Conservative bloggers on gun control: 'We win'

[damnedifIknow]

"Red State’s Erick Erickson wrote in a post dubbed “We Win. They Lose. The 2nd Amendment is Safe” that GOPers were able to win on principle because they fought on principle — in other words, conservative ideology is safe. He also gave a shout out to Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for being vocal in their support of conservative ideology."


http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/gun-control-background-checks-conservative-bloggers-90272.html?ml=la

[TwilightGardener]

1. They win more dead children. I guess that makes them happy.

Let them cheer--I hope they're proud.

[damnedifIknow]

2. It's not like

anyone was going to take their guns for christ sake. What the hell was their beef?

[ChangeUp106]

3. You Got It

They DID think Obama was going to take their guns

[hack89]

4. There is a complete lack of trust on both sides of the issue

until some common ground is found, this is how the "debate" will continue for the foreseeable future.

[TwilightGardener]

10. Not really. The gun nutz simply don't want anything to change.

No amount of massacre will move them to agree to anything that threatens complete unfettered freedom to amass their most precious possessions.

[hack89]

12. Thanks for making my point. nt

[TwilightGardener]

14. I'm right. So...

[hack89]

16. Significant gun control will not be passed with the support of gun owners.

so why do you think the insults and vitriol aimed at them will help your cause?

[TwilightGardener]

18. No vitriol. Just truth. Guns are more important than public safety.

Unregulated gun ownership is more important than my children being safe in their classrooms. Blood and wasted lives are nothing compared to having to wait a few days for a gun.

[hack89]

22. I have said over and over again that I support universal background checks

that doesn't stop people here from still labeling me an NRA shill. When we see post after post conflating gun ownership with supporting the murder of children, it is clear that to many, any support for gun rights however nuanced is evil. And then people wonder why gun owners don't support their gun control agendas. Why can't the issue be discussed without personal attacks? Not too much to ask, is it?

[TwilightGardener]

27. I'm a gun owner. I have a shotgun. I don't think anyone is out to take it away

from me. However, I don't have a fascination with it, or any gun. I forget I even have it, most of the time. I don't identify with the sort of paranoid fetishist maniacs who clutch their guns tighter than their own children. Those are the people who oppose universal background checks, and the NRA speaks for them and controls Congress. Those are the people who love guns more than fellow human beings, more than public safety--they are irrational. The Senate's job is to override those irrational fetishists and do the absolute MINIMUM to regulate the gun world. This amendment was the minimum. We can't even have that. Why have background checks at all, then, if they can be gotten around so easily?

[hack89]

54. Since many of the 90% that support universal background checks are gun owners

including most that post here (and including me), why are you asking me to defend what happened yesterday? Why is it my fault?

[cynatnite]

28. So, gun owners won't help to prevent gun violence because people are mean to them?

Wow.

[hack89]

51. Why does there have to be meanness in the first place?

why is it impossible to address the issue without personal attacks and broad brush stereotypes?

[cynatnite]

55. Getting your feelings hurt is no reason to not do the right thing. n/t

[hack89]

58. I did the right thing - I supported the universal background check.

But explain to me why you think you can insult me and then expect me to work closely with you?

There are many causes I can spend my time on that will save just as many lives. I would rather work with people that are not total jerks.

[cynatnite]

59. I have not insulted you...

Besides, sometimes you do have to work with people you don't like.

[hack89]

60. I don't have to work with people that go out of their way to insult me.

if you are not willing to listen to me, respect my views and understand what my concerns are, then I have no desire to work with you. If your attitude is "you are wrong, I am right, so shut up and do what I want" then no - I will not work with you. I will accept an equal partnership and nothing less.

[cynatnite]

61. So what do you do with people you don't like?

Storm off to your sandbox because you don't like them being mean to you?

I'm not saying you have to compromise your beliefs, but in the real world you do have to sometimes work with people you don't like, people who stand for things that are counter to yours and so on.

You can't force people to respect your views or anything else for that matter. You hunt for the common ground until you find it and work from there. Not everything is equal, either. Sometimes you gotta take what's handed to you. The world can't conform just to your way either.

That's what's missing in so much of what's happening today. People are so entrenched and the refusal to budge until they get what they want is destructive.

[hack89]

62. Your last sentence applies to both sides.

as a matter of fact, your entire post could equally apply to many fervent gun control advocates that brook no disagreement and will accept no comprise.

If you will not comprise then you can't expect the same from me.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

24. Apparently vitriol is more important.

Who would it kill to not sling insults in order to build trust?

If all you do is say all gun-owners are hideous, murder-loving monsters they're going to -- understandably -- assume you refer to all gun owners and hence all guns. Since their rights to self-defense pre-dates the Constitution and were codified by constitutional amendment and reaffirmed by constitutional process they have a right to defend their rights.

And now the vitriol is so venomous the 30 to 40 percent of Democratic voters that are gun owners are being told they have no place in the party. Obama won re-election with 51% of the popular vote; I doubt the 2016 candidate will have his credentials. If even 1/10th of the Democratic gun owners defect or stay home we're looking at a disaster.

[TwilightGardener]

30. It's not vitriol. There are people out there who are more upset at having to fill out

a piece of paper and wait three days than they are of seeing another Columbine or Aurora. These people are irrational, and scary. It's simply the truth. I'm not making caricatures of them--read RW blogs. They all think guns represent FREEDUMB-N-LIBERTEE!! Scary fucks out there, all think they're going to be the heroic sniper who takes out the next Adam Lanza in their fevered little bird brains.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

36. A 3-day wait would have done nothing to mitigate the straw purchase

that enabled 2 teenagers who planned for months and built pipe bombs.

read RW blogs. They all think guns represent FREEDUMB-N-LIBERTEE!! Scary fucks out there, all think they're going to be the heroic sniper who takes out the next Adam Lanza in their fevered little bird brains.

There are 80 million of them.

By contrast (IIRC) there were around 80,000 insurgents in Iraq at the height of the war. If they were as malicious or reckless as you paint them I think we would have noticed by now.

[TwilightGardener]

39. There is nothing that will convince me that something as simple as making sure you're

not a complete violent fucking psycho with a criminal history before you buy a gun isn't worth it. Of course it is. It won't stop all gun crimes, but it chips away, chips away, chips away, at some of them. It's just fucking common sense. The NRA and gun crazies always want us to believe there's nothing we can do, nothing will work, it's just out of our hands, why bother trying. Fuck them all.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

40. OK, but expanded background checks only work if the enforcers enforce them

Loughner should have been reported. He wasn't. Lanza was reported. Nothing was made of it.

And if you want the support of the other side you need to present them a bright, distinct line that you respect their rights. Do you trust a RWer when they say they want more regulation to ensure abortion clinics operately safely or do you suspect they're gaming the law-making process to erode abortion rights?

[TwilightGardener]

42. I don't want "support" from fanatics and irrational nutjobs. I don't expect it.

I don't want their cooperation. Because they are not right in the head. Same as anti-choicers, creationists, etc. I don't expect a partnership with teh crazy. I simply want Congress to steamroll them and ignore the NRA and take the barest minimum steps to regulate an industry that is underregulated, for public safety. Because that is the job of Congress. End of story. I mean, they banned lawn darts...but we can't get universal background checks for the purchase of an object that is meant to wipe out dozens of people at once? Fuck anyone who tries to argue the sanity of that with me.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

43. Irrational, you say.

[TwilightGardener]

44. Sorry, sweetheart, if I offended you apologists.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

47. Stop punching at the mirror. You only make yourself look cracked.

[marions ghost]

49. Exactly!

[geek tragedy]

13. 90% of the population agreed. The problem isn't common ground--it's that the 10%

are overrepresented in our political system.

The 10% are the problem.

[hack89]

15. They agree on universal background checks

but the support for the other amendments is significantly lower. I think the entire political atmosphere was so poisonous that nothing gun control related was going to pass. The repukes saw it merely as an opportunity to weaken and embarrass the president.

btw - I support universal background checks. I live in one of the few states that requires them. Both of my Senators voted yes.

[geek tragedy]

17. the atmosphere will always be poisonous regarding gun control.

Always.

The NRA and the Republican party have a vested interest in keeping it that way.

[hack89]

19. Look at the present atmosphere at DU regarding guns

and try to blame that on the repukes.

The insults and vitriol aimed at gun owners is shameful.

[geek tragedy]

21. Yes, because we see that even when we have 90% support for the most basic

and common sense of reforms on the table, the NRA still wins.

What you are seeing, quite frankly, is rage created by the realization that no progress is possible on this subject.

They won. We lost.

The NRA owns Capitol Hill.

They get to gloat, we are left to despair.

And, gun owners get targeted for this because the NRA and Republicans are doing this in the name of gun owners.

[hack89]

23. So you direct your rage at gun owners that support you?

sounds like a childish tantrum to me. Are we to stoically take the abuse and continue to help you?

[geek tragedy]

35. You entered into this discussion talking about how a provision that had 90%

support failed because of a lack of 'common ground.'

The problem, quite frankly, is that gun owners who favor common sense safety measures don't incorporate it into their voting behavior. No politician has ever suffered amongst gun owners for being too fanatically anti-gun regulation.

[hack89]

52. No - go back and read what I said.

it is issues other than universal background checks that are the point of contention. Fights over those issues poisoned the atmosphere such that universal background checks failed.

Every one of my elected officials in Congress support gun control.

[Cali_Democrat]

34. So sensitive

So delicate.

[hack89]

53. You kidding?

You need a tough skin to be a pro-gun Democrat here.

As an aside, all the emotional tantrums today are not coming from pro-gun Dems. It appears that there are some emotionally fragile people that didn't handle yesterday's results too well.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Here is the unfounded, very much projection fear,

If the evil gub'mint orders 100% background checks that means a form....that means a database of who owns what.

So when the evil gub'mint feels the time is right they will deploy swat teams and confiscate every last gun I own.

Yup, just like Hitler did (which he did not)

But that is their fear. I think they are projecting, but that is their fear

[damnedifIknow]

7. There's that conservative fear thing again

What are they not afraid of?

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Fear is a component of the modern conservative make up

It used not to be that way

[sandmann]

25. Are you saying

that their fears are unfounded because there would be no list? Or that government would never use that list to confiscate guns?

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. No list

And the logistics make it fantasy.

But there is no list, would be no list.

[sandmann]

38. Then how do you verify a background check was conducted?

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. Databases can be self expunging

And anyway this was part of the bill, no list

[sandmann]

56. Then it is unenforceable

and would have accomplished nothing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

57. It is, that said it was a weak bill

But I just went into the irational fear. It is as logistically feasible as removing 11 million people...which is not at all. You cannot confiscate 300+ guns. It is simply not doable.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

45. Why, it would be as unwieldy and unlikely as a national patient healthcare database!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

26. And what is the opposition to databases of abortion service patients?

Because that may open them to harassment. Case in point -- the NY newspaper that published the names and addresses of registered owners.

The government doesn't need a database of people who are peaceable; and the only reason criminals are put into a database is because they've already shown themselves to be criminals.

[TwilightGardener]

6. They were upset at the tyranny of filling out a form and waiting a few days.

Slaughtered citizens are nothing compared to the inconvenience of not being instantly gratified with the weapon you desire.

[bullwinkle428]

8. "Three-day waiting period? But I'm angry NOW!!!!"

-Homer Simpson, from "The Simpsons" episode "The Cartridge Family", where Homer buys a gun to protect his family.

[TwilightGardener]

11. LOL, it's so true.

[appleannie1]

20. Winning dead people is a victory these days? Never thought I would see the day.

[LeftinOH]

31. The law is always in flux. There is no "winning" some issues,

just an endless back-and-forth game in which at any given moment some foks are content with the current legal status and others are not. It's never over.

[bushisanidiot]

32. And with that, they align themselves with the terrorists who use guns to kill innocent people

because THAT is who the bill was targeting.

[AsahinaKimi]

33. To them politics is like a FOOTBALL game..

When a team beats another, they will stand up and cheer, and get in your face calling you a looser. This High school immature behavior is typical of Republicans and Tea baggers. When Gore lost the election, Republicans were proud to get in our faces calling us "Sore Losermans!"

Its their mentality about how things should be.. ya know.. Just like High School bullies. How this country can ever go forwards, with this kind of mentality in place.... well, you can only imagine.

[Orsino]

46. Like a football game played with their penises.

The nutters fought this like they would castration, not like a Super Bowl.

[alcibiades_mystery]

37. Not just conservative gunners. Plenty of so-called liberal gunners are doing their gloat dance

on the graves of our dead.

May they shoot themselves in the dick.

[Mike Daniels]

41. How do you claim a win when you prevented a vote from taking place?

That's like being the person with the basketball and taking the basketball, going home and declaring that you won before a game even took place.

[marions ghost]

50. Actually they are the losers

when the majority was in favor...

They are the real losers.

It's not over. It only escalated the situation. So stupid on their part.