Is gun control really dead?

[rodeodance]

We regulate everything else--why not guns!!?


"Would these steps fly politically? Maybe. One poll showed that 88 percent of the public favors requiring that guns be childproof. And such measures demonstrate the kind of fresh thinking that can keep alive not only thousands of Americans, but the Democratic Party as well. "

"http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/13/opinion/13kristof.html?th"


November 13, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Lock and Load
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Nothing kills Democratic candidates' prospects more than guns. If it weren't for guns, President-elect Kerry might now be conferring with incoming Senate Majority Leader Daschle.

Since the Brady Bill took effect in 1994, gun-control efforts have been a catastrophe for Democrats. They have accomplished almost nothing nationally, other than giving a big boost to the Republicans. Mr. Kerry tried to get around the problem by blasting away at small animals, but nervous Red Staters still suspected Democrats of plotting to seize guns.

Moreover, it's clear that in this political climate, further efforts at gun control are a nonstarter. You can talk until you're blue in the face about the 30,000 gun deaths each year, about children who are nine times as likely to die in a gun accident in America as elsewhere in the developed world, about the $17,000 average cost (half directly borne by taxpayers) of treating each gun injury. But nationally, gun control is dead......

[jfern]

1. Gun control isn't worth it politically

Too many one issue voters

[LiberalAndProud]

2. Do you trust our government?

That is the question we must ask ourselves when we talk about regulating firearms. Red-staters want to be able to defend themselves against tyranny. Legends are born from running the Revenoo-ers off.

And a machine gun or two would have come in handy in the ghettos of Warsaw. This is the lesson these cowboys take from the Holocaust.

[TaleWgnDg]

3. The political culture around the second amendment emanates . . .

from the Civil War. Face it, there's a southern culture about the big bad (federal) government that southerners believe necessitates (to this day) firearm(s) in their home. As well as the romantic culture found in comic books, dimestore novels, old television programs, and Hollywood about "cowboy heroes" of the so-called "Wild West" that still personifies similar kneejerk reactions. All of which have found a self-perpetuating home (of lies) in the NRA.

All of this is why there's a schism in our U.S.A. culture regarding the second amendment.

The odd part about all of this is that those parts of the country, particularly the south, are the most violent areas of the country; whereas, the northeast has less gun violence. For example, Massachusetts has the strongest gun control laws in the country on its state books and, yet, has the least amount of gun violence in the country!


This is the DU member still known as a DU insomniac. :hi:

[LostInAnomie]

4. Gun control isn't dead...

... God is.