Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
All I know is that California is almost anti-gun as it is pro-choice. When we run pro-choice Republicans, the gun stuff is where they go. We ran a guy here for Congress, a pro-choice Repubican, and he had a D- rating from the NRA. But his opponent had an F. So they ran all sorts of TV commercials showing that brutal bank robbery in LA (with the automatic weapons and body armour) and said that the Repubican candidate had a better rating from the NRA. I went to the NRA and begged them to give our candidate an F also, but they refused to believe that a bad rating from them was better for our candidate.
The gun laws in California are really strict, but this is the only state where I have had a gun held to my face. And I don't know why people, that are not being stalked, want to carry firearms. Guns are heavy and a pain in the ass to carry around.
It just seems to me there are more important issues.
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Sorry to hear that you had a gun held to your face. Seriously.
I know that maybe you haven't been here long enough to pick this up, but crime of all sorts is sorta like my favorite topic. More specifically, ways to reduce crime without locking up 4 million minor drug offenders, without making good citizens feel afraid in our society, without grossly increasing governmental expenditures etc.
I agree with you, to a point, about "I don't know why people, that are not being stalked, want to carry firearms". Partly because I don't and don't want to carry a firearm.
But I'd extend your list from just "stalking victims" to storeowners and all kinds of other "good, certifiable" people in bad neighborhoods. In the genteel suburbs of Virginia, this seems almost entirely academic. But in Richmond, I'd imagine a few decent people might want to carry a gun just to walk around the neighborhood.
Which is another way of saying, while guns and conceal-carry stuff shouldn't be the priority item on our list of political points to make, crime should be. And a decent conceal-carry program, which strictly scrutinizes permit holders and which bans the carrying of weapons in specified institutions and while the would-be bearer is in a medicated or inebriated state, is one of many crime-related topics that simply makes sense to me.
And then there's the right to keep a weapon in your home. Even in a blue state like Illinois, if a municipality tries to enforce its liberal-wackadoo gun laws on a righteous homeowner who shoots a home-invader, the liberal-wackadoos will feel a backlash that they apparently never anticipated.
But, the bigger picture (and I'd assume this is true in California also, but correct me if I'm wrong) is that crime of all sorts is an issue at some level in most any local race in this country.
I think crime is what drives voter support for the gun-rights movement more than any other factor in this country.
