IMHO an interesting and well written article from the NYT

As I'm more interested in what you and other DU members think. I know what I think (but don't really expect you or anyone else to care, let alone be convinced by my opinions), but your reaction is of interest. Not a very long article nor behind a paywall.

Personally, I found it rather reductionistic and slightly condescending but also targeted to readers who the author assumes know little about guns and dislike both firearms and those who either enjoy same as a hobby or intend to utilize them for defense. But that's just my take, it could be easily wrong, I cannot imagine an NYT article taking an enthusiastic RKBA stance, that's a foregone conclusion. I think the best and most germane part is that the author starts to get at firearms as an extension of a cultural milieu rather than as the fetish that a lot of adamantly anti-gun people seem to envision when they think of gun owners. What say you?

Either, some comment about the content or an excerpt or 2 or 3 or 4.
And actually, for me, it IS behind a paywall in a way because I only get so many NYT clicks/month.

Sorry, thanks. Noted.

This is an NYT article wherein the writer tries (with the success depending upon the reader's perspective and existing prejudices) to explain to what most would perceive as a 'typical' NYT reader that not necessarily everyone who has a gun (or more than one) is an inbred Nazi, Trump loving, Faux 'news' listening, Breitbart reading, anti-union racist redneck with no teeth who wet dreams about stringing up POC. It is guaranteed to either confirm your existing beliefs or make you disdainful of the urban sophisticates it is ostensibly targeted towards. Someone toward the gun control side would find it insightful, an RKBA adherent would probably find it patronizing.

{snip}" ...I have come to understand and appreciate arguments for more gun control. But guns are important to the culture in my conservative community in Iowa, and people around here reject most gun control legislation. So I do my best to understand where they are coming from....."

"....For me, guns always bring to mind Grandpa Leonard. I remember the first time he took me hunting. He took a shot, and a squirrel fell from the branches of the oak. “Looks like we eat stew tonight,” he said. I retrieved the squirrel, still warm, in the cool Iowa summer morning, and laid it in the pile of four or five he had already shot..."

....

"Grandpa Leonard was not a Republican but a devoted New Deal Democrat. He went to his grave knowing that the policies of President Franklin Roosevelt saved his family, including 11 children, from starvation during the Great Depression. Grandpa was a pro-union coal miner, a farm hand, a road crew worker, a boat builder and a factory worker.

Today, many rural men just like him are dedicated Republicans. If Democrats want to engage rural America culturally and politically, they need to understand us, and at least some of our ideals..."

Hope I didn't come off as sounding a little snooty,, WHICH had been known to happen.

the problem is not that Democrats don't understand "rural America"... the problem is lobbyists, the NRA, anti-government people, etc. misleading/lying to create fear and apprehension...

I grew up in rural America, with guns in the house... most of the people around me were hunters... most all measures that us more "liberal" folk want will not deny people their hunting guns and ability to have guns for security...

the problem is lack of empathy, honest communication and some people's refusal to think critically

Not saying I agree with it, but interesting and well written.

Personally, I think both the things mentioned in the article AND everything you mentioned bear on the problem. Complex issues have complex causes in my opinion; very few if any societal troubles have only one or a few factors.

However a question, an honest one; do you see ALL semi-automatic weapons with detachable magazines then being banned? I don't have a dog in the hunt, myself, as my firearms are either revolvers or bolt action rifles (except a 10/22) and am more a muzzleloader type of guy who writes with a fountain pen, still.....

It was California that kicked off the concept of "assault weapons" with their ban in, I believe, 1989. It created the concept of "assault" weapons: guns that were somehow too dangerous to be legal to own. New Jersey and Connecticut followed, then the Federal Government in 1993.

Gun-control people, predominately Democrats, tried to make it a winning issue, part of being "tough on crime" but in a different way than "lock-em-up-forever" Republicans.

We've been living with it wounding us ever since. The NRA and similar may be hyping it, but just check out any "fuck the NRA" thread in GD and you'll find it very common for the vast majority of posters to support most or all of the following, singly or in multiple combinations:

• Reinstating the Federal AWB
  
• Expanding the Federal AWB
  
• Repealing the Second Amendment
  
• Turning gun ownership from a right into a privilege
  
• Banning all semi-automatic rifles
  
• Banning all semi-automatic handguns
  
• Banning all handguns
  
• Banning all repeating long guns (lever, bolt, pump)
  
• Requiring universal registration of all guns
  
• Requiring all privately owned guns to be stored under lock and key at the police station
  
• Requiring all privately owned guns to be stored under lock and key at a licensed shooting club
  
• Requiring extensive background checks that include interviewing friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers to determine if an applicant will be allowed to own a gun
  
• Requiring an applicant to demonstrate "good cause" to own a gun (and usually "self defense/personal protection" is not good cause)
  
• Registering ammunition and cartridge components (may include outlawing handloading of ammunition)
  
• Limiting sales of ammunition
  
• Limiting amounts of ammunition allowed to be possessed by a gun owner
  
• Limiting number of guns owned by a gun owner
  
• Requiring ammunition to be stored with the gun at the police station or licensed shooting club
  
• Requiring microstamping technology to stamp the gun's serial number on each cartridge as it is being fired (see: universal gun registration)
  
• Requiring bullets to have lot numbers stamped on them (on the base) so recovered bullets could be traced to the owner (see: ammunition registration)
  
• Mandating smart-gun technology so the gun only fired for its registered owner
  
• Raising the age to buy a long gun to 21 (it's already 21 for handguns)
  
• Waiting periods (generally, 3 to 14 days)
  
• Registration of detachable magazines
  
• Limiting ownership of detachable magazines
  
• Magazine-capacity limits (typically at 10 rounds)
  
• Banning detachable magazines entirely
  
• Banning guns that accept detachable magazines
  
• Outlawing concealed carry
  
• Outlawing open carry

I think that's a comprehensive list.

A lot of these are being proposed by the student activists, well-known Americans (pundits, media personalities, etc.), and a lot of Democratic lawmakers. So the NRA, at least since the tragedy in Florida, doesn't have to do much except play the media sound bites and video clips. "They're coming for your guns. Here they are in their own words."

Of course there is a long history of the NRA acting like giant racist assholes just in general, but the fear that Democrats will actually be able to get what they want done a) drives gun sales and b) drives gun-owners to the polls.



Look, either the threat of new and stringent gun laws is real, at which point their reaction (buying guns, donating time and money to pro-gun groups & individuals) is reasonable, or the threat is just a dream, at which you're admitting that the Democrats don't have the power to put actions behind their words. And then when gun owners take Democratic threats seriously, they get called paranoid. Which is another way of stating that it's all just talk and "I can't believe they believe what I said in all seriousness!".

We've moved beyond a discussion of gun-control. We can't rationally and reasonably discuss the myriad causes of violence (some of which is done through use of firearms), we can't discuss what an "assault weapon" is, we can't discuss the merits and effectiveness of various gun regulation ideas. All we can have now is a screaming match that's long on emotion and short on facts.

extent that the writer implies that religious beliefs are at the heart of resistance to gun control. Many people who aren't religious at all reject most of the gun control measures that are typically proposed, simply because they don't believe they'd do much good, and that the bar for eliminating personal rights should be much higher than: "Maybe it'll work."

I don't think anything as complex, difficult and deeply rooted as RKBA vs Gun control has just one cause, or even just a few; complex issues have complex causes, in my observation. Good point, as I know several openly atheistic or agnostic people with extensive caches of firearms. The author may have confused correlation with causation.