BIG MISTAKE....Obama said "ban" when talking about guns... He just proved the NRA right..ON LIVE TV

[krispos42]

326. Here's the problems.

1) It's stupid to begin with. Legislatures should not make stupid laws; that I think is a good general principle for lawmakers in general.

2) Because gun-owners and those knowledgeable of guns have the facts on their side, it makes passage of a ban only possible if reason and intelligence and informed debate is suppressed, and what Charlie Pierce called "Idiot America" is allowed to dominate. The foolish Gut, and not the Brain. This is how the right-wing functions, and I really don't want it to infect the Left any more than necessary.

2) It wastes legislative time and political capital. It makes Democrats scarce and Republicans plentiful, which inhibits EVERYTHING ELSE Democrats want to accomplish.

3) It activates gun owners, who tend to vote Republican, while having a neutral effect on non-gun owners, who tend to vote Democratic.

4) It illustrates a fundamental and overlooked fact that people that choose to own guns will organize and pay to protect their choice, while people that choose NOT to own guns have to do absolutely nothing to protect their choice.

5) It glosses over real solutions to our problem with violence. Legalizing pot, for example, make far more sense and will do far more to lower the homicide rate than splitting hairs over a list of acceptable cosmetic features. But this entire concept is perceived as being far to extreme for a mainstream party or politician to bring up.

6) It's politically weak tea, a blatant pander attempt that most people can see through. Knowing what I posted previously to your reply, the only honest position on banning 'assault weapons' is to work towards banning all semi-automatic long guns, period. Trying to differentiate between "assault weapon" semi-automatic guns and "acceptable for sporting or self-defense" semi-automatic guns is both arbitrary and a waste of time, unless you're trying to pander. It's like those people that try to say "I want to outlaw abortion except in cases of rape or incest". Well, that's a completely pander-bear position; if life begins at inception (or implantation), then the origin of the life is irrelevant. Can I stab the adult offspring of rape to death with impunity? No, I can't. Either life begins at birth, or it begins at conception/implantation. Saying "well, it depends" is just pandering. It's people who are trying to rationalize or soften their positions to make them acceptable to the masses.

7) By your admission, it creates an easily-circumventable work-around... which will of course need to be fixed at some point in the future. Many people will logically and reasonably conclude that you're trying to pass something with known flaws so you have the door open to increased regulation or whatever in the future.