= new reply since forum marked as read
We should all read Senator Sanders' (I-VT) new book - it will guide us to true Democratic core values.
These days it's a core Democratic value.
No, it's still not. About 50% of Dems support, and 50% oppose banning so-called "assault weapons".
Between a quarter and a third of Dems personally own a gun, and of that number, probably half or more own the guns and magazines you want to criminalize. The ownership percentage among independents is much higher.
Target shooting is not the problem.
We want common sense gun reform.
You say that, but the party's #1 message on the gun issue is to outlaw the most popular target guns in the nation, and their magazines.
There's also the problem that the overwhelming majority of gun owners own guns for defensive purposes; target shooting is #2, and hunting a distance third. When you go after defensive use *and* the most popular target guns (which the Third Way has been doing with a vengeance since circa 1993), you immediately alienate about 80% of gun owners, as well as a large fraction of the remaining 20% who hunt.
Do we really need a few more elementary school massacres? More nightclub slaughters?
The measures being proposed---legislating rifle handgrip shape, criminalizing ergonomic rifle/shotgun stocks, criminalizing post-1860s magazine capacities---do not address mass shootings in the slightest. The worst mass shooting on record was carried out with a straight-stocked rifle that is legal in New York City and San Francisco, and the second-worst in the USA was carried out with a pair of pistols and a backpack full of small magazines.
What such bans *do* is threaten half of ordinary gun owners with prison. And some wonder why such policies drive gun owners out of the party.
You certainly have a single-minded fixation on this.
Unexplainable and inexplicable.
Truly not a Democratic position, real or imaginary.
then you should know "threatening gun owners" is bullshit, a rightwing NRA talking-point, and not worthy of discussion.
No exit polling data I am aware of even mentions this as a deciding factor anywhere in the US.
Thanks for ginnin' it up, though. 
Keyword: gun.
Response to geek tragedy (Original post)
back to the coal mines peasant!
oh what's that you said? more gun laws? for white people?
Change in ownership demographics is not favorable to gun control advocates, who primarily seek a return to straight-stocked rifles, larger calibers/lower capacity, less carry licensure, and a hunting-centric focus. Ownership has long been trending toward more modern stock styles, smaller calibers/higher capacity, more focus on defensive use, and a downward trend in hunting due to less opportunity.
Changes in the murder stats aren't trending in favor of gun control advocates either; homicide is down 50% since its peak in the early '90s, and rifle homicide is down 43% since the expiration of the much-hated Clinton handgrip and magazine restrictions in 2004. Less homicide equals less support for throwing your peaceable neighbors in prison because they own the wrong shaped rifle/shotgun handgrip or a non-reduced-capacity magazine.
Ban advocates are not just losing the population at large, they are losing registered Democrats, for exactly the reasons listed above.
Pretty much the *only* survey reporting a long-term decline has been the General Social Survey conducted by the University of Chicago, which is expressly non-anonymous, conducted via in-person interviews, funded by gun control advocates (Joyce), and run by a gun control advocate. Ownership rates assessed by Pew, Gallup, and others in anonymous surveys are much higher, and actual hard data (e.g. firearms possession licenses, in states that require them like IL and MA) show increases, not decreases.
Boston Globe - Gun licenses on the Rise in Massachusetts
Illinois FOID License Holders Up 33% 2009-2013
FWIW, the FOID numbers have kept rising; I believe the number of active Illinois FOID cards as of 12/15/2015 was 1,942,008, which would be a 54% increase in FOID cards since 2009, if I have that number right. And since FOID cards correlate 1:1 with on-the-books legal ownership in IL, a 33% (or 54%) increase in valid FOID's is a commensurate increase in licensed ownership---in the GSS's own backyard.
I'll point out that these are both heavily Dem, deep-blue states, but the same trends are at work in other blue states, as well as purple swing states and red states, whether you look at all the available proxies for ownership or at anonymous self-reported ownership.
As of 9/2016, a Pew Research Center poll put the number at 44% admitting to a gun in the house, 51% saying no gun, and 5% refusing to answer the question. A 1/2016 CNN poll put the numbers about the same, with 40% saying yes and 9% refusing to answer.
Carry licensure, which isn't correlated 1:1 with ownership but is still loosely correlated, has more than doubled since 2007 and IIRC roughly quadrupled since 1999.
WSJ - Permits Soar to Allow More Concealed Guns
Here in eastern NC, my local shooting range is now jam-packed every time I go there, when it used to be fairly sparse years ago, and I have a lot of coworkers and friends who bought their first gun within the last few years, including a longtime coworker who bought his first two months ago.
It is an article of faith among gun control advocates that the GSS is the only reliable measure of gun ownership, but if you look the totality of the metrics, including hard license data, overall ownership trends do not appear to be moving in the prohibitionists' favor. And it is incontrovertible that the styles of guns people have been buying in the last 25 years are not favorable to gun control advocates' handgrip-shape and magazine-capacity crusades, either. As I mentioned upthread, the market has been moving strongly away from larger calibers and straight stocks, toward the modern-looking centerfire .22's and double-stack 9mm's that the gun control lobby wishes to ban or severely restrict.
Perhaps it is hard to see from within the cloistered DC/NY/CA bubble, but Bloomberg et al are trying to outlaw guns and magazines that are legal in Canada and much of Europe, the banning of which would be considered a serious violation of the social contract across much of the United States. If your bans have gotten only 5% to 10% compliance among owners in New York and Connecticut, just how well do you expect those bans to play in NC, WV, Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, or Michigan? It is hard to express just how repellent the NY SAFE Act and similar crap is in states with a strong culture of lawful ownership.
FWIW, there were warnings of the flaws in the current approach in Virginia's 2015 state senate races, which IIRC handed control of the Virginia legislature to the repubs:
Washington Post - Did gun control cost McAuliffe and Democrats the Virginia election?
Too bad no one inside the bubble was listening.
Is what abortion is to Republicans..
They can't help, but to get utterly destroyed by the issue..They just can't help themselves, like a moth to a flame, they literally cannot control themselves, they must get closer, and closer, and closer only to get burned up by the flames..
Tell me again, how gun control is a winning issue, when we see how Concealed Carry has spread practically nation wide over the past few years...Notice the green starting to spread... That is concealed carry, with NO permit needed... Tell me again how talk of gun control will win those areas over...
The writing for national gun control has been on the wall for a long time now, some folks just can't see the forest for the trees..The trends are for LESS laws now.
