To say I'm in favor of gun control would be putting it mildly. I hate guns and wish they were outlawed entirely.
But then there's realism:
[I]t becomes increasingly clear, on all sides, that no amount of gun massacres at schools or workplaces will lead to any change whatsoever. After Sandy Hook people really thought that we'd reached a level of scale and barbarity that the scales would tip on the gun issue. But it didn't. And with each successive massacre, it's been harder to pretend that any level or scale of carnage would make any difference....
We as a society have made our decision. Monthly high profile gun massacres are the price we are willing to pay for increasingly unregulated access to guns by virtually everyone - with minor impediments for felons and people who have been adjudicated as mentally ill.
And polling shows that this broad cultural decision is a fairly recent one - since around about the time a certain Kenyan-born Muslim black man
became president:
[T]he choice is settled and un-conflicted: no amount of massacres or scales of body counts or simply annual numbers of people killed by firearms matter. The ability to have unfettered access to guns is an absolute. This is confirmed by a substantial amount of public opinion research that shows not only that pro-gun sentiment has increased since the Newton Massacre in 2012 but that by many measures it has crossed a historic threshold where 'gun rights' has become the dominant US position....
According to Pew, the number of people who say it's more important to protect 'gun rights' than control gun ownership finally became the majority opinion after Newtown....
The real story is that guns have become a key part of Republican partisan self-identification since the dawn of the Obama era....
The politics transformed because of a dramatic shift in opinion on the part of Republicans that began at the outset of the Obama presidency. Democrats have remained more or less unchanged in their position, at least within a band that has been broadly stable since the early 90s....
Going slightly beyond what the data tells us, it seems clear that being pro-gun has become a key element of Republican self-identification. That is to say, it's not just that many Republicans' views have changed since Obama took office, but that being pro-gun has become an elemental part of what it means to be a Republican.
Which leads me to wonder whether a President Sanders, with his belief in the need to let gun control or the lack of it be localized by the needs of different communities, would have a positive effect on this pathology of Republicans needing guns as part of their self-identification. If a Democratic president was fine with localizing the regulation of guns with the needs of the people of that locality, maybe it would break down some of the more rabid paranoia around the subject of guns and gun regulation.
As an aside, that bill shielding firearms manufacturers and dealers from liability lawsuits that Bernie Sanders and many other Democrats voted for back in 2005, I think it should not exist. Why should they be shielded from lawsuits? The argument at the time was that manufacturers didn't have deep pockets for that sort of thing and were needed to supply the military. That sounds like complete bosh to me. Apparently, though, most such suits were already being dismissed by the courts, and 33 states had adopted laws similar to the federal bill.
Speaking politically, I think Sanders' history of positions on gun control is likely to be more popular with the demographic of working-class white voters "clinging to their guns" than Hillary's call for more regulation is likely to be. Hell, maybe it could be the single most important thing bringing the lower-income white demographic to the Democratic fold, or at least not keeping it out.
Or maybe Sanders will "evolve" on the issue in response to criticism from the base and competition from more fervent gun control advocate Martin O’Malley. Sanders is apparently working on a plan to address gun violence and will release it soon.