That might be true if the level of commitment on the anti-gun side was equal to the level of commitment on the pro-gun side, but it's not. If it was we would have seen strict gun control laws in the first two years of the Obama presidency when the Dems controlled both houses of congress and the white house. But we didn't because "health care reform" was more important to them and they spent all their political capital on that.Quote:
Originally Posted by OxArt
I would say you've got it backwards. "Hating guns" might please a few of the "mad moms" but it doesn't buy the dems one single vote or put one cent into their pockets, so it doesn't help them in any tangible way.Quote:
As much as Democrats pretend to love "undocumented" they don't care, it's just buying votes. But they REALLY HATE GUNS.
Identity politics, pitting one constituent group against another, and using the power of government to take $$ from disfavored groups and put it into the pockets of favored groups, is where the Dems heart and soul is. That's their source of power.
The last time the Dems went "all in" on gun control, they got shellacked. They haven't forgotten the beating they took in 1994 which still affects their party even today.
The Dems are playing the long game. They know they can't get their program through until they get themselves a veto-proof majority in both houses. They do that by getting as many people as possible to vote for them, and if they're poor and brown, so much the better because people who are poor and brown tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat and they know that.
In that equation, gun control helps them not a bit, and just makes the "red" states dig their heels in that much harder.
On the Republican side, giving in on any kind of widespread gun control is guaranteed to cost them votes and buy them nothing from the Dem voters who will hate them no matter how they vote on guns. So there's no up-side to Republicans supporting anything other than very marginal gun laws that don't really affect anybody who would vote.
