What do you mean when you say 'pro gun?' Do you mean you are in favor of guns being legal with absolutely no regulation whatsoever or do you mean that you are in favor of guns being legal but highly regulated?
It's really not an either/or situation like some people think it is.
And are they pro-gun where it’s on the side or do they talk about being all supportive while prioritizing it over healthcare and actually well supported and well researched economic policy? I think guns are neat and used to have my license but I’d never put them ahead of literally any issue. Progun politicians don’t build better societies or respect people’s basic human rights.
Kinda sick of the “I care about human rights up until they affect my ability to own a firearm” group. They’re just tiresome.
I'm in Texas right now, and tbh I feel like Democrats would be able to do a lot more good here if they let go of gun control for now and focused on actually being electable in Texas so they can work on the multitudes of other issues there are to fix. You could even probably reduce shootings by fixing social issues, but you have to be elected first. If they did well long enough to prove some more liberal ideas work, people may trust them enough for gun control to happen one day.
I’m with OG OP, liberal with firearms. Raised in Texas, veteran, and came to my senses regarding the politics I was raised in. I both (a) like shooting and (b) feel the need to have home protection. I think they should be regulated.
With that, I don’t understand your comment at all.
being all supportive while prioritizing it over healthcare and actually well supported and well researched economic policy
I will be honest with you. This makes no sense. One is economic while the other is fanaticism. You are comparing apples to oranges. Let me flip your closing statement on you:
Kinda sick of the “I care about human rights up until they affect my ability to take away firearms” group.
Because, again, this proposed stalemate is idealists vs fanatics drawing lines in the sand. You can’t just blame one side. The fact there is no movement is the entire point of polarization in politics.
I'd describe myself as fairly liberal. I'm from Vermont and I am pretty bummed that neither Howard Dean nor Bernie Sanders got to be president. I've voted D in every presidential and congressional election for the last twenty years.
A couple elections ago I was doing non-partisan voter registration, just standing out in front of a big box store asking people to register to vote. It felt great because I got the feeling that I was directly helping, and even if I was registering some people who would go on to vote R, I actually believe that the more voters there are, the healthier the democracy.
I asked one young guy to register and he asked me "Do you believe in the right to keep and bear arms?"
And I thought about how the marjority of gun deaths in any given year are suicides and how we have an absolutely unacceptable number of mass shootings in this country, and how by all that is reasonable that we ought to be able to do something about it.
And then I thought about my uncles who hunt white tail deer to help control the population, and my friend who is a self-employed gem cutter and who has been robbed and who now owns a pistol for self defense.
And in all honestly, I said "Yes," though on the inside I thought "...but probably not in the exact same way that you do," and that young guy registered to vote.
And honestly, I consider that a win.
this is the perfect answer to the entirety of this thread.
Yes is probably the best answer you can give someone like that because they see it as only having two absolute answers. To say yes with conditions would be heard as a no after years of brainwashing.
I support the spirit of the second amendment, but also think it was written badly, or at least very restrictive to the time period it originated in and not adaptable to a changing society. It's not a surprise that it remains hotly debated and disagreed on its meaning though, since even the first amendment that is much clearer on its intent is now also debated by some to suit their own purposes and not for the greater public good.
I'm very liberal and own several guns and I 100% think most people shouldn't own guns because they are not responsible enough for them.
Same on all fronts.
In my state you can just walk into a store at 21 and buy a handgun then concealed carry it. You don't have to prove proficiency, know you to service or maintain it, or even prove you know basic gun safety rules. All you do is bring money and ID, then wait for the waiting period to expire. It is bonkers.
I want them to repeal the NFA, along with many of the other laws designed to disarm the poor, and people of color. And in general getting rid of a lot of the laws that do virtually nothing to affect criminals.
Should there be any laws at all regarding guns and who can have them? Should five-year-olds be allowed to have guns? Should dangerously psychotic people who are regularly institutionalized have guns?
Do you want many gun regulations, some gun regulations or no gun regulations? Because people who want any of those things can and do call themselves "pro-gun."
Why you and others seem to think "pro-gun is what I believe and not anything else" is beyond me.
me personally, i like the fact that i have the capability of owning one. Much like anything else in life, i like being in control of things i interact with and use from day to day life. It's why im a linux user, it's why i self host a lot of services that i use. I do not like being dependent on others for things that i know i adequately provide for myself.
It's no more than feeding my individualism at the end of the day. And i don't think that's a negative thing. I'm sure people would tell me im a shitty person for not wanting to contribute to society, but i also never wanted to exist in the first place, so i think it's a little fucking daft to claim that i owe something to a thing i'm not particularly fond of to begin with. But that's a different rant altogether so.
I'm in favor of guns the way they do it in, IIRC, Switzerland? One of the countries in that part of the world anyway (I'm always confusing them with each other). They have nearly as many guns in the hands of public citizens, with none of the crime. If they can do it, so can we.
You have to get a purchasing permit in Switzerland and concealed carry permits are rare. Which is more strict than the U.S.
I want sensible gun laws, but I also want gun laws to make sense.
That means, removing all restrictions on items like suppressors, AR15s, SBRs, etc. But allowing only people that can show they are competent to own them.
I feel similarly to OP, so ill say imo regullations are fine like Brady Bill or Assault rifle bans, but I dont believe in disarming the proletariat.
Marx said under no circumstances should the proles give up their guns, and I tend to agree.
Marx also wrote extensively on "the Jewish question", the man should not, nor would he have wanted, to be taken as an orthodoxy of leftist doctrine.
I believe the proletariat can well be armed without anything of the sort of shameful nakedness which governs US gun ownership and responsibility, gun ownership of the proletariat is well possible in many countries that have far more sensible laws regarding firearms than the US.
Marx routinely expected too much from people. The proles do nothing with their guns except execute each other while their government gets away with horrific things and the human race hurtles towards extinction.
It's time to accept that guns are no better at solving social problems than they are at solving plumbing issues and tech complaints.
My friends and I joke that the inner-city schools in our city don’t have shootings because the children are armed.
Republicans aren't pro-gun. They're pro-republicans-with-guns. Maybe pro-straight-white-christians-with-guns.
I like guns too. I shot them at a range and I'm pretty good. It's like a video game where you make you're breathing right and all that jazz.
If someone asked me if I wanted to fire guns but also children were to die in schools due to unfettered gun access thanks to those rules. I'd say, thanks but no thanks.
No but you don't understand -- fixing the "children die in schools" part would be inconvenient for gun owners. They'd have to do things like "wait longer for a gun" or "prove they know how to handle and store firearms" and ultimately, isn't that a bigger tragedy than the murder of someone else's kids?
Yup. If you're "pro-gun" in the same sense as republicans then you're pro-death-of-children-and-other-innocent-people
You can have one without the other - where I live the bar for getting a gun and the regulations around them are so high that essentially all guns used in crime are imported illegally from abroad.
Pfffft just make it a law that keeping your weapons accessible for children equals death by firing squad. Your child is talented with lockpicks? Sucks to be you.
PSA: modern gun control laws enacted by Republicans to keep guns away from Blacks
I love this dumb as fuck talking point. I know your goal is to suggest "if you support gun control then you're racist" but you've done so little critical thinking about it that you've forgotten that it's the pro-gun community that supports keeping the current, racist laws and the gun control advocates who want to change them.
Go far enough left, you get your guns back.
Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.
- Karl Marx
You don't have to go particularly far.
Just stop having a hard-on for the cops and suddenly guns regain a lot of their appeal
I'm not an american and guns are not legal where i live. And i'm sorry but most people in the world are way to daft and angry and should NOT be allowed to be anywhere near a gun.
And no, just because someone with a gun would want to hurt me but then i would have a gun too, is not a valid response. I'm not gonna survive a shootout. I'm not john wick.
I'm not sure you're correct. If you're from a European country, chances are you have very good gun laws, and a lot of people in your country own guns. The difference is, you also a have working healthcare system that helps people with psychological problems.
I live in Sweden. Most people would assume there are no guns here, but I can tell you that's wrong.
I train with them a lot, so if and when I need to, I can safely use them.
I am a bit curious where you live. Most places with decent gun control doesn't outright ban guns, you just have to earn the privilege to own one, and you can't treat them like toys.
idk it's an interesting conversation to have, but it's also like saying that owning swords should be illegal or at the very least highly regulated because they can be dangerous.
I don't have a fundamental problem with people owning guns, or dangerous things, i have a fundamental problem with people who have a violent history getting access to guns however.
A sword is nowhere near as dangerous as a gun, Evan a pistol. A pistol can kill from many feet away, a sword you need to be close. Just because something is dangerous doesn't mean it should be banned, but when you get to a certain level of danger, such as guns, where you could kill 10 people in a second, then they need to be banned. Even pistols are way to dangerous. Also, swords are highly regulated in some states.
I would absolutely love to have a gun. But it's not worth everyone else having one too
I’m not an american and guns are not legal where i live.
What about your police? What about your military? Do they fight with swords and bows and stuff? Actually that sounds pretty cool where do you live I wanna move
Skill issue.
and should NOT be allowed to be anywhere near a gun.
The only problem with that concept is that it assumes there's a class of people that know better and are entitled to rule us, but in actuality, political office attracts the worst of us. Why should the worst subset of humans control whether the everyone else is allowed self-defense?
People overwhelmingly agree that (broadly speaking about the US here) the government isn't working for us, hasn't been for a long time, and is infringing on our rights constantly.
So where are all those gun people with their guns given all this government tyranny going on? What are they doing?
And besides, if any gun owner thinks that they wouldn't be absolutely steamrolled by the military, they're lying to themselves.
I mean, you brought it on yourself. If you live in the U.S owning a gun should be controversial. Ya'll have proven incapable of using them responsibly.
Here's the real problem. Guns are basically dangerous tools, and should be treated as such. Instead, they have a cult of personality. I've got no problem with people owning knives and hammers, but if some dude has a bunch of pro-knife, and pro-hammer stickers on his car, joins the knife and hammer Association of America, regularly shows up to angrily protest restrictions on where you can carry knives and hammers, walks around with a concealed knife and hammer at the mall because a box or nail could be around any corner... I might start to think that nut job should not be allowed to have a knife or a hammer.
if some dude has a bunch of pro-knife, and pro-hammer stickers on his car, joins the knife and hammer Association of America, regularly shows up to angrily protest restrictions on where you can carry knives and hammers, walks around with a concealed knife and hammer at the mall because a box or nail could be around any corner
That sounds like a really cool person compared to a pro-gun nutter honestly. I'd think that guy is probably an expert satirist
Guns are basically dangerous tools
Tools for what job, again?
The problem with the “guns are tools” categorization is that the only job they’re for is killing
people, or threatening to do so. Unless you’re talking shooting at the range, in which case that’s really more of a toy than a tool.The reasons those protests don’t happen for tools is because they generally serve some other primary function which is useful, and that they’re not nearly as likely to be used accidentally.
You think our gun problem is bad?
Wait till you see our cruise missile and killer drone problem.
No, no, look, if we let our gun culture get even more out of control, it'll loop back and become responsible again.
100% this - if we had the gun violence Switzerland saw (who has a comparable number of firearms per person as the US) I would be pro gun too.
Instead we've got a lethal cocktail of incompetence, entitlement and mental illness where gun owners and firearms industry simps see dead children as the 'price of freedom'.
It's fucked.
Sounded good on paper but those workers kept their guns and still gave the government and capitalists everything they wanted without a single shot fired.
All you're doing is posting a picture of Marx with an example of him being wrong.
Thanks, Santa. Very cool.
He does miss from time to time
The only part he missed from this quote was in the context that followed, where he then said to surrender your guns after the revolution, because the proletariat would be armed through the People's Military (paraphrased, obviously)
i just want to be left alone, and i want other people to be left alone, and i want rights, and i want other people to have rights.
Revolutionary concept.
I'm pro-do-whatever-the-fuck-you-want-as-long-as-it-doesnt-harm-or-negatively-affect-anyone-else
spaces are for cowards, wait fuck
I'm so far left that I got my guns back 🙂
The only sticking point is the guns.
I joined up with liberalgunowners on that other site for a while, thinking I might find kindred souls that were pro-shooting sports, but understood that the way we handled gun ownership in this country had some problems.
Nope.
They were just as devoid of nuance and reason when it came to gun ownership as the conservatives. They figured slapping a rainbow or a “no step on snek” patch on their molle tacticool gear was good enough, but thoughts and prayers if a gay nightclub got shot up.
So yeah, I think guns are fun and have a place in hunting and other sports. But not like what we’ve got now.
Yeah I'm a gun enthusiast. I really like the laws the way they are now as they relate to me. So I get it. But how many mass shootings do we need before we admit there's a problem right now? Maybe far in the future we can consider relaxing some of the regulations again. But right now, something about the current social situation is basically creating domestic terrorists. We need to start locking things down until it stops.
Personally, I'm going to need at least 10,000 kindergarteners gun down in their class room before I'll consider changing our sacred god given gun laws.
Jesus wouldn't want it any other way, as specified in Arms 3:16-108 in the Bible.
How can you be anti something another person chooses to do privately with their body blows my mind
How you can be anti able to end others lives using a tool specifically crafted, to not hinder or disable, no but end other peoples ability to continue breathing and living, is beyond me
People have such paranoid hate towards others and then treat themselves like shit and rationalise instead of just fixing their own doorstep before attacking others
specifically crafted, to not hinder or disable,
specifically crafted to be a significant impediment to living*
There are dozens of us! Tbh, there are lgbt gun clubs afaik. It’s just not a mainstream position, but eh dgaf
Well, as long as the owner instills good discipline and is responsible
There is also the Socialist Rifle Association.
I just want my gay married friends to have guns to protect their kids.
Protect them from what?
Edit: I love the downvotes trickling in from the pro-gun cultists. Usually they pretend it's because I used rude words but there's nothing to hide behind this time. I asked a simple question and that made gun owners salty.
Scary feelings.
Guns are overwhelmingly not used in justifiable homicides (homicides performed in self-defense).
Guns for self defense is a fantasy.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/251894/number-of-justifiable-homicides-in-the-us/
Anything really, if you live rurally that be quite a number of things, hell even if you live in an urban environment. Queer people have been arming themselves as of late, given the more restrictive nature that legislation has taken against them. POC and other minority groups have been doing this regularly for decades. None of this is new.
There’s a comedian that pointed out this is why conservative groups garner so much support.
“Do you oppose abortion?” “No.” “Do you hate the gays?” “No.” “Do you think illegal immigrants should be shot?” “Yeah.” “Well, COME ON DOWN!”
Meanwhile, liberal groups after asking about 18 issues: “Are you vegan?” “No.” “Well, I BET you voted for TRUMP!!”
I miss when we could find common ground in politics.
Meanwhile, liberal groups after asking about 18 issues: “Are you vegan?” “No.” “Well, I BET you voted for TRUMP!!”
No shortage of carnivore liberals.
But I'll never understand why declining to eat meat upsets people so much.
i think most liberals hate vegans but still applies
My carnivore friends are massively more evangelical than my vegan friends. Just my experience I guess.
It's an edgelord thing, it transcends ideology
I love guns. I adore guns. Guns are great. They're fascinating pieces of engineering, tools, and exercises of skill. I would never own one (to my great regret) due to the increased risk of suicide from gun-owners, but I think that responsible gun ownership is a great thing and a cultural cornerstone of Americana.
But no one in the US who claims to be pro-gun should be allowed anywhere near a gun.
Maybe in some frozen waste like Canada where it's not completely piss-easy to get a gun, one can describe oneself as pro-gun. But in the US? No.
Oh it's piss easy to get a Gun in Canada... You just have drive down to the States.
Seriously though around 70 percent of guns used in criminal activities up here are traced back to sources in the States and were never legally imported, purchased or even stolen from homes inside Canada. When people point at us and say "Gun control doesn't work see!?" it's in part because gun trash bleeds over boarders.
I have a sense that you know all this, but, just wanted to chime in- the system in Canada where you have to take a course and pass a screening is costly & a pain in the ass. Bottom line, legally, it's neither fast nor easy to get a firearm in Canada, and on top of that, the RCMP can deny any application that they see fit. But ultimately, I think the existing licensing system is a reasonable management of risks, and overall a good thing.
Unfortunately, gun control here is a wedge issue, and political points are easily scored by banning / confiscating guns from legal owners, who, as you mention, were never the problem in the first place. Actually fixing the gun crime issue here would be difficult, costly, and an optics minefield.
IMO, the penalties for being found with an illegal firearm or using a firearm to commit a crime should be much more severe. Surely people of all political stripes could get behind that? But, no. We're in a situation where, on the left, any policy that doesn't include a sweeping ban is criticized as unacceptable and weak. It sucks, because it means that the actual problem affecting citizens goes unsolved, and nobody seems to care.
I'm pro using torts to make everyone in the chain of a gun tragedy pay for their externalities. Didn't secure your gun and got it negligently stolen and someone was killed? That'll be bankruptcy. Marketed something you knew would kill someone unlawfully? Good luck staying in business friend.
It'd be interesting if folks had to pay for the real cost of gun ownership.
Don't stop at money. Where are all the gun owners offering to mop up the blood after Ulvade?
In fact, fuck it. There's people out there who want to kill children. There are pro-gun people with children. They can offer their own children up to these fucking psychopaths, rather than gambling that it'll be other people's kids.
It's ok you can call yourself a leftist...
There’s hundreds of us!
That's me, but I live in a red state, so everyone says I'm far left (to put it nicely).
Same. But I'm also for gun control as well. Like, don't ban them outright, just make them a whole hell of a lot harder to get. Like really hard. I live in an area that has bobcats, bears, and the occasional mountain lion. I own a pistol to protect myself and my critters (a flock of ducks and two dogs) in case of an attack. I don't want to use it and it won't kill a big predator like a bear or mountain lion, but I only want it to scare the animals off if they get too close. It hasn't left the locked drawer I keep it in since I bought my house in 2022. I'm hoping it'll never have to come out.
Yup that's me. No major party has all 3.
Sigh
Part of the problem is that nobody is actually "Pro-Gun".
What you have is "Pro-White people gun dealers" on one end and "Pro-Cop" on the other. Selling AR-15s and antique rifles to people who think having more hardware in the house makes them safer? Sure. Giving the municipal government endless license to harass and surveil anyone too young or brown to be considered a Real American? Absolutely.
But neither of these groups want you to carry a gun into, say, a congressional building. Neither want to disarm the police or downsize the military. Neither want to see an armed Black woman or Arab man walking towards them.
The only real debate is whether a cop should be allowed to arrest a white guy at a gun show
Saw this on lemmy recently ❤️
Yeah that's sound great me.
Okay so most people would be like, "Oh everyone but me, should not be allowed to have guns, because I'm morally righteous, and think of the power, and think of how cool I am and how cool I would be with a cool gun.", right. That's the only position people have, I think, there's people who have that position, and liars who are lying. Okay, cool.
But me, no. Me, I think everyone but me should have a gun. To even the odds, for the rest of you.
Hey all I am saying is hand a gun to one side in this image and one of them is trigger happy versus the other.
Reading these comments it seems like most of the anti gun crowd thinks pro gun is about machismo at the cost of tragedy. It's mainly about protection of the people from the government. It's the last failsafe to keeping free in the case of tyranny. We all agree there needs to be better regulation because in the past and currently the laws are designed over feelings and not facts, for example barrel length restrictions or pistol grips that mainly only effects the ergonomics.
Your government fucks you up, every single day, week after week, year after year and the only people who own guns are the ones that are too cowardly to use them.
They couldn't protect you against a fucking duck
Prove me wrong
As someone who flips between the two I’ve noticed neither side seems to really get where the other side is coming from. The anti gun people don’t get that there is a certain amount of fear of government, or how guns work. The pro gun people tend to not understand that the government is already tyrannical, the cops have military weapons, and that a lot of gun enthusiasts are exactly the sort of people who we shouldn’t let have guns.
The people I want armed are the people who dread having to use a gun on another person and have a level of fear and respect for these tools and a level of trust that very few strangers have any desire to initiate violence. Meanwhile I keep hearing coworkers talk about how they have couch guns and saying how they draw when strangers approach them. Mentally unstable people with guns are a real problem and we as a country seem to insist on doing nothing that could actually help.
It's mainly about protection of the people from the government.
Lol sure there John Wayne.
I legit can't think of another country with people that LARP more about revolution than the US. Most affluent country in the world and you're constantly imagining youselves forming up and fighting back against tanks and helicopters (or your fellow citizens who happen to vote for the other team). It'd be funny if it wasn't so tragic and bizarre.
You've read too many fairy tales if you think a gun will protect you from the government ... Haha
to be fair, being pro gun is typically about machismo power fantasy at the cost of that.
if youre going to fight the people who are genuinely ruining your life, guns, especially in the way Americans think of them, are not the primary tool for the job. if youre going to defend your home, also a bad tool. do not fire a gun indoors.
add to that: the people mostly advocating for chemical guns are against the proliferation of other effective weapons for the purpose (anti drone and anti armor weapons, ied's) and against fighting the people you actually need guns to fight, and can't just talk shit out with.
so while I do not give a shit about guns, someone saying they're pro gun is a huge red flag, and most 'pro gun' rhetoric is shit.
guns to me, are more about sport and the potential for them to be useful to you in rare circumstances, more than shooting at an f35 that is launching a nuclear warhead at me from three miles away.
One problem with the anti-tyranny argument is that guns would much more easily be the means by which tyranny is implemented than the means by which it is taken down. Imagine a more well-armed Jan 6. Then of course once the dictatorship is in place, eliminating the right to bear arms - or more likely, making it exclusive to the dictator's allies - becomes trivial.
Now in that case, conceivably a pre-existing right to bear arms could be used to stash weapons for a resistance movement that might gradually over the course of a decades-long civil war reestablish some semblance of democracy. But by that point we've already lost, haven't we?
Underpinning that argument is the argument that you need a good argument if you want me to respect your opinion.
Which is fucked up.
Also, how come when people argue about like, gun related shenaniganery, they always talk about like, oh, well, if the government comes and hits you with a drone strike, then, you'll be fucked. I mean, no shit sherlock.
For one, that'd be fucking nuts, I think that'd probably make it on the nightly news and probably the president would undergo serious investigation and maybe get impeached.
For two, I think probably you are more likely to use a gun to walk around and not get fucking killed by the police when you decide to protest outside of a courthouse, or walk around your community to make sure the cops don't harass people or shoot people without being beholden the the community which they are also supposedly serving. Especially if there's more than one of you, if there's only one of you and the cops come around and have no idea who you are and you're waving a gun around, then you're probably gonna get the police called on you, and you will probably maybe get shot. Black panthers did it, anywho, and they were cool, so that's really all I'm saying.
For three, how does this like, insane civil war scenario come about? How come that's the main default scenario everyone's heads go to whenever this shit comes up? That's insane. You're telling me that the military, a military made up of like, a bunch of dudes who mostly just wanted free college as far as I can ascertain, you're telling me that they'd just like go and unflinchingly steamroll the normal citizenry and become part of a fascist dictatorship? That also strikes me as kind of nuts. You might not be wrong, but it does strike me as kind of nut,s and probably like they would have a huge discipline problem considering the amount of the military which has like pretty radically different political views. You'd probably have to see the centrist liberal types, the monoculture, slide way harder to the right, by which I mean, a couple inches. I find it more likely that, as we saw with BLM, if the US was to undergo civil unrest, it would probably be confined to a couple discrete locations and probably it wouldn't be that well organized, both in execution or opposition. Probably also you'd just see an embrace of guerilla tactics, and, I mean, we've seen the modern military's track record as far as that goes.
So, I dunno. Seems like a pretty stupid conversation to me. Someone hit me with the self-defense thing too so I can argue about how that's really stupid and self-defense is stupid and dumb
Centre right - like Sanders
That just means you're reasonable. So yeah, both parties aren't big fans of that.
