgun. Was such a huge blunder on his part and the person asking him gave him repeated chances to walk it back and clarify it to not mean what he said, and he still insisted on total ban.
It’s not that, they literally just didn’t vote at all.
If I was a registered Democrat in Texas and actively didn’t want Beto to win because of his anti-gun stances, why would I vote for him in the gubernatorial? I can’t vote R, so best thing I can do is just not vote.
Biden is much less likely to succeed in pushing national level bans compared to Beto and state level bans, so voters who didn’t vote for Beto might’ve later voted for Biden.
Also, presidential elections simply have a higher turnout.
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Oh don’t I know it, preaching to the choir here.
That fucking horrible assassination attempt would have happened with or without the AR, this is just another knee-jerk emotional reaction, and it could NOT come at a worse time (pre-election). We’re fucked.
Handguns used in ~2/3 of all gun murders in the U.S.: I sleep
AR-15 used in one assassination attempt of geriatric running for president in 2024: REAL SHIT
Anyone looking to ban weapons must not believe Jan 6th was a genuine insurrection.
Why, oh why, would you disarm the people and give the state a monopoly on violence when that state is teetering on the edge of fascism.
Serious questions how would guns have prevented the insurrection?
I think they mean you want to have guns AFTER the insurrection.
But then, what good are AR-15s against Abrams and F35s?
Maybe look a little outside the US? Other Western countries are far, far safer and have much less gun violence with less weapons in circulation. The difference is the easy access to weapons.
Dude if the fascists get control of the military then an AR-15 is not going to help you. In fact the best chance we have of avoiding a successful violent coup is military intervention. I know that sucks to hear, but it’s not the 1970’s anymore. The technology we developed for 20 years of fighting an insurgency makes it pretty suicidal to attempt an insurgency against the US military.
Maybe because
A) The AR15 is just cute if it comes to battling the US armed forces. Anyone thinking they can have an insurrection by not taking over the army, but instead having civilians with AR15’s fighting the US armed forces (or even the police forces) is just… Cute. Also, again, insurrections require less weapons and more planning, connections, popularity, that sort of thing.
B) most of those weapons are used by the very people supporting a fascist government. All these “government evil!” types are dumb as fuck and voting for Trump.
C) AR15 weapons have been used (and continue to be used damn near weekly) in mass shootings that has killed hundreds of children.
Americans have shown one thing for sure: they can’t be trusted to use weapons safely, securely and responsibly. If you can’t take care of your toys (because thats what they are for most people, big boy toys) we take your toys away.
Take a single look at any other western country and you’ll find that (barring perhaps Switzerland, where they are extremely responsible with laws and culture) they all van weapons and this shit simply. doesn’t. happen. How? There are no mass murder weapons freely available.
The AR15 is just cute if it comes to battling the US armed forces. Anyone thinking they can have an insurrection by not taking over the army, but instead having civilians with AR15’s fighting the US armed forces (or even the police forces) is just… Cute. Also, again, insurrections require less weapons and more planning, connections, popularity, that sort of thing.
Remember the middle east? Remember vietnam? A bunch of poverty stricken farmers kicked our asses. And with a US rebellion, you can bet theres going to be at least a few traitors in the military
Remember the middle east? Remember vietnam? A bunch of poverty stricken farmers
kicked our assesground themselves against superior firepower, eeking out enough casualties to make an apathetic American public demand an end to the conflictsJust want to set the record straight because the idea of “Kicking the ass” of the US army with a whole lot of of the smallest weapon they issue is disillusional. The vast majority of casualties in the GWOT were IEDs
Even today, nothing beats a rifle behind every bush.
MK19 grenade launchers do. They beat that. The Ukrainian defenders in Kherson can attest to what happens to the rifles behind the grass. They didn’t get backed up because the commander was either incompetent or helping the Russians, and the Russians fucking slaughtered them. This isn’t 1776. You can’t take a shot and run. You just get highlighted on a thermal camera and tracked to your meeting point. Which I hope isn’t your family’s house because then a missile is going to come say hello.
This idea of AR-15’s being some kind of effective anti-tyranny device needs to die in a dumpster fire. It will not work.
I keep seeing the argument that going up against the government is the only reason anyone would own an AR-15.
But, call me crazy, there are just oodles of white supremacist civilians running around. Do you think there is no possible scenario where good, ordinary people might have to defend their loved ones against those kinds of shitheels? Do you think such a fight is unwinnable, or immoral? Do you think it’s more or less likely than columns of tanks and missiles flying into houses on American soil?
Because I think the scenario you outlined is ridiculous. But even if it happens, unwinnable fights must still be fought. You can’t just roll over belly up for tyranny.
What are YOU gonna do if Trump wins and becomes a tyrant?
See, you had a good argument and then you veered into martyrdom ideology. At any rate there’s plenty of weapons you can use to defend yourself that aren’t semi-automatic rifles with external magazines. Like Semi Automatic rifles with internal clips, or revolver rifles, or shotguns, or semi-automatic pistols in a brace, or baseball bats and 50 good friends, or a nice bit of Tannerite buried on the driveway with steel balls imbedded in it. The list goes on.
Looking at gaza right now, like yeah you can fight a government but it don’t look great. If a government wants to kill you it will kill you.
The Iraqi insurgency was run by ex -Baath party members who used to run and be the army when GW dismissed them to “nation build.”. They went home and took their weapons with them. However, many, many died. They were also supported by Iran.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Do you think that there aren’t plenty of former military people that are on the political left?
The military stacked bodies in both of those conflicts. I know it’s cool to run around yelling that we got beat by farmers but the reality was very different. The South Vietnamese government fell because the people wanted it to fall. We were the only thing holding it up. The minute we left the majority of the people made their will known. The same thing occurred in Afghanistan. People want to think the Taliban were hiding in caves and fighting us with farmers. But they acted and operated as a government in exile with their base in Pakistan. They had professional fighting units that infiltrated along the mountains and came down to fight anywhere in the country. (Sounding familiar yet?) Then at the end it turns out we were again, the only thing holding the government up. The people were literally just waiting for us to leave.
And in both conflicts the US military consistently won their engagements. This is not something you’re going to win on the battlefield. This is something you win with massive movements of people.
Really? If you bring up thosez are you also going to bring up the casualty list on both sides? Because i can guarantee you that that is slightly skewed.
The US army sucks at keeping conquered territory, especially with make friends from enemies.
But waltzing in and burrying you under your own shit? That’s pretty much a specialty. Can the likes of you be an annoyance at that point? Sure you can. You’ll bleed like a mofo, for each kill you make you’ll lose a humdred on your side… You’re cute.
And again you’re missing the point that ar15 rigkes and just all fucking guns in the US cause irreparable harm, every single day.
And again you’re missing the point that most of these ar15 owner “but the government is tyranny” types are exactly the ones voting for a tyrannical government
AR15 weapons have been used (and continue to be used damn near weekly) in mass shootings that has killed hundreds of children.
Calling this out because I do not believe the evidence supports this. Please provide evidence for this claim.
By the FBI definition of a mass shooting–which is 4 or more people, not including the shooter, shot (but not necessarily killed) in a single incident–the overwhelming majority of mass shootings are committed with handguns, and most mass shootings are either ordinary crime (gang-related, robberies, etc.) or domestic violence murder-suicides. Of the 20,000 or so homicides that are committed with firearms in the US annually, around 5% overall–about 1000–are committed with anything other than a handgun. That includes all shotguns and long guns.
Here’s a list of all mass shootings in the US in 2023; from what I can find, 3-4 of the worst shootings used a rifle. The Baltimore shooting is questionable, as they note that it appeared to be a rifle-caliber pistol, which could mean an AR-15 pistol, or it could mean a PDW.
So no, AR-15 rifles are absolutely no used weekly in mass shootings. That’s just blatantly false.
Have they killed hundreds of children? If you’re going to look at all civilian shooting deaths in the US over the last 50 years, then yeah, almost certainly. But in 2023? Or 2022? No, not even close.
Huh I wasn’t expecting to get such a bombshell comment disproving the claim but damn you knocked it out of the park.
