You guys think Bernie could have won the Dem nom if he had more progressive gun stance and history?

[ProudToBeLiberal]

He's having a huge problem with appealing to black voters. His less than progressive record on guns seems to be hindering his outreach to a large coalition in the Democratic party.

[bkkyosemite]

1. His stance is the same as Obama's. The system is rigged against him.

[ProudToBeLiberal]

3. Obama voted against giving gun manufacturers immunity. Sanders voted for it.

Sanders also voted against he Brady Bill 5 times. He was against allowing the CDC to get funding for gun research. There's a lot more instances where Senator Sanders record on gun reform was less than stellar.

[bkkyosemite]

6. He is now with Obama on Obama's stance is what I meant. There were many issues in those bills.

[Lucinda]

2. I do. Well I think he would have done better, anyway.

He's also not been listenting to what AA voters have been telling him. He's soo focused on economics, he's missed the point that some problems in the community are not money related.

[bjo59]

4. He hasn't lost the nomination yet.

[snowy owl]

5. He needed to start earlier. His gun stand is reasonable. D-, against assault weapons?

Small gun shops are perfectly legal and businesses for mom and pop in rural america and nobody sues Ford when they crash their car. Ford isn't responsible of you crash your car. More time - earlier start - he could explain these things and Hillary wouldn't have so many committed fans who now refuse to listen to reason from Bernie. It is about loyalty. I agree about minorities . . . an earlier start would have given more time to bring on board AA and Latino surrogates. Many of them were late to the table for bernie.

[brush]

7. They didn't take the early southern primaries seriously

Sanders himself very recently said they distorted the reality of the campaign, or some such, which is almost dog whistle since many of the voters were black.

To them those primaries didn't count, but they actually did as that accounts for Hillaries delegate lead.

It wasn't smart not to compete in those early primaries. But they done other not so smart things — Cornell West, the Vatican trip.

[sadoldgirl]

8. Geez, guys, you are so off the general opinions

in states ( and yes, they include blue ones) to think
that there are not enough Dems, who hate gun control
demands.
Go to Minnesota, Montana, most of the West, and yes, PA.

So the answer to your question is NO.

And another thing, I live in a black neighborhood, and
most of my neighbors want the guns.

And, like it or not, HRC's "present policy", is a losing one
during the GE. Good luck with that,

but then again she will weasel out of it.

And yes, I detest the gun cult!

[Jake Stern]

11. I wish Dems realized just how much of a vote loser gun control is, especially in the West.

It plays well in Denver and Boulder but not so much in the rest of the state.

I guess the successful movement to recall legislators ( and drive one to resign) in Colorado doesn't give them sweats at night.

[onehandle]

9. No. He still would have lost.

The gun thing was just one problem.

[mythology]

10. No, for him the gun issue is small potatoes in my opinion

I think the bigger problem is that his campaign wasn't effective at reaching out to blacks, Hispanics and women, groups which Clinton has done substantially better with than Sanders.

This isn't to say that I think the Sanders campaign or (Sanders himself for that matter) as a whole is racist or sexist, but for whatever reason his message hasn't resonated with a large enough percentage of those groups to win. I think that in some ways the Sanders campaign has alienated black voters by discounting the south, and voting against some immigration bills that Sanders has hurts him with Hispanics. He had reasons for doing both of those, but it made his road harder.

Obviously Sanders has won some votes of those groups and from what I've read does well with Asian voters and at least theoretically with Native American/Pacific Islander voters although that's based on him winning caucuses in Alaska, Washington, Oklahoma and Hawaii where we can't get an accurate demographic breakdown.

I think some of Sanders supporters (and some of Clinton supporters) have said things that cross the line into sexist or racist, but those people don't represent the campaign so I don't count that.

I don't think his past stances on guns hurt him that badly in spite of guns being a bit of a big issue, because overall his positions on guns (other than the PLCAA) weren't dissimilar from the general population's positions in large part.