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Kang Colby

(1,941 posts)
Tue Aug 18, 2015, 09:59 PM Aug 2015

How do people get involved with gun control?

Hi Folks,

Gun control advocates should feel free to contribute. How does gun control become "the cause" to promote for some people? I generally understand women's rights, poverty, labor, health care, and a number of other issues; but I don't quite understand how some folks gravitate towards gun control as their primary issue.

I see plenty of gun control editorials, opinions, and some limited support for gun control on social media. Yet, I don't think I've ever met a staunch gun control advocate in real life. Sure, I've met people who don't like guns and would rather see them banned, but I've never met people who make gun control advocacy their cause.

I'm just trying to understand the other side; I'm not looking to turn this into a debate. People feel the way they feel, but I'd like to at least better understand their perspective. Even if gun control isn't your primary cause, I'd still like to understand your point of view.

Thanks,
KC

24 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
How do people get involved with gun control? (Original Post) Kang Colby Aug 2015 OP
It draws authoritarian and gullible types. ileus Aug 2015 #1
Empathy and compassion for gun users SecularMotion Aug 2015 #2
You really don't have a grasp on reality GGJohn Aug 2015 #3
I feel your pain. SecularMotion Aug 2015 #4
How can you feel pain that's not there? eom. GGJohn Aug 2015 #5
I had a little wrist pain yesterday evening. ileus Aug 2015 #6
Oh, yeah? Well, try a light frame snubby .44 magnum.... Eleanors38 Aug 2015 #18
Awesome passive-aggressive attack there, SecMo! Lizzie Poppet Aug 2015 #7
Gun-addiction screening SecularMotion Aug 2015 #8
QED Lizzie Poppet Aug 2015 #9
You're right. This deserves an OP. SecularMotion Aug 2015 #10
Cool. Lizzie Poppet Aug 2015 #12
The poster says, with a safe full of firearms. N/T beevul Aug 2015 #14
Empathy and compassion for gun users... Kang Colby Aug 2015 #22
I know one "staunch gun control advocate" IRL. Lizzie Poppet Aug 2015 #11
December 14, 2012 was a Friday. flamin lib Aug 2015 #13
Has it ever occurred to you that you may be projecting? friendly_iconoclast Aug 2015 #15
Are you accusing me of being a homicidal maniac that wants to find an elementary flamin lib Aug 2015 #16
I'm accusing you of being a self-righteous hypocrite. When will you destroy all your guns... friendly_iconoclast Aug 2015 #17
Be careful. I hear the sound of an old Evinrude and the soft zing of a spinner. Eleanors38 Aug 2015 #20
"Are you accusing me of being a homicidal maniac" Nuclear Unicorn Aug 2015 #23
Thanks Kang Colby Aug 2015 #21
Gun control is an elitist outlook, not a movement. It can Look like a movement... Eleanors38 Aug 2015 #19
It became the pet issue of the Third Way in the early '90s benEzra Aug 2015 #24

ileus

(15,396 posts)
1. It draws authoritarian and gullible types.
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 06:51 AM
Aug 2015

Your really hardcore banners types love the idea of being in control of folks, and that they know what's best. While the mushy ones bite on silly stuff like "guns kill people" or the old 30,000 lie.


Neither can understand or have any idea of what it means to be progressive on 2A rights.

 

SecularMotion

(7,981 posts)
2. Empathy and compassion for gun users
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 08:22 AM
Aug 2015

who are powerless over the dangerous addiction to firearms.

Some say gun addiction should be treated as a disease, not a crime.

ileus

(15,396 posts)
6. I had a little wrist pain yesterday evening.
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 09:43 AM
Aug 2015

I have MCTD and my joints all ache for a little back story info. I shot a couple of friends 45's G41, 1911, and XDS. After those and the time I put in behind my latest CCW I did have some pain going on.

I was also diagnosed with Lymes earlier in the year so that's even more pain.

 

Eleanors38

(18,318 posts)
18. Oh, yeah? Well, try a light frame snubby .44 magnum....
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 04:35 PM
Aug 2015

Like holding an exploding cherry bomb in a can of beans. Empty can, of course.

 

Lizzie Poppet

(10,164 posts)
7. Awesome passive-aggressive attack there, SecMo!
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 10:13 AM
Aug 2015

I gotta hand it to you: you're really good at trolling a group and its participants without getting banned. Well done!

 

SecularMotion

(7,981 posts)
8. Gun-addiction screening
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 10:40 AM
Aug 2015
1.Do you own more than 3 guns?
2.Do you own more than 5 guns?
3.Do you own more than 10 guns?
4.Do you feel suspicious of people in general, or uncomfortable around people who don’t own guns?
5.Have you ever thought of brandishing a gun to end an argument or confrontation?
6.Do you spend more than 5 hours a week on gun forums or reading about guns on the internet?
7.Do you stock pile more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition?
8.Do you feel your unsafe when you’re not carrying a gun?
9.Have you purchased guns for family members or loved ones even if they did not want one?
10.Do you always have to have the ‘latest’ in new gun technology?
11.Have you ever left a loaded and unlocked gun around you home or vehicle, just in case?
12.Do you spend more than $5,000/year on guns and ammunition?

If you answered ‘yes’ to 4 or more of these questions, you may have a gun addiction and pose a threat to your family or neighbors. The nearest chapter of GunAholics Anonymous (GAA), a 12-step program for helping gun addicts face their addictions can help.

http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2013/01/02/gunaholics-anonymous/

 

Kang Colby

(1,941 posts)
22. Empathy and compassion for gun users...
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 07:05 PM
Aug 2015

If you have time, would you mind expanding on that some? Thanks.

 

Lizzie Poppet

(10,164 posts)
11. I know one "staunch gun control advocate" IRL.
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 10:48 AM
Aug 2015

That would be Jenna Yuille, who worked hard to get Oregon's new universal background check law in place. Jenna's involvement is quite personal: her mother was murdered in the Clackamas Town Center shooting. Jenna's not a "ban them all" type by any stretch of the imagination, though. I actually agree with many of the steps she advocates.

flamin lib

(14,559 posts)
13. December 14, 2012 was a Friday.
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 10:55 AM
Aug 2015

Like every other school day my Daughter dropped the two boys off at elementary school and then Kate with me. It was 8:20. I know because that meant the boys were on time for class. Three year old Kate and I watched the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN like every other day, she in my lap with her head on my chest thumb in mouth breathing softly.

About nine o'clock the red and white BREAKING NEWS crawler came across the screen. Something about shots fired at a school in Connecticut. In the next half hour the reports solidified into someone inside an elementary school and police are on the scene. I thought to myself, "Shit, some disgruntled employee is taking revenge on the staff for a perceived slight. What an asshole."

Sometime before ten o'clock Chris Jansing from MSNBC is on the scene and coverage is now live. I'm thinking this must be a pretty big deal to have a senior anchor on scene so fast. Kate wants a drink so I go to the kitchen and fix chocolate milk.

When I get back there are reports of multiple injuries and the police are inside the school searching for the shooter. Children are among the casualties. The school is for Kindergarten through second grade and I think, this is one inept bastard to hurt kids while taking revenge on whoever pissed him off!

Over the next few hours the scope of the tragedy became more clear. First reports say the principal and assistant principal are dead and as many as a dozen children are injured or dead. Police are going classroom to classroom. There is video tape of small children running single file holding hands from the school across the parking lot. People in the parking lot are hysterical. By now I'm quietly crying, tears sliding down my face. Kate asks what's wrong. I tell her some bad man hurt little children and it makes me sad. She worries that he may hurt her but I assure her he is far away and I won't let anyone hurt her or her brothers. After all, that's what grownups do, protect little kids. I wonder if I should go get the boys from school but decide not to interrupt their schedule.

Shortly after noon the the police on the scene announce that the shooter is dead by suicide as are six adults and 20 children. Seasoned journalists are openly weeping on air waiting for the coroner to address the press. The parents are held at a nearby fire station where they are reunited with the children who had escaped. By now the parents that haven't found their children know they aren't going to. Professional grief councilors are on hand

The coroner's press briefing is bizarre. The man is absolutely unmoved as he described what they found inside and the next steps in the investigation. Forensic photographers will take pictures of the victims for identification and match bodies to parents. Someone asks about the pictures and he says that his people are really good at what they do and will be able to provide identifying pictures. Toward the end of the briefing someone asks how he can be so unmoved and distant. The coroner says that they're busy right now and that there will be time for that other stuff later.

To this day I cannot get the the last few minutes of those children's lives out of my head. What it must have been like inside the classrooms; the deafening blasts of gunfire in a small room, the screaming, crying and calling for Mommy and Daddy looking to the grownups to protect them as they are shot. I live with that image in my head and can't get it out.

Every year 30,000 plus people die by gun in this country, more than 100,000 are injured at a cost to the economy of $200-260 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS but it all gets shrugged off as just the cost of liberty.

I know that guns aren't inherently evil. I own a dozen of them for fuck's sake. But the idea that any asshole can get one regardless of background, criminal record or mental state is go Goddamn stupid. Do a search on Craig's list for "things that go bang", go online, look at the want ad section of the local paper. Anybody with a couple hundred bucks can get any kind of gun no questions asked in a matter of hours if not faster. Guns that deal death at a rate limited only by the physical strength to carry ammunition.

The pro gun lobby and the people who are frankly gun fetishists to the point of needing treatment seem to "win" every argument. I get so damn tired of the same old arguments that it makes me want to vomit. I swear to God that if I'm close enough to the next fool who says nothing can be done because the gun was bought legally I'm going to deck the motherfucker. That's the damned issue! All the fucking guns that are bought legally by people who have no business with one. Jesus Christ, a guy has a facebook page that says he's going to shoot some niggers but he gets a gun? What kind of background check is that? A convicted wife beater can't buy a new gun but there isn't any mechanism to secure the ones he already has? The NRA thinks it's okay to beat the shit out of a woman and have all the guns you want as long as you aren't married to her? How does any of that make sense?

There is a lot of room for improvement in our system for controlling who gets guns but every time some legislation is passed it has a loophole big enough have an NRA convention in.

So there ya' have it, KC. That's the kind of insane shit that takes someone like me and turns them into a gun control advocate.

 

friendly_iconoclast

(15,333 posts)
15. Has it ever occurred to you that you may be projecting?
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 02:59 PM
Aug 2015
I know that guns aren't inherently evil. I own a dozen of them for fuck's sake.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172174277#post8

Gun-addiction screening

1.Do you own more than 3 guns?
2.Do you own more than 5 guns?
3.Do you own more than 10 guns?...
6.Do you spend more than 5 hours a week on gun forums or reading about guns on the internet?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=200251

Favorite group: Gun Control & RKBA, 222 posts in the last 90 days (70% of total posts)




flamin lib

(14,559 posts)
16. Are you accusing me of being a homicidal maniac that wants to find an elementary
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 03:04 PM
Aug 2015

school and kill children?

Is that all ya' got?

edit to add: this is the saddest most mean spirited post I've ever seen and welcome to ignore mother fucker.

 

friendly_iconoclast

(15,333 posts)
17. I'm accusing you of being a self-righteous hypocrite. When will you destroy all your guns...
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 03:19 PM
Aug 2015

...and surrender your firearms license?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12627627

I remind the disinterested reader that it was a host of the Gun Control Reform Activism group
that touted the "gun-addiction screening", even reposting it as an OP:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172174296

One gathers that the survey was only supposed to be used to poke at "those people",
and not to be applied to the self-proclaimed 'enlightened'

There's also this, from the same source:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=174285

2. Empathy and compassion for gun users

who are powerless over the dangerous addiction to firearms.
Some say gun addiction should be treated as a disease, not a crime.

Nuclear Unicorn

(19,497 posts)
23. "Are you accusing me of being a homicidal maniac"
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 07:05 PM
Aug 2015

SecMo is the one posting the survey as proof of addiction. Maybe you should take up the matter with him.

 

Kang Colby

(1,941 posts)
21. Thanks
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 06:47 PM
Aug 2015

I appreciate that you shared your perspective. That's what I wanted to make this thread about, helping me and other gun rights minded folks better understand the gun control view.

Kudos to you for taking the time to respond.

 

Eleanors38

(18,318 posts)
19. Gun control is an elitist outlook, not a movement. It can Look like a movement...
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 04:42 PM
Aug 2015

because its backers are in elite positions in some big city bureaus, some in academia, and a lot in the old MSM. That last one is what keeps an essentially prohibitionist outlook creeping along in the public's eye.

benEzra

(12,148 posts)
24. It became the pet issue of the Third Way in the early '90s
Sat Aug 22, 2015, 10:12 AM
Aug 2015

as a way to "triangulate" the opposition and appeal to right-leaning law-and-order authoritarians. The "build more prisons and put more people in them" mantra was already taken, so the Third Way/DLC seized on "ban scawwy guns" as a second-tier alternative.

At some point, key people in the party leadership actually fell for the "assault weapon" fraud and came to believe that some civilian guns were an existential threat to 'Murrica, and acted accordingly. The rest has flowed from that bait-and-switch, IMO.

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