Gun Control Advocates Turn to Wall Street for Help

[All Along The Watchtower]

The NRA is the darling of gun manufacturers. It's not like they represent working-class America any better than urban gun control advocates.

[TJ in Oregon]

This is an interesting strategy and one that may be mildly successful. Take for instance my dad, who is both a salesman/businessman and an NRA member/gun owner; if you'd ask him he'd be really turned off by the thought of anyone carrying a gun in his office complex and would support making something like that illegal. At the same time, there's absolutely no way he'd ever support something like an assault weapons ban or banning concealed carry overall.

So he has no problem with his boss telling him he can't bring a loaded weapon to work but he's bothered by Congress telling him he can't bring a loaded weapon to work?

Actually yes. He doesn't think loaded weapons are appropriate in a business setting, but doesn't think Congress needs to make that law. It would be like Congress legislating he has to wear a suit to work: his boss telling him he has to is fine, but Congress telling him to would be ridiculous.

[Sol]

Well, anyway, this won't help at all. Gun Control is dead as a doornail, and it would be wise for Democrats to shut up about it, if only for craven political reasons. America has shown that'd it prefer for crazies to be able to kill unarmed black teens. Disgusting.

[traininthedistance]

You're really a few lightbulbs short of a well lit room. I was suggesting that maybe you'd have a better perspective concerning what the working class American wants if you actually came into contact with one. Judging from the amount of resentment you have toward them (a mainstay of most liberals), you've never come into contact with one or if you have were immediately put off by their lack of support for the charlatan in the White House or his designated successor, Frank Underwood in a Dress.

Conveniently forgetting about the urban poor and working class, and their desires/dreams/needs, is a very very common tactic around here, especially among the Trueleft/libertarian right alliance that loves to use it as a strawcudgel against urban liberals.

Large swaths of America's working class view guns not as a cultural heritage or a tool of revolutionary empowerment, but as simply a deadly, senseless threat to their lives, and to the life of their communities.  What much of "working class America" wants is fewer guns on the streets, period.  The fact that you're unable to acknowledge this complexity, this cleavage, this side of the story, but instead mentally add in the words "white rural" to "working class" in your little tirade when it makes for a convenient synechdoche (but not when it doesn't) really kind of makes your whole argument, your whole moral superiority, simply fall apart. 

[bedstuy]

You're really a few lightbulbs short of a well lit room. I was suggesting that maybe you'd have a better perspective concerning what the working class American wants if you actually came into contact with one. Judging from the amount of resentment you have toward them (a mainstay of most liberals), you've never come into contact with one or if you have were immediately put off by their lack of support for the charlatan in the White House or his designated successor, Frank Underwood in a Dress.

Conveniently forgetting about the urban poor and working class, and their desires/dreams/needs, is a very very common tactic around here, especially among the Trueleft/libertarian right alliance that loves to use it as a strawcudgel against urban liberals.

Large swaths of America's working class view guns not as a cultural heritage or a tool of revolutionary empowerment, but as simply a deadly, senseless threat to their lives, and to the life of their communities.  What much of "working class America" wants is fewer guns on the streets, period.  The fact that you're unable to acknowledge this complexity, this cleavage, this side of the story, but instead mentally add in the words "white rural" to "working class" in your little tirade when it makes for a convenient synechdoche (but not when it doesn't) really kind of makes your whole argument, your whole moral superiority, simply fall apart. 

Spot on.  Guns clearly do more harm than good for the safety of poor people in this country.  If you've ever experienced actual gun violence, you might see this very differently.  I understand why people like shooting and feeling of power in owning a gun.  But, ultimately, it's a hobby.  Your hobby shouldn't get precedence over basic public safety.

That mural is near Brower Park, right?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The idea that the American working class as white, male and gun-toting is a figment of many popular re-imaginations of history that emerged out of the hard hat revolts of the 60s. This is severely problematic on multiple accounts: it leads liberals to deride blue collar whites as being a bunch of troglodytes with no ideological nuance and also leads them to believe that pro-proleterian public policy means being folksy and populist while ignoring the Latinos and Asian immigrants who now form the core of the working class.

Blue collar whites are not averse to gun control. They're averse to attacks on their way of life and liberals certainly attack them on a regular basis. The working class aren't a bunch of chew-spitting hicks who all own guns, many of them have no interest in guns. Both liberals and true leftists need to check themselves when discussing these issues. Your socioeconomic status really shows in these conversations...

[traininthedistance]

The idea that the American working class as white, male and gun-toting is a figment of many popular re-imaginations of history that emerged out of the hard hat revolts of the 60s. This is severely problematic on multiple accounts: it leads liberals to deride blue collar whites as being a bunch of troglodytes with no ideological nuance and also leads them to believe that pro-proleterian public policy means being folksy and populist while ignoring the Latinos and Asian immigrants who now form the core of the working class.

Blue collar whites are not averse to gun control. They're averse to attacks on their way of life and liberals certainly attack them on a regular basis. The working class aren't a bunch of chew-spitting hicks who all own guns, many of them have no interest in guns. Both liberals and true leftists need to check themselves when discussing these issues. Your socioeconomic status really shows in these conversations...

I don't claim, nor have I ever claimed, to have a perfect perspective on these matters or anything like that; I still have the right to point out obvious hypocrisy and obvious blindness when it comes up.

Obviously there is a lot of mutual distrust between blue-collar whites and cosmopolitan liberals, and obviously the latter group could stand to communicate better and gain some understanding.  But I do think this is a two way street- a lot of what gets spun as "attacks on their way of life" is really nothing of the sort, and it's more than a little exasperating to have to deal with that ridiculousness every time.

Anyway, I'd rather not my observation that "hey, maybe you shouldn't use "working class" when you mean "white working class", oh, because the nonwhite working class has a pretty different perspective on some of these issues that maybe you should engage with instead of going straight for the smears" get ground under Thread #5,629,820 about how liberals don't understand Appalachia or something.  Not that it's inaccurate... but it's only part of the story, and it's gotten so so stale.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Well, anyway, this won't help at all. Gun Control is dead as a doornail, and it would be wise for Democrats to shut up about it, if only for craven political reasons. America has shown that'd it prefer for crazies to be able to kill unarmed black teens. Disgusting.

The crazies are the problem, not the weapon they use.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Which of our True Leftists advocate against gun control?

Me.

[PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald]

The idea that the American working class as white, male and gun-toting is a figment of many popular re-imaginations of history that emerged out of the hard hat revolts of the 60s. This is severely problematic on multiple accounts: it leads liberals to deride blue collar whites as being a bunch of troglodytes with no ideological nuance and also leads them to believe that pro-proleterian public policy means being folksy and populist while ignoring the Latinos and Asian immigrants who now form the core of the working class.

Blue collar whites are not averse to gun control. They're averse to attacks on their way of life and liberals certainly attack them on a regular basis. The working class aren't a bunch of chew-spitting hicks who all own guns, many of them have no interest in guns. Both liberals and true leftists need to check themselves when discussing these issues. Your socioeconomic status really shows in these conversations...

If a supermajority of them are hicks, then it only makes sense to consider them a stronghold of hickdom.