General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Gun Writer is suddenly a pariah. [View all]krispos42
(49,445 posts)...began waging a cultural war.
There are no doubt laws that you and I can agree on. I found nothing offensive, at all, with Metcalf's article. Requiring an "operator's license" to carry a gun in public is not something I have any sort of problem with.
But many in the anti-gun movement see this as a cultural-war issue. Read the comments in this thread to find a sampling.
The anti-gun movement does not approve of guns for self-defense because those guns are guns designed and optimized for killing people, and they do not want those guns available. They also disapprove and distrust the mentality of armed self-defense, because it involved learning and studying about how to kill people.
They also worry excessively about RW militias, so they do things that cause RW militia to grow and spread. Even though, despite the rhetoric and idiocy (see YouTube), the RW militias don't actually DO anything except stockpile food and toilet paper.
Irrationality meets irrationality.
The major problem, as I see it, is that Democrats do not benefit much politically from such "culture war" attempts, like magazine limits and assault-weapons bans, but the other side does. Violence is the result of social problems; spending precious time and political effort trying to take away the hardware of violence rather than treating the root causes is ineffective.
I fundamentally disagree with the proposition that we it's okay that people are suffering from lack of social mobility, education and employment opportunities, political corruption, a rigged economy, and a lack of health care just as long as they're not killing each other.
There are about a dozen issues that I wish the Democrats had pursued with as much vigor as they do trying to ban protruding pistol grips.
Universal background checks that don't involve registration of guns or their owners? Wonderful. Bring it on. Removing protruding pistol grips? Stupid and useless.