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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIn Gun Debate, Divide Grows as Both Sides Dig In for Battle
In the nine months since, although supporters of stricter legislation have won some victories, those high hopes have been tempered by a series of losses, most notably in April when the Senate defeated several measures to strengthen gun restrictions and then last week in Colorado, where two state senators who had backed stronger gun laws lost recall elections.
The greatest successes of gun control supporters came in the form of sweeping new laws in a handful of Democratic-led states, including Maryland and New York, as well as in politically mixed Colorado. But more than two dozen states, most of them controlled by Republicans, moved in the opposite direction, broadly expanding the rights of gun owners.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/us/in-gun-debate-divide-grows-as-both-sides-dig-in-for-battle.html?hp&_r=0
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SecularMotion
(7,981 posts)Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)The huge differences from state to state in their current trends in firearms regulation just serve to further point up the growing general divisions the nation is experiencing. I will be very surprised indeed if the next couple decades or so don't see a break-up, a la the former Soviet Union. Probably 6 to 8 regional polities (as most individual states are probably not economically viable by themselves). Among many other issues, regulation of firearms would be just one area in which those polities would differ.
cali
(114,904 posts)I sure don't see the disparity in gun laws as being a catalyst to the break up of the nation.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Contributory? Yes, actually...the number of people for whom gun control is a "hot button" issue shouldn't be underestimated. However, I certainly agree that it's not likely to be a major catalyst. Factors contributing to a restructuring into regional polities would ted to be much broader and far less focused. General socio-economic trends...that sort of thing.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)Have one country with mandatory ultrasounds and gun nuttery and creationism in schools, and another with a middle class and universal healthcare. I know it's not that simple, but still...
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)In fact, I tend to actively support the idea...I think the time of the continent-spanning superstate is just about passed into history.
As you say, though, it's not as simple as a dichotomy between a progressive utopia and a teabilly backwater. Here in the PNW (Cascadia!) for example, I suspect we'd tend towards a relatively liberal society (that hems and haws in embarrassment over the Idaho panhandle...), but it's highly unlikely that there would be strict firearms regulations. We're just too "western" for that to gain traction.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)I mean, if the Republicans really force us into default, that would get serious people thinking that this country simply doesn't work anymore.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)The debt ceiling crisis is a terrific example of what I'd call a "major catalyst" behind a restructuring (as opposed to fights over the degree of gun regulation...which I consider a minor catalyst, for all that it's a hot button issue for some folks).
Given the tremendous corruption of the democratic process that afflicts our political system today, and given the difficulty in enacting meaningful reforms of that system against opposition by the entrenched powers the corruption benefits, I just don't see the nation as currently constituted being able to bootstrap itself out of the current death spiral. Restructuring (very possibly post-default) is liely inevitable, in my view.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Guns are an inseparable part of our identity, and it's part of the Bill of Rights. Americans genuinely believe guns are a normal part of society.
If serious action were to be taken against guns, it would have been after Newtown or Aurora. I'm for gun restrictions (why are Bushmasters still legal after so many massacres?), unfortunately you're wasting your time.
GalaxyHunter
(271 posts)Might be easier to go back and re-write the constitution and take out the 2nd Amendment.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)Things can change. Demographics give one reason for hope, since the NRA crowd tends to be older, rural, and white.
SecularMotion
(7,981 posts)The share of American households with guns has declined over the past four decades, a national survey shows, with some of the most surprising drops in the South and the Western mountain states, where guns are deeply embedded in the culture.
The gun ownership rate has fallen across a broad cross section of households since the early 1970s, according to data from the General Social Survey, a public opinion survey conducted every two years that asks a sample of American adults if they have guns at home, among other questions.
The rate has dropped in cities large and small, in suburbs and rural areas and in all regions of the country. It has fallen among households with children, and among those without. It has declined for households that say they are very happy, and for those that say they are not. It is down among churchgoers and those who never sit in pews.
The household gun ownership rate has fallen from an average of 50 percent in the 1970s to 49 percent in the 1980s, 43 percent in the 1990s and 35 percent in the 2000s, according to the survey data, analyzed by The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/us/rate-of-gun-ownership-is-down-survey-shows.html?pagewanted=all
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/12/27/record-number-of-americans-oppose-handgun-ban-gallup-poll-shows/
Just getting a gun control bill passed will be hard enough, getting a ban is impossible. Amazing how household ownership goes down but support for handguns goes up.
SecularMotion
(7,981 posts)
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Obviously support for gun ownership is not proportional to the number of households possessing them.
Gun crimes happen not because we failed to pass proper legislation, they happen because we permit weapons of mass murder. Two Colorado legislators were just recalled for supporting mild gun control, so those poll numbers do not seem to materialize when needed.
SecularMotion
(7,981 posts)The fact that 74% of the respondents say there should not be a ban on handguns can not be taken as a measure of support for gun ownership.
I also wouldn't take the results of the 2 recall elections in Colorado as any indication of national support of gun control.
billh58
(6,635 posts)to see responses to the question: "Should there be a general ban on handguns being carried in public by citizens who are not members of law enforcement or the military while performing official duties?"
