Gun control is fundamentally a right wing policy. Just because it aligned with *some people’s preferred right wing party on a culture war wedge issue doesn’t make it right.
Like look at California; the only reason their gun laws are so strict is because they were scared of the Black Panthers doing open carry observation of police. It was a targeted, racist attack on a political movement that was completely bipartisan, because the political class has solidarity with one another against the rest of us.
Like what do *liberals think about abortion bans? Do they reduce the number of abortions? What about drug & alcohol bans? Do they work? We know these things don’t actually stop anyone from doing anything, they just make those behaviours more dangerous.
So why do *they think gun bans will actually be effective? Do *they think the cops will actually use it to protect children? They had all the power at Uvalde and they used it to keep parents from saving their kids.
The US is an unprecedentedly violent police state with the largest military, the largest criminal population in history and a fetishistic obsession with guns, of course their children turn to guns to take out their rage. That’s what they see modelled all around them.
Edit: removed the words that assume this is the position of the person I’m replying to. I still stand by the points.
Do you think bans reduced the amount of drinking & driving, or was it education?
Like you can’t just name another thing that you’re confident I disagree with and assume I’m going to suddenly support the ban.
You’re doing the thing ban advocates always do: “thing bad”. Okay, thing bad. So how do we actually, effectively, reduce it? Because bans don’t work.
This is a stupid conversation but just so someone cites actual data and not just opinion slapfighting:
Ban
In 1982, President Reagan created a national commission on drunk driving which resulted in several important recommendations that would become foundations to the U.S. approach to stopping drunk driving. The commission issued a report in 1983 which called for raising the minimum drinking age to 21 and for tough enforcement of drunk driving laws. src
… there has been a 38 percent drop in drunk driving deaths since 1982. src
Education
Laws aimed at alcohol-impaired driving have been shown to change behavior in ways that reduce the problem. Alcohol education and public information programs, in contrast, rarely result in short-term behavior change. In part, this is because drinking, and combining drinking with driving, are lifestyle behaviors shaped and supported by many ongoing social forces, and they are not readily amenable to change through brief, one-time education/public information efforts. Moreover, those who contribute most to the problem have characteristics that make them least susceptible to behavior change through educational programs. However, education and public information programs have an important role to play in combating alcohol-impaired driving. They can provide support and impetus for passing laws; transmit knowledge about the provisions and penalties of laws in ways that increase their deterrent effect; and generate public support for law enforcement programs. src (emphasis mine)
In contrast, an education program that research has shown to be effective simply refers back to the ban itself in the first place, i.e., the You Drink, You Drive, You Lose program was successful, and was focused around informing people that DUI activity will be caught and punished. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/ktc_researchreports/244/
In summary, chill out. Both bans and education have contributed to the improvement we see today and your narrative that bans are conservative and somehow ineffective is so easily refuted by the data.
Nobody said anything about gun bans. Just gun control laws. I’m also well aware that gun control laws disproportionately affect minorities and I myself am not in favor of strict gun laws. (Though common sense screenings make a lot of sense to me)
I was merely poking fun at the right’s pro gun rhetoric and proclivity to completely disregard rhetoric when it inconveniences the rich.
