• KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Biden is doing this to drive a wedge into Republicans. The gun nuts and the ones that don’t care about guns will have differing opinions because now gun violence affects them directly. It’s really smart.

    Biden looks presidential. Trump has three choices:

    1. Come out against AR-15s, for obvious reasons. This makes gun nuts less likely to vote for him.

    2. Come out in favor of AR-15s. He looks insane to Republicans who don’t care about guns.

    3. Trump ignores the issue or waffles and looks unpresidential.

    Number 3 is most likely. Of course the correct answer is number 4: propose a competing policy that is nuanced. But that’s impossible for trump.

        • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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          Is that enough to matter? And is this issue enough for them to change their vote, given the tax stuff? All the other shit Trump does certainly doesn’t matter.

          • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            The richest places in America are pretty solidly blue. A lot of rich people like good public schools and colleges, clean water, the arts, etc. and understand that taxes and charity are how those things are paid for.

            Other rich people like gated communities and stopped reading books1 when someone stopped assigning them. They’re the Republican rich people.

            1 Some will read a book about war or some shitty airport bookstore thing that’s 80% out-of-context quotes about how to be a leader.

            • iheartneopets@lemm.ee
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              5 months ago

              Rich people don’t give a fuck about public schools, lmao, they send their kids to private ones.

              • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Private schools often suck. Rich people aren’t smarter. They just have more money. There’s plenty of districts where the best public high school is way better than whatever private schools exist. Half the private schools are for weird religious groups or kids who got expelled.

                There’s almost always good public schools in cities. That’s why there’s always loopholes that allow rich people’s kids to go to them.

                And in colleges, Harvard isn’t better than UC-Berkeley or the honors programs at most state flagship institutions. It’s just older. (There have been studies that compared students who got into an Ivy League school and ultimately chose a public flagship and the Ivy grads only did better in the first few years after graduation. But then the public flagship attendees caught up.)

              • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
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                5 months ago

                You and the commenter above are using different definitions of “rich.” They are referring to upper-middle [working] class. You are likely referring to the wealthy, or upper class.

                Upper middle class rich people still largely prefer elite public primary and secondary schools due to tiered admissions standards of elite tertiary institutions like Harvard and Columbia University.

            • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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              I wonder how many of those hedge fund billionaires down on Wall Street are Democrats. I doubt that it’s many of them. Bankers? Nah. Media and Telcom? Not likely. They’re all based in NYC, the bluest of the blue cities.

              They all like tax cuts and deregulation. Trump is the one who’s promising that, whereas Biden promised and already delivered more of both to them all.

              • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                I don’t have any desire to defend hedge fund or VC billionaires so I’ll concede the point. There’s a reason San Francisco has NIMBY policies and New York City can’t elect mayors for shit.

                • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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                  Yeah, because the people who own all of the businesses and real estate constantly battle those who work at the businesses and live in all that real estate, which just goes to show what a fucked up and unbalanced role money plays in our so-called democracy.

              • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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                5 months ago

                Bankers? Nah. Media and Telcom? Not likely. They’re all based in NYC, the bluest of the blue cities.

                Now you’re just making things up. You can’t just say “nah, not likely” and prove anything. It’s a lack of effort that shows you don’t have evidence.

                NYC is a “blue city” (whatever that means) because of these professionals. The actual working class people in NYC make up a lot of the conservatives. That’s why cities are more liberal: because they have more educated people. Those people work in banking or media; they’re not all artists or plumbers or something.

          • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            At this point Donald Trump could build a shrine to and start worshipping Obama as a God… It won’t affect anything.

        • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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          And the ones that are Republicans to fuck over everyone but the rich. They’d definitely prefer “poor folk” didn’t have guns at all.

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Lots of them. Do you know any Republicans? None of them care about issues that don’t affect them and their families. Even other “conservative” issues. They are not driven by policy.

        Only Republicans with guns care about guns. And only 50% of Republicans have guns.

        https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own-guns.aspx

        They don’t care about each other. Liberals care about what other liberals think. Stop thinking like someone who cares about policy.

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          I’ve had to explain this to a lot of people who naturally assume that any organization of people will be organized around some kind of shared values. Most of the time that’s true, but not for Republicans.

          Republicans are just a mish mash of obsessive single-issue voters, and by in large they just don’t care about the other single issues that their fellow party members are going on about.

          At the head of the Republican party it’s people who want to minimize their tax burden, eliminate regulations on corporations, and cannibalize as much of the US government as they can into for-profit institutions. You could say that’s three issues instead of one, but the overarching theme is to cater to personal greed, no matter the harm to society. These are the ones who are primarily pulling the strings in the party, at least historically.

          Just below them is the military industrial complex and gun manufacturers who just want to sell guns no matter the harm to society. They like to rile up 2A fanatics with conspiracy theories that the government is out to steal all their guns so they’ll be defenseless, paving the way for King Biden to ascend to his throne. The industry only cares about selling guns and the fanatics only care about having guns, and neither care about any kind of harm to society.

          Then there’s the radical Christians whose obsessions cover an eclectic mix of social reactionary positions and literal death cult worship (e.g. Christians who give absolute support to genocide in Palestine because they think Israel’s conquest is a crucial step towards the rapture, which they believe is imminent). Broadly speaking the people in this group just want to hoist their religious doctrines onto everyone they can by any means available and no matter the harm it causes to society. They literally only care about “God’s Kingdom” in the afterlife.

          Then there’s people who just lack any capacity for adaptation or learning. Their obsession is to feel like things are staying the same, or even reverting back to a past that they only know how to view through rose tinted glasses. They can’t be bothered to comprehend the problems we’re facing as a society or how the past was not the idyllic utopia that they mistakenly remember, nor can the old way of doing things sustain a growing and transforming society. These people just want to exist in comforting ignorance by feeling like they get to remain in familiar surroundings, no matter the harm to society.

          There’s really only one thing that truly unites them: Each one wants one specific thing no matter the harm to society, and that one specific thing that they each want IS HARMFUL to society. But they work well together because none of them care about the harm being caused by any of the others, and as long as they all tow the same line, each one gets what they want.

        • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I’ve never met any Republicans that were pro-gun-bans. I really don’t believe you’ll be able to find a single one either.

          This is dumb as fuck timing by Biden, but I’m sure he can’t help himself because he’s been super anti-gun for decades so it’s probably just like a reflex at this point for him to to off about banning guns after a shooting.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        How many of them will stay home or change their vote because the head of the party they’re still a part of despite all the gun nuts continues acting like a gun nut?

        If Biden is trying to use guns as a wedge issue for Republicans, he’s the person we saw at the debate all the time.

      • Rakonat@lemmy.world
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        The ones that are antiabortion or evangelicals who don’t own guns. GOP has the most gun owners but its not even like half their voters. Vocal minorities is all it is.

        The only issue the GOP is actually united on right now is how they don’t like democrats.

    • TunaCowboy@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Gun control, especially banning the most popular and utilitarian platform, is a massive political loser. This is incredibly poor timing for a struggling campaign.

        • ours@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          It’s good for shooting small, very fast bullets. May that be hunting, target shooting or self-defense.

          If they want to ban AR-15s, they should ban all semi-automatic rifles otherwise it would be ridiculous. The would-be assassin could have done the same thing with a whole assortment of mostly equivalently performing rifles. Some just as “scary looking” black rifles, some with wooden parts.

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            If they want to ban AR-15s, they should ban all semi-automatic rifles otherwise it would be ridiculous.

            And if they ban all those guns they should finish the job while they’re at it and just ban guns, glad we agree.

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              Indeed, they would have to go down the route Australia went. But I don’t see this happening in America any time soon.

              If piles of murdered kids didn’t do much to move the needle, shooting an inflammatory politician isn’t going to do it. We’ll see how the MAGA respond to this event or hopefully when they lose the elections. Maybe (but hopefully not) they’ll act violently enough to force facing America’s relationship with guns.

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      5 months ago

      Trump ignores the issue or waffles and looks unpresidential.

      and that is what’s gonna get him. because up until now, he looked soooo presidential 😂

    • Fester@lemm.ee
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      Any of those options will work fine for Trump. He doesn’t need to have policies, strategies, or responses to anything. His voters can’t remember it anyway. You think they remember that he banned bump stocks in the first place? He could promise to ban AR-15s one day, then criticize his own proposal the next day, and he’ll just get cheered by both sides. Voters are fucking stupid.

      All that matters is that he keeps the steady supply of hateful buzzwords flowing. You can’t win chess against an opponent who’s playing hungry hungry hippos.

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        All of that wastes trump’s time and makes him look unprofessional to swing voters. He can’t win with just his fans. That’s why he lost big time in 2020. The swing voters saw him failing to respond to an actual issue.

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          5 months ago

          Correction: He lost big time because of mail-in votes. Trump in 2020 got the record high for votes for a Republican candidate at something like 67.2 million, which was just about a million votes less than what Obama got during his first election (which was a record-breaking turnout). Biden got around 80 million votes in 2020, breaking every voter turnout record ever.

          Swing voters are still crucial because that’s how Hillary lost despite having only 100,000 less votes than Obama did in his second election, but I feel like swing voters have probably more or less already made up their minds. If you don’t see Trump for what he is already, the odds of his reaction here being the final straw seems unlikely. I think if people had better access to voting, we’d easily see a repeat of 2020 even if we were to vote right this minute.

    • PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee
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      Trump already said he’d take away everyones guns, no questions asked, years ago. No one that supported him even blinked. This means nothing to them.

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        That’s just bullshit, he did not. He said the one stupid thing about ignoring due process for red flag law situations. This is pretty far and away from “everyone’s guns”

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          5 months ago

          You made me curious, thank you. The actual quote is “take the guns first, go through due process second.”

      • Elsie@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        I’m pretty sure the NRA had a heart attack when they heard that 🤣

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      5 months ago

      Trump will go with number 5: “Did you know socialist immigrant windmills causing cancers kill more Americans than guns?”

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      He will do #2, and his base will cheer. Not a single person from that camp will think he’s crazy.

      This is the kind of Democrat logic that makes me cringe…

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      He can just say nothing. His position is already clear and he just selected a VP candidate who was pictured in social media with an AR15 recently, and openly suggested the ATF doesn’t need to exist.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      Biden is doing this to drive a wedge into Republicans. The gun nuts and the ones that don’t care about guns will have differing opinions because now gun violence affects them directly. It’s really smart.

      Or… he just doesn’t want to get shot himself. Just saying. not wanting to get shot is a powerful motivator…

      Not that it’s perhaps prudent. or you know, god forbid, actually a good fucking idea.

    • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
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      I guarantee that he will say that the attack wouldn’t have happened if more of his followers had ar 15s there

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      2 and 3 only matter if reality matters to you. Most people being trump don’t care how insane things look, or if trump “looks presidential”.

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      What you’re arguing would make sense with logical voters. So of course it doesn’t apply here. When have Republican voters marked ‘D’ or stayed home instead of voting for a pro-gun candidate!? It just doesn’t happen.

      And “wedge” issue?? Come on, Republican voters are either all-in on Trump or they reluctantly mark the ‘R’…

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      It’ll be 2 because the Republicans who don’t like guns are a minority. It’s a cult, there’s nothing Trump can do to lose support. You can’t trick him into doing something stupid, he’s always doing something stupid, people clap for it anyway.

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    Bernie had this right. Despite being pretty progressive, he wasn’t for outlawing semiautomatic firearms because they were black and looked scary. He believed that the right to arms was justified. This “AR Ban” is a great way to lose a lot of independents, and even some hard D voters like myself. There are a lot of dems who carry, and a lot of them who own the very firearms he wants to ban.

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      5 months ago

      I had a friend that said he only voted for Trump in 2016 cause he felt like he needed somebody to protect his rights to own a gun. This guy that “protected” host rights to own a fun also did massive amounts of damage to other people rights.

      I wish Dems would quit talking about guns. It’s a mistake.

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      The next would be assasin will be forced to use a weapon appropriate for distance killing. They would be more likely to succeed.

      • JamesTBagg@lemmy.world
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        The failed Trump shooter used a rifle completely appropriate for the distance. He was just a “comically bad” shooter, according to acquaintances.

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      As an independent, I could care less about this sort of thing. I see it as virtue signaling to staunch democrats. It won’t win him a single vote, since his entire platform has always been about being a super traditional Democrat.

      We need new traditions, not rehashing of old, tired trades against things like specific types of guns and obesity.

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        Actually that is a good question. You don’t need an AR-15 because there are non-AR semi-automatic rifles that will do exactly the same thing but aren’t viewed as bad-ass. (BTW, auto-loading rifles have been around since 1883.) The AR-15 is a civilian semi-automatic and the basis of the M-16, so larpers can fulfill their G.I. Joe fantasies and a cuddle them when they are told to fear something by Fox.

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        Need? I don’t but I wanted one so here we are. AR ban is stupid will only help conservatives in the election. I’m not against gun control legislation that will actually do good.

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        Have you ever fired one before? They are way more accurate than a handgun. You could be 5ft away from someone with a handgun and still miss (especially in a high adrenaline situation). It’s considerably more difficult to miss with an AR.

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      He’s not gonna do shit, he’s just gonna continue to bark at one of the symptoms of the problem.

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    Holy deep fried frankenfuck will the Democrats NEVER LEARN?!?!?!?!

    AFTER!

    You talk about guns AFTER the election!

    What in the actual pogostickingpopejohnpaul is he THINKING?!?!?

    The optics are 1000% awful here.

    Uvalde wasn’t enough, but a potshot at the planet’s most notorious living felon is?

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      Lose the election speed run any %

      I’m 100% sure Dems are actively self sabotaging their re-election.

      There is no way the entire party cannot read a fucking room. This has to be on purpose at this point.

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        To be fair there’s large swaths of the party that want him to step down. It’s his advisors and aligned leadership that insist on running him and these policies no matter what.

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          A though has just crossed my mind: what if the advisors want him to be there this way and wait till the last moment to say “you know what? Biden steps down [because of his health] and X runs in his place” so Democrat voters can say “we dodged the bullet”.

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            That moment is now. And that’s not really how politics usually works. It would be incredibly reckless to do such a thing.

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      Biden is simply the worst possible candidate, perhaps the only prominent Dem who can lose to Trump. And he’s determined to prove it.

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      He’s trying to motivate the progressives. His campaign has finally figured out that progressives aren’t turning out in the swing states. After over a year of warnings. This, the rent thing, (which progressives immediately identified as entirely too high and a gift to landlords everywhere), and the exponential increase in supposed policy lists. (Which like any gift horse, shouldn’t be checked too thoroughly lest the corporate subsidies they hide shine through)

      What we really need him to understand is the problem is Israel. Any of this would have worked a year ago. But many progressives are not willing to support the genocide in Israel just to buy themselves comfort.

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      Maybe Biden actually does plan to announce that he’s not running in the 2024 general election. That way, this scores some political points with Democratic voters, but doesn’t impact the election much.

      Other than that, I don’t really see how this makes sense politically. I dunno. Maybe his team has done some kind of analysis and is convinced that a particular demographic in the swing states that they’re trying to win will like this or something, so it might be disadvantageous nationwide but a win locally.

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        Basically, they got some breathing room on the replacement thing because of Trump getting shot at. But I guarantee you behind the scenes the message is the polling numbers in PA come up or else.

        • tal@lemmy.today
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          If it’s viable to run someone else, I’m pretty sure that it has to happen almost immediately, if it’s going to happen. The primaries have already happened, so if someone gets run, it’d have to be the party picking them already, and there’s very limited time to campaign.

          The general election is November 5. It’s currently July 17. That’s three-and-a-half months in which someone would have to sell themselves to the public.

          goes back to look at presidents who didn’t run again

          https://www.britannica.com/story/have-any-us-presidents-decided-not-to-run-for-a-second-term

          Johnson is not the only U.S. president who decided not to seek a second elected term. The others are James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry S. Truman. (Theodore Roosevelt declined to run in 1908, after being elected president in 1904 and serving one term, but he again sought the office—and lost—as a third-party candidate in 1912.)

          So looks like the closest equivalent would be LBJ and Truman, and they still did so at the end of March in the election year, with twice the amount of time remaining that’s still left for 2024, and before the primaries.

          Like, I don’t think that it’d be realistic to wait and see what happens in the polls and then have someone run with even less time.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            Oh yeah they aren’t talking about waiting for long. That’s why Biden is throwing progressive policies at the wall. 5% rent, AWB, SCOTUS reform…

            And I thought there was a fourth. So I went to go look and the breaking news is he has Covid, right after saying he’d step aside if a major medical condition happened. So that’s going to get spun into a thing.

            You know I remember when I started studying politics and I was thankful we had nice campaigns instead of the drama laden ones you see in other countries. I think I even uttered it once and forgot to knock on wood. I’m sorry guys, I jinxed us.

            • tal@lemmy.today
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              So I went to go look and the breaking news is he has Covid, right after saying he’d step aside if a major medical condition happened.

              Ah, you’re right, news just coming out about it today.

      • Kiernian@lemmy.world
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        No, nor should they try, nor should they stick with their current seemingly nonsensical policy ideas about guns.

        The “gun problem” as it stands is really more of a symptom of our mental health crisis, our ridiculously confrontational “news” cycle, and a number of other HUMAN factors that aren’t going to be solved by banning a particular model of gun, though and no one seems to want to hear that.

        Screeching “Ban the right’s favorite model of toy” right before an election is beyond tone deaf, and an incredibly dumb move politically that won’t do squat except mobilize the NRA voters to vote the other way, which we DO NOT NEED with democracy in this country at stake.

        I can personally count multiple handfuls of coworkers and acquaintances who might have voted for him that will now vote trump or stay away from the polls over this.

        • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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          No, nor should they try, nor should they stick with their current seemingly nonsensical policy ideas about guns.

          I can’t decide if I’m amazed, impressed, or utterly disgusted that the “stick to their guns” play on words was right there and you didn’t go for it.

  • not_that_guy05@lemmy.world
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    Nah, I think I’ll keep my shit and wait for the far right to move.

    The fuckin scenario we are in I swear.

    Far right: let’s kill the left and do fascism.

    Democrats: let’s ban weapons right now while there’s threats of violence against democrats.

    Really?

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      Just wait for it, Dems are preparing to finally kill the filibuster just days before they lose to republicans in a landslide defeat due to running the worst possible candidate, simply because he promised the donors nothing would fundamentally change and actually delivered on it.

      Afterwards, they’ll eat ice cream and blame the left for not voting hard enough.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    Just as dumb as when Beto said it before his election…

    It’ll never pass, and he thinks saying it will get votes, but all it does is motivate idiots to vote trump, even tho he actually did an executive action to try and close a loophole.

    It might not have stood, but it worked for a couple of years.

    • Rakonat@lemmy.world
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      On its own its a dumb idea, but I do think another commenter had it on the money how this is more a ploy to catch trump with his pants down. Trump can either agree and piss off his pro gun base (and look like a coward given his previous statements), he can argue against it and seem like hes inviting more violence and alienate anyone in his base who thinks gun violence is bad. Or he can ignore it and look like hes a doddering old fool oblivious to whats happening around him.

      • Delta_V@lemmy.world
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        alienate anyone in his base who thinks gun violence is bad

        ie exactly nobody

        to his base it would look strongbrave to ignore it with the most bigly beautiful thickskin

  • PP_GIRL_@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I can think of literally no better reason to keep ARs legal than the events of last week.

    • xionzui@sh.itjust.works
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      Yes, this is the exact intention of the second amendment. Armed resistance against tyrannical government. If the rise of fascism in America isn’t the time to use it, it’s meaningless.

      The founding fathers envisioned state militias that would rival the power of the federal army and keep it in check. That ship has sailed, so it already lost a lot of its bite, but any power it still has can only be justified for that purpose

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        Yes, this is the exact intention of the second amendment. Armed resistance against tyrannical government

        Nope. Judging by how they used militias at the time, they meant it for defending the federal government against both invasions and rebellions. The “defense against tyranny” reason is just an invention of people trying to justify their guns.

        The founding fathers envisioned state militias that would rival the power of the federal army and keep it in check

        Nope. There WAS no federal army at the time. They used militias IN STEAD OF a standing army, not as a check on an existing one. Which of course invalidates the entire amendment now that the country has the biggest and most advanced military in the history of humanity.


        All of that being said, I consider assassination of a tyrant you can’t rid the people of in any other way the only form of murder that’s acceptable as it serves the common good.

        Putin is one such tyrant, Orban probably is, and Donald Trump DEFINITELY is. The world would have been a much better place if Crooks had been a better shot.

        • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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          I mean, that’s the exact opposite of what the federalist papers said. We don’t have to speculate what the founders intended, they wrote it down. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s ask Alexander Hamilton from federalist 29

          If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            I mean, that’s the exact opposite of what the federalist papers said

            The Federalist Papers were a bunch of editorials, not laws. The amendment itself clearly says that it’s for the security of the nation and doesn’t mention tyranny at all.

            Alexander Hamilton’s opinion on standing armies is not the second amendment.

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              It’s a bunch of editorials, written by the same people who wrote the constitution, explaining their thought process and exactly what they intended when writing the constitution.

              I do admire your gumption, pretending to know the rationale behind the 2nd amendment better than Alexander fucking Hamilton.

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                Fun fact: sometimes the founding fathers didn’t agree on everything.

                The section of his editorial you quote doesn’t say that it’s the rationale behind the second amendment. It doesn’t mention it OR tyranny.

                The amendment, which specifically spells out the reason before the conclusion does NOT reference standing armies or tyranny.

                You’re just assuming connections that aren’t there and then accusing ME of pretending to be a mind reader 🤦

                • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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                  The section of his editorial you quote doesn’t say that it’s the rationale behind the second amendment. It doesn’t mention it OR tyranny.

                  The entirety of federalist 29 is about the second amendment. I think it’s safe to assume the paragraph I quoted from federalist 29 also is.

                  You’re just assuming connections that aren’t there and then accusing ME of pretending to be a mind reader 🤦

                  Calling militias “the best possible defense” against a standing federal army seems pretty cut and dry. No mind reading necessary, just regular reading.

        • Carlo@lemmy.ca
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          Ok, but can you throw in an M203 and a leaf sight? Maybe a box of 40mm HEDP? Indirect fire is a real game-changer.

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            1 in 5 Americans score adequately high enough in their spacial reasoning to qualify for an M32 or M320 credit. The M203 will only be available on surplus legacy rifle systems via lottery.

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    Banning guns is a losing policy for democrats. It only ever hurts them. I really wish they’d stop lighting political capital on fire with statements like this

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      I said this decades ago… if Dems dropped the gun shit and embraced safe shooting sports, they would win every damn election.

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        Gun rights are a MAJOR factor in why many people I personally know refuse to consider voting Democrat.

        They will wax poetic all day about how much they detest Trump… but then end with, “At least he won’t take away our guns.”

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          I actually know a guy who plans on voting for Trump simply because “They can’t drag me to the concentration camps if I have guns”

          He doesn’t think Biden wants to drag him off btw, he thinks Trump will… but it won’t matter because he had guns…

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        The number of people I know who won’t vote for them because of gun shit is too damn high. There are cheaper ways to solve gun violence anyway. Single issue voters are dumb, but democrats need to accept that they exist and this is the biggest single issue

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        Rich people would lose a lot of money should that ever happen, so whenever things start to look even a little good, you bet your ass some idiot in the Dems is going to scream “hell yes we’ll take your guns”.

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    Braindead take, is Biden gonna come to my rescue when some christofascist militia has me on my knees in front of a ditch?

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    This is like begging for Republicans to start making up conspiracies about how the Democrats set this all up to take away their gun rights.

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    It seems like such a lazy non-solution. Essentially telling shooters “Hey, from now on, you can only use ALL THE OTHER GUNS” as if that solves something.

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      This is the problem. All banning the AR will do is drive the popularity of another platform up. There’s a crapload of powerful semi-auto customizable platforms out there, it’s just that the AR variant is the most popular. It’s a stupid solution because it’s no solution at all - and I don’t mean that as a “not good enough so we should do nothing at all” thing, it’s just a completely pointless solution.

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        Noooo you don’t understand, banning pistol grips and front sight posts is totally effective! It totally didn’t spawn an entire new segment of “compliant guns” that had the same level of lethality the last time we did it…

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            Crime as a whole went down. In fact crime was already on the way down when the super predators bill and the AWB were passed. And the guns responsible for the majority of gun deaths were and are pistols, not “Assault Guns”. If you want to talk about preventing mass casualty shootings then let’s have that conversation. But Columbine happened in 1999. The AWB did not prevent mass casualty shootings.

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          The AK is a global weapon for sure. My commentary deals with the popularity of US gun platforms because that’s the country whose laws we’re talking about. So the global popularity of the AK isn’t really directly relevant.

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            Well sure, but the reason I brought it up is that I’m not entirely certain that the AK or M-16 aren’t more owned in the US than the AR. AR has only been standard issue for the military since after I got out in 2004. I would wager there are far more AKs and M-16s in private hands than ARs

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              You’d be wrong. The AR platform is the civilian version of the M-16/M-4. And the flat-top carbine length version of the M16A4, called the M4, was standard issue for infantry units being deployed since at least 1999. They were increasingly being sold to civilians in semi-auto only configurations right up to the 1994 Assault weapons ban that named them specifically. That just resulted in a bunch of AR platforms with different names that narrowly skirted the rules of the ban, called “Compliant ARs”. After 2004, when the ban expired, sales of AR’s seem to take off because now they can sell freely under the AR name that got a ton of publicity. And now in 2024 they’re going to start selling the AR platform in Sig’s new 6.8mm flavor. To be fair the Spear itself is different enough it some people may not considerate it an Armalite platform. Other would argue it’s an AR-16 platform.

            • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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              The M-16 and AR-15 are the same gun barring the full auto mechanism. Armalite originally made the AR-15, sold it to Colt, who pitched it to the military, and when it was adopted, was designated the M-16. (Simplified history) So while it may not have been standard issue as the AR, it’s been around for a very long time. Obviously it’s changed up a little over time as manufacturing has changed hands, but I’m not sure if it’s worth debating what’s in private hands other than how they’re designated when they’re essentially variants of the same gun.

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                Gotcha, they didn’t exactly go into the manufacturing history in boot when they trained us on how to use the thing, and I have had exactly 0 reasons to touch a firearm since boot.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          It never has in the past. It’s always come down to cosmetics and new sales of 30 round magazines. So you’re left with the actual rifle and a magazine well that you’re just not supposed to put certain magazines in, on the honor system…

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          I clicked down through the article to see what they meant by “assault rifles like” the AR-15, but they didn’t link to any actual source describing what they meant. So I couldn’t tell you what guns are on the list.

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                  Yeah, and the cursed AR-15 pistol. Which really hangs a light on the ridiculousness of legislating form factor instead of measurable stuff like rate of fire, or internal function. Like if we had put into law that any weapon capable of firing X number of bullets per second is a fully automatic firearm and thus banned then bump stocks wouldn’t be an issue. But repeatedly we see the most asinine stuff, like banning thumbhole stocks.

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      This is an issue that Biden has consistently refused to understand to be a political loser well before any suggestion of a decline. He’s consistently vocal on it in a way that would suggest he genuinely believes it to be a winning position.

      In reality, it’s practically impossible to do and mostly serves to energize the right and alienate voters in states he actually needs to win. It’d literally be better politically to say nothing on the topic, but he insists on pouring fuel on the “they want to ban our guns” fire.

      I have been, on the whole, positive about Biden, but this is a massive blindspot he’s held for a long time.

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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        It’d literally be better politically to say nothing on the topic

        Biden need only say three words to clinch the election right now: “He missed. Damnit.”

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    FUCK

    its like he’s trying to lose

    this is not going to get anyone excited about voting for him, but it will galvanize the opposition and push swing voters into staying home on election day at the very least

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    That fucking horrible assassination attempt would have happened with or without the AR, this is just another knee-jerk emotional reaction, and it could NOT come at a worse time (pre-election). We’re fucked.