Beto says the quiet part out loud.

[LittleRaven]

Oh, Beto....you beautiful fool. Why are you doing this to us?

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/20/politics/beto-orourke-guns-gun-control/index.html

Beto O'Rourke is back in the middle of the 2020 conversation, following his proposal during last week's third presidential debate that AR-15s and AK-47s would be subject to a mandatory gun buyback program if he is elected president.

The question is whether O'Rourke's proposal -- and the newfound prominence it's given him in the race -- will doom congressional Democrats' attempts to make a deal with President Donald Trump on a background check bill in the wake of a serious of recent mass shootings.

And the answer to that question is almost certainly a resounding YES - at least if recent history is anything to go off of. There's a reason Democrats have adopted the mantra "Nobody is coming for your guns." over the last couple of decades - it turns out they actually kind of LIKE winning elections once in a while. And now Beto is torpedoing not only HIS chances for higher office but the entire Democratic ticket...just to stay in the next round of debates?

Maybe there's some 11th dimensional chess going on here, but I don't see it.

[Mecha82]

That is reasonable idea to anyone sensible and who isn't under NRA's payroll. Too bad that there is lot of unreasonable people in US that think that having several guns is only way to feel safe and most politicians seem to be under NRA's payroll in order to make sure that gun manufacturers can keep making profits. After all no one has done anything even after all those mass shootings and talking about possible solutions seems to be forbidden.

[LittleRaven]

That is reasonable idea to anyone sensible and who isn't under NRA's payroll.

Maybe to people who have no idea how the Constitution works.

The 2nd Amendment is right there, in black and white. It can't be reasoned with. It can't be bargained with. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that it is an individual right. Even in some fantasy land where Beto wins and Congress passes his legislation - it will be struck down by the Courts.

Too bad that there is lot of unreasonable people in US that think that having several guns is only way to feel safe and most politicians seem to be under NRA's payroll in order to make sure that gun manufacturers can keep making profits.

The NRA is broke, and even when it wasn't, it was never a lobbying giant. The NRA gives paltry amounts of money to politicians. The reason the NRA has such strong political support is one you've already hit on - there are a LOT of people in America that like their guns, and they vote accordingly. And the only thing a politician values more than campaign contributions are votes.

Which is why Beto is being so stupid here. The Democrats have spent decades trying to persuade the American public that they just want "sensible legislation" - more background checks, maybe some red flag laws or storage guild lines - but nothing too onerous and certainly not confiscation. And now Beto has just forced the entire Democratic party to either refute him or prove to gun owners that they have been acting in bad faith all along - the optics are just terrible no matter what.

"I don't belong to any organized political party - I'm a Democrat."

[TGLS]

If we're living in that fantasy land, I see no reason why Beto doesn't stack or purge the courts in his favour.

On the topic of guns, I've wondered why no one has tried a soft touch strategy of dealing with the weapons (i.e. instituting manufacturing controls, raising taxes on guns, etc.) No one has argued that the right of free speech includes the right to a printing press at a reasonable price, much less for nothing.

[LittleRaven]

If we're living in that fantasy land, I see no reason why Beto doesn't stack or purge the courts in his favour.

Presumably because if he has the power to stack the courts, he has the power to change the Constitution. It's not like the thing is set in stone - we have a well-traveled road for amending it. That would probably be easier and certainly be a LOT less controversial than trying to stack the courts.

On the topic of guns, I've wondered why no one has tried a soft touch strategy of dealing with the weapons (i.e. instituting manufacturing controls, raising taxes on guns, etc.)

People have, but you run into some basic problems.

• Federal programs have trouble getting the necessary Congressional support - especially in the Senate. Flyover country may be largely empty, but the people who are there really like their guns and they get quite a few Senators.
• There's only so much an individual state can do, given that people are free to travel around the country. If California puts a 2000% tax on guns, well, sure, no gun will ever be sold in California again, but gun stores along the Arizona border are going to be raking it in, and those guns will simply flow across the border to California.

[Robovski]

I'm certainly not on any NRA payroll, nor am I a member, nor do I have any guns in my possession (though my father's longarms are technically mine in an uncle's house on what was my father's farm). You have a very clear right to bear arms, and Beto can stuff it.

[clearspira]

I'm certainly not on any NRA payroll, nor am I a member, nor do I have any guns in my possession (though my father's longarms are technically mine in an uncle's house on what was my father's farm). You have a very clear right to bear arms, and Beto can stuff it.

No one is saying you can't bear arms though. You can still buy pistols, shotguns, rifles, knives. Weapons that will see you through 99% of encounters you will ever be faced with.

What they want to ban are the stupid weapons. The weapons you don't need. The weapons that are pointless. There is NO POINT for an ordinary person to an assault rifle in the US. And if you don't agree, give me one. Give me a realistic scenario in which you would need a Kalashnikov.

[CmdrKing]

I mean, the strategy at play is incredibly simple, not really worthy of the term. It just depends on assuming some premises you're ignoring.

1) The Reasonable Republican Interested in Governance became an endangered species in the time of Gingrich and died out entirely once McConnel became majority leader.
1a) therefore all supposed movement towards "compromise" gun reform is a sham, meant to stretch out the status quo indefinitely and, through government inaction, improve Republican standing since one of their party planks is "Government Doesn't Work".

2) The rise in excitement from young, never-before voters and less active Democratic voters from promising decisive action on one of the most visible, activating issues of the day would subsequently be pure gains with no downside.

This is a deliberate oversimplification mind, and obviously we can debate the effectiveness/truth of these premises, but those are the underlying assumptions behind this move.

I would add that one of the highest priorities of any Democrat elected should be the supreme court. Whether by instituting term limits and aggressively encouraging Thomas, Kavanaugh, and to a lesser extent Gorsuch to fuck off on their own, court packing, or by actively impeaching and removing them, this court is illegitimate while the influence of Trump-style republicans remains and cannot stand as is.

[LittleRaven]

There is NO POINT for an ordinary person to an assault rifle in the US. And if you don't agree, give me one.

Rights don't work that way in the US. You don't need to justify a right....you simply have it. That's what makes it a right instead of a privilege. It's difficult for me to imagine why anyone would want to claim that vaccines cause autism. That seems amazingly stupid to me. But the First Amendment gives people that right, and they don't have to justify it to anyone.

Now the right to firearms is not absolute, in fact, we have a lot of restrictions on it already, most of which are covered in the NFA. Exactly how much more we can restrict without drawing the ire of the court is a delicate dance that people are forever on tiptoes in. (for the latest, observe New York desperately trying to prevent one of it's laws from going before the court!)

https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2019/09/11/the-supreme-court-mulls-whether-to-ditch-a-gun-rights-case

as an aside - does anyone else really miss the old URL tag?

And in any case, trying to ban "assault rifles" is....hard....because to the extent that an "assault rifle" is a real thing, it is a thing that is already illegal to possess without a NFA license. Trying to expand the definition of assault rifle to cover what people who don't know very much about guns think of when they hear the term is....hard. We've tried...lots of times...and it never really works very well, because you end up having to dance around mostly cosmetic features while avoiding the thing that really makes guns deadly...the semi-automatic capacity, because going after THAT is a sure fire way to end up before the Court.

[Robovski]

Again, I have to point out that an AR-15 is just a rifle, it is often used in hunting and target shooting. It is NOT an assault rifle, it is just styled like one; and somehow people can't make that distinction, probably on purpose.