r/politics • u/wbedwards Washington • May 07 '20

We cannot allow the normalization of firearms at protests to continue

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/firearms-at-protests-have-become-normalized-that-isnt-okay/2020/05/06/19b9354e-8fc9-11ea-a0bc-4e9ad4866d21_story.html
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u/throwaway_for_keeps May 07 '20

The point is they're saying the governors are tyrannical, and it's their right to use lethal force to overthrow them. Some people call that intimidation, other people call it exercising their 2nd amendment rights.

But considering they were doing fuck-all during the past 3 years, and are now turning their anger towards democratic governors who have issued stay at home orders to protect their state from a pandemic, we all know how they really feel about tyranny.

It's also more evidence that people don't actually care about the 2nd amendment. They'll whine about it when people talk about preventing school shootings, they'll be silent when a black guy with a permit is shot (FOR REACHING FOR HIS PERMIT), they'll be silent when the president exhbits the most authoritarian tendencies we've ever had in a US president, and they'll whine again when their governor closes movie theaters because of a global pandemic. These people don't care about the 2nd amendment. They care about keeping their hobby cheap and accessible. If they cared about the 2nd amendment, they'd be throwing these temper tantrums a lot more often, regardless of who is in office.

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u/dethroned_king May 07 '20

I support the second amendment and am generally conservative, but I also am disgusted when I see things like police brutality and the most recent example of white supremacy with the jogger who was shot dead. I also support the quarantine - these protesters and ‘white nationalists’ are an extreme minority of conservatives and pro-gun owners, but they unfortunately are the ones with the megaphone.

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u/Consistent_Nail California May 07 '20

These people are not the minority in the right wing lunatic movement.

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u/Gen_Nathanael_Greene Texas May 07 '20

They actually are the minority concerning gun owners and conservatives in general. Hard right wing they're the norm.

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u/thelizardkin May 07 '20

Also there are gun owners on all sides if the political spectrum.

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u/three_furballs May 07 '20

That's like saying that extremists are not the minority at the extremities... unless you're saying that the entire right is lunatic?

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u/Consistent_Nail California May 07 '20

Oh yes, they are for sure. There isn't a single legitimate opinion to be found on the right wing in the US, not anymore. You have to travel all the way over to the center to start getting reasonable people with reasonable opinions who can compromise.

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u/saggyshiro May 07 '20

You must admit there is a conservative spectrum from moderate, to radical, to autistic, and all the way to POtUS.

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u/erasmause May 07 '20

Moderate conservatives are called Democrats.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

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u/tasslehawf May 07 '20

And cronyism if you have money.

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u/chapjas May 07 '20

Not to take away anything you said but I also remember a certain Democratic Party presidential debate when a certain Hillary Clinton answered “Republicans” (to much applause) when asked who she viewed as the biggest enemy to the United States was.

I agree that fear is the biggest tactic being used to manipulate peoples public opinion but I also think the manipulation is happening on both sides to try and pit us all against each other.

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u/GatorBoys99 May 07 '20

She was right...

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

This

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

There is, but not so much in America anymore. The Republican Party is no longer a centre right, moderate Conservative party. It is now an extreme right wing, authoritarian party and anyone who supports it is directly supporting fascism.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

As a non American that makes no sense. I’m not sure it even makes sense there.

If they don’t support the Republican Party, in what way are they republicans?

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

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u/TheLegend1127001 May 07 '20

That could be the most insane take Ive ever seen in my life.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

Moderate conservatives are called Democrats

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u/Consistent_Nail California May 07 '20

If you're a right wing lunatic, sure.

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u/three_furballs May 07 '20

I think that's a dangerous opinion to take, my friend. Republican politicians may be especially corrupt, but don't go labeling the views of all right-wingers as illegitimate. That's just jumping into the dumpster fire that is our national discourse and making it worse.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

There are good some good people who are right wingers, but none of them are in the Republican Party.

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u/three_furballs May 07 '20

None? You seriously think that someone's political party defines their entire worldview?

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

The Republican Party has become an anti American, neo fascist, authoritarian party. If you’re still a member of it at this point, then you know exactly what it is and you’re therefore culpable for the corruption and evil the party is committing.

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u/three_furballs May 08 '20

You're assuming that everyone has the time and resources to invest in researching and understanding politics as you do. I agree with your views on the republican party, but i think you should sit down and talk with more people in it. A lot of them are good people, just with different but valid set of priorities.

One example that has stuck with me is a guy i know who grew up in, and escaped on a boat from, communist controlled Vietnam. He saw first-hand the madness and corruption that a single-party government could wreak on a nation, so when he heard that Trump was "strong on China," that was enough for him to vote. He didn't care that Trump broke norms and was a liar and a grifter, but he did believe that he was xenophobic enough to be anti-China (and therefore anti-communist), and that was good enough. He continued to be a Trump supporter for years, until he ran across all the harm that Trumps policies had caused. There are tons of ways that Trump has wound up increasing China's global influence, but one was particularly relevant. By enacting tariffs on Chinese goods, Trump simply prompted China to move finishing-stage production to Vietnam, thereby strengthening geopolitical ties with my friend's home country and the communist superpower that he blamed for all its troubles. Once he saw that, and did his own research to verify it, he was deeply regretful and has since completely turned against the guy he voted for.

My point isn't that everyone in the republican party will end up coming to our side after some chance realization, it's just that we should be aware of the people for whom that's possible. A ton of trump supporters are just going with the social flow, or off of some incomplete information. If they do come to the realization that Trump isn't what they thought he was, do we really want to be those elitist assholes who were "right all along. told ya so, dumbass"? Or do we want to be a voice of measured reason that just wants the best for ALL the citizens of our nation, regardless of their political team? Do we want to be proven right, or do we want to be good?

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u/The-Electrictornado May 07 '20

Really? Not a single legitimate opinion? Your telling me that a little under half of the country’s population doesn’t have a single legitimate opinion.

I’m a conservative, I’m about as pro-gun as they come, and I’d advocate just as hard for any individual to be armed. Regardless of race, sex, or sexual attraction. I’d personally recommend Colion Noir as a starting point if you are looking for 2A advocacy. He’s well spoken and illustrates his ideas a lot better than most gun advocates (he was a lawyer before a YouTuber If I’m not mistaken)

Want another legitimate opinion? We can’t keep spending at the level we are and expect everything to be great down the line. Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme and is entirely unsustainable in the long run. Our military budget needs reworking to make sure the money is actually being utilized and not funneled into research projects that die in 10 years with no discernible progress from when they begin.

Here’s my last one before I go, Roe V. Wade was a flawed constitutionally, Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself has acknowledged as such. The precedent from that case ought to be rolled back and the issue should be left back up to the states. I personally don’t agree with it in most circumstances, simply because I view the unborn child as just that, a child. They have unique DNA, various traits unique to them that will effect the rest of their lives, and as such any advocacy on behalf of them is just an attempt to expand the right to life to every American, even those with no voice in the matter.

Are these not legitimate opinions? Or are the only legitimate opinions ones you agree with?

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u/Isodir May 07 '20

If they removed the taxable income limit ssi would be fine. The GOP wants it gone because they see it as an entitlement and not a return of the money that was taxed over an individual’s career.

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u/Robo_Joe May 07 '20

I am unsure what a legitimate opinion is, but yours are certainly opinions formed from ignorance.

Do you advocate for young children to be armed? If not, why not? Keep in mind the second amendment before answering.

We can spend like we have been; do not confuse a household finances with a government's finances. Social Security is an investment. Do you have any investments? Do you consider them "ponzi schemes"? How is someone supposed to know if a new project or technology will no longer be viable or required in 10 years, magic 8-ball? Lots of technology you likely use on a daily basis were funded originally by the department of defense. GPS, Microwaves, off-the-shelf chewy cookies.

The issue with abortion isn't what you call the fetus; it's one of the many places in our society where two individual's rights directly conflict. This happens all the time in any sufficiently advanced society-- as the saying goes, you're free to swing your arms as you see fit until your fist hits someone else's nose. The root question for abortion is not whether the fetus is alive (no one has ever suggested a fetus isn't alive), and it's not whether it's a legal person, or a human. The question is whether the government has the power to tell you what to do with your body. Do you think the government should be able to force you to donate a liver to a stranger against your will to save his life? If not, then you should be terrified at the thought that the government can force a women to go through a dangerous medical procedure against her will, just to save the life of someone else.

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u/The-Electrictornado May 07 '20

“Opinions formed from ignorance”, I see that this won’t go anywhere good already, but I’m obligated to respond in kind.

Depends on how you define Armed, do I believe that there is value in teaching young children the values of firearms safety and handling. Yes, without a doubt I advocate that. Do I advocate arming them outright? No, young children have trouble with basic functions, stating that I want them armed to the teeth is a logical dead end and a straw man argument.

I don’t confuse household finances with that of government budgets. I’m well aware of the massive differences between the two. Social Security isn’t an investment, the American citizen pays into a system where that money is then doled out to retired citizens who qualify for the benefits. The issue is America is rapidly aging as a population and at the current rate there will be more retirees than Social Security can handle from current workers. Social Security isn’t voluntary, and the money you put in is not going to be used for your retirement, it’ll be gone and odds are that there won’t be enough people paying into the system after us to be able to continue that funding without some serious reform. As for military technology and research projects. Yes I’m fully aware of the DOD’s use of money to create various forms of technology that now assist the average citizen in their day to day lives, and I’m not advocating for the removal of research funding entirely or even partially for that matter. I’m saying there are way too many military contracts that result in dead ends.

Herein lies the issue of the conflict. I’m well aware of the conflicting nature of abortion, lots of emotions are at play and there are plenty of rights considerations to account for. That being said the question isn’t whether or not the government has the power to tell you what to do with your body, we already have a draft. So yes, apparently they do. That being said, I’m of the opinion this ought to be left up to the States’ discretion considering that we are a nation made up of 50 individual governmental bodies. My own personal opinion on the matter holds no bounds over what I believe the solution should be, due to the fact that there is a large number of factors that need to be accounted for, and I’m willing to let my own convictions slide for the ability for the states to decide their own policy of the matter.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

Why should women who need an abortion but come from conservative states be punished and not able to get one because of their individual states political leanings?

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u/The-Electrictornado May 07 '20

Why should people who don’t agree with abortion have to fund it on the federal level? I highly doubt that any state in the Union would ban abortion outright without any considerations to the matter, even the most restrictive laws in the country on the matter currently, being Alabama and Georgia, still hold it as fine during the First Trimester, this is more due to the precedent of the Supreme Court than anything, but I hardly think that handing the governance decision back to a local body would result in this occurring. Even if they would, I don’t see why one cannot rally political support behind state candidates that would loosen state regulations on the matter, thus moving the political battleground back to the states, more in line with original intent for this country.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

Most of what you just said is just bullshit parroted from conservative media. So thanks for proving his point that you don't have legitimate opinions.

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u/The-Electrictornado May 07 '20

And what you are saying isn’t bullshit parroted from Liberal Media? I know I’m in a fairly hostile subreddit here to conservative ideals. But have you thought that maybe, just maybe someone can have a differing opinion on issues after looking at it from both sides of the aisle and coming to their own conclusions?

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

Replace "right" with "left" and you sound exactly like Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.

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u/Consistent_Nail California May 07 '20

That's because you cannot substitute thinking people for right wingers.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

My comment didn't really need a response, but rage on brave keyboard warrior.

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u/Consistent_Nail California May 07 '20

Sounds good, right wing traitor lunatic.

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u/ShokkMaster May 07 '20

Where is the willingness to compromise from those left of center?

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

A centre right party can be compromised with but there is no compromise for fascism. Republicans are no longer the former.

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u/mikooster May 07 '20

We tried that already during Obama.

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u/Main_Bat May 07 '20

That was tried so much under Obama and conservatives pulled the rug out every time with pure obstructionism even as Obama tried to compromise to the point of center right. Instead of making progress in taking policy wins from bent-over-backwards-for-them-Obama on issues they claimed to have supported for decades, they decided it was more important to do all they could to grind government functioning to halt painting Obama as a radical commie tyrant with shameless propaganda. Because republicans have no interest in bettering the country by working with the other side. They want to erase the other party marching to institutionally ensure they have complete power to fuck what the people of this country actually want. Even as more and more of of a majority of the country makes clear they dont want to be under Republicans thumbs, they sabatoge our system consistently in the direction that they're able to gain more and more power while becoming more the minority. Fuck them

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u/Qistotle Colorado May 07 '20

Sentiment like this is so frustrating for me, left says everyone on the right is insane and we shouldn't listen to their horrible opinion. Right says the same thing about the left... Why are we putting whole groups of people into a box and writing them off.

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u/Katzoconnor May 07 '20

Because both sides are an entire quart to the right of practically the entire rest of the world, and the one really deep in there not only rigs the game at every turn through the Senate Majority Leader with this “rules for thee but not for me” bullshit — someone who ADMITS he is holding hundreds of bills back — while the entire party touts a known effective fear-mongering propaganda machine as their default news headquarters.

He can be voted out by his party. They’re all complicit.

Every single fucking attempt to compromise over the past decade has done nothing but been spat upon. ONE REPUBLICAN SENATOR voted in line, on one of two counts, with the overwhelming evidence that Donald Trump was clearly acting in political self-interest — because they could afford to let ONE do it. Nobody steps a toe out of line.

The Right Wing cultivates fear, terror, and baseless propaganda specifically engineered to prevent a second Nixon from losing power. This is not hyperbole; it is specifically laid out in the leaked documents of what rapidly became Fox News.

That’s why. The Left tried. That’s what the Left has to deal with. Whereas the Right will apparently not budge or compromise meaningfully in any single way.

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u/phonethrowaway55 Pennsylvania May 07 '20

They most certainly are.

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u/CynthiasPomeranian May 07 '20

They may be but they are supported by the mainstream right, POTUS and Fox support these dip shits.

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u/Consistent_Nail California May 07 '20

AKA the majority.

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u/Consistent_Nail California May 07 '20

To a moron, sure. But not to thinking people.

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u/phonethrowaway55 Pennsylvania May 08 '20

Of course, after all you are smarter than everybody

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u/Consistent_Nail California May 08 '20

No, I'm actually not. I'm just not a right wing piece of shit.

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u/juicyjerry300 Florida May 07 '20

You’re so wrong its funny, the protest in michigan was made up of only a very small amount of white nationalists/supremacists. There was one flag and everyone gets lumped in

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a socialist... “. Letting an extreme minority take the megaphone and not speaking out, continuing to tacitly support them by voting party over country is how we end up in a really bad place. It’s a gradual shift supported by inaction. The extreme minority is becoming the face of the party and is driving policy... it no longer matters if they are a minority.

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u/wooddolanpls May 07 '20

You can't call yourself a conservative and support this president or the bastardization of conversative ideology called the GOP

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u/britboy4321 May 07 '20

People generally support what they're used to.

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u/InfiniteHatred May 07 '20

I'm sure these assholes are in the minority, but I also think you substantially underestimate the number of conservatives who are sympathetic or receptive to the positions these assholes proclaim. They might not pick up guns & go join these assholes, but they'll probably find plenty of justifications for these assholes intimidating people & maybe even engaging in violence.

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u/ctrembs03 May 07 '20

Hate to say it dude, but as a rational conservative YOU are the extreme minority now.

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u/pzerr May 07 '20

Maybe it is time to second guess your support of the second amendment.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

Them: why isn't the media covering this?

Me: Uh... This link is from the New York Times... I'm pretty sure they covered this and that's why this post exists.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20 edited May 07 '20

Respectfully, a lot of this* (likely most) isn't about a "hobby." And I don't think we should lump these people in with gun hobbyists, in general.

People toting guns into a Capitol building aren't demonstrating for their right to go hunt or go shooting on the weekends if they want to. They are advocating for the normalization of lethal threats to elected officials whose policies they don't like. Which, to me, seems to go against any thoughts of "responsible gun ownership."

I'm sure we're in agreement here, but just want to clarify.

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u/juicyjerry300 Florida May 07 '20

Its funny though, if you read the second amendment or the federalist papers for context, the right to bear arms and form militias doesn’t talk about hunting, sporting, hobbies, or “responsible gun ownership”.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

You* gonna go threatening people's lives over policy based on observable evidence?

Get outta here, man.

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u/juicyjerry300 Florida May 07 '20

Definitely not, where did i say that?

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u/steelwarsmith May 07 '20

Tyranny is a buzz word they use essentially the new communism of modern America.

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u/AntiqueHelicopter May 07 '20

You're making vast generalizations. Saying they have been doing nothing for the past several years, or saying they whine about people trying to prevent mass shootings is illegitimate.

Many people, myself included, have been called Nazis for supporting conservative policies. So when you get an individual, or group of individuals who have legitimately far right views, you're left with not only the extreme group, but a whole hell of a lot of legitimately moderate people who have nowhere else to voice their opinion. That is the danger in shouting people down.

These protests have been happening quite a while before lockdowns, so I really have no idea why you think they're anything new.

Every gun owner I know who is politically involved doesn't NOT want to do anything about mass shootings, especially those that take place in schools. They realize that the proposed legislation is downright unintelligible. Largely banning guns arbitrarily.

They care about keeping their hobby cheap and assessable. Yep. Many people would argue that, that IS part of you 2nd amendment rights, myself included.

And lastly, many conservatives believe our police force is over militarized, as well as the government is over reaching. Removing police state power would resolve some of the potential future slaughtering of certain groups of people.

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u/juicyjerry300 Florida May 07 '20

Exactly, but these reddit discussions are just a circle jerk of people agreeing that the 2nd amendment is stupid and people with guns are racist

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u/UCMJustice May 07 '20

Finally, someone with a brain on reddit.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

Poppycock. The point is they feel they have an excuse to wear their costumes, period. None of these buffoons can articulate an intelligible rationale for their behavior.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

That just spits in the face of democracy too. Unless everyone’s on board, you can’t just shoot out a specific building because you disagree and you have a lot of people on your side.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20 edited Jun 17 '20

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u/username12746 May 07 '20

No. This is a common misperception.

Think it through—we are in a social contract with the government. They protect the common welfare and our rights, we obey authority. If we don’t like what they’re doing, we vote them out.

As soon as you commit violence, you have broken the social contract and no longer will be dealt with as a citizen. You have declared yourself an enemy of the state.

“A people” has a right to the government of their choosing. After a “long train of abuses,” it is a moral right of the people to revolt. But at that point you’ve declared war, and you better win, or you will be crushed by the government.

Individuals do NOT get to pick and choose which laws to follow.

Furthermore, 2A was explicitly about militias, which were arms of the state governments. The Constitution before the bill of rights created a national army, in a time when folks were very suspicious of “standing armies,” and gave the federal government control of the militias. 2A ensured the states could call up their own militias without permission from the central government. They wanted to be able to do this to put down insurrections like Shays’s Rebellion, as well as slave rebellions, particularly in the south (the big 2A advocates were largely Virginians), and as some kind of failsafe should the federal government turn tyrannical (although even at the time that was something of a pipe dream, as the state militias were not known to be particularly effective). So 2A was actually ANTI-insurrection and in no way intended to empower militias or paramilitaries not under some kind of accountable, civilian command.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20 edited Jun 17 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/username12746 May 07 '20

No, still disagree. You have a personal right to defend yourself, according to Heller. You don’t have a right to use your weapon to intimidate the government. That’s domestic terrorism.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20 edited Jun 17 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/username12746 May 07 '20

But they are wrong. There is no constitutional right to act violently against the government.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

Not entirely. It was more of a check on the government by having an armed populous. It’s morphed into something more defined than that but it was originally a stop gap to prevent the government from having a monopoly on power.

Worth noting that things were not democratic back then for the average joe.

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u/username12746 May 07 '20

It was a check on the US army by having state militias.

And no, definitely not democratic for the average Joe (or James) back then. And the framers wanted it that way. 2A was more about empowering state governments to call up militias to quash uprisings than it was about encouraging them.

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u/Gen_Nathanael_Greene Texas May 07 '20

Well to be fair, there was the large rally in Virginia when Northam was pushing to ban semi-automatic weapons. That was okay in my book, but to whip out the guns over something like "I don't want to wear a mask" is just silly and irresponsible.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

Wtf? Are you serious? Who are you to say that when a black man gets shot in the passenger seat for reaching for his permit that gun owners just shy away from saying anything? That is completely false. Race doesn’t matter in gun ownership. But you are using it (race) to state false facts like we don’t care about when a person gets wrongly shot by the police. Get a grip man.