How did gun control become part of the Liberal platform anyway?

[mek42]

It always confuses me and those I speak with because I like to talk about "Vermont's liberal carry laws", but some people might hear "Vermont's Liberal carry laws".  In my mind, the word liberal still means, in essence, "tending toward as much personal freedom as is possible without harming your fellow man".

How did gun control ever become part of the Liberal platform when gun control is clearly not a liberal agenda?

[Bigjake]

Because modern, self described "liberals" are actually just socialists or marxists.  They just like the way the term "Liberal" feels, ala the Founding Fathers.  Progressive is a more accurate term.   

Gun control is just part of the overall "control" theme.

Jefferson was a Liberal, a CLASSICAL liberal, in every sense of the word.  The modern ones are just poxy commies that are open minded as long as you agree with THEM.

[GigaBuist]

JFK:  Shot and killed.
RFK:  Shot and killed.
MLK:  Shot and killed.

I think that's what got the ball rolling.

[Nitrogen]

Bigjake:  It feels good to say that, but I don't think it's true at all.

GigaBuist has a part of it.

As I always say when this subject comes up, it's pure ignorance.  Most anti gunners have never fired a gun, or been around a gun.  Most of them believe that the police will save them if they ever need it.

Where Bigjake kinda gets it right is that they believe that banning something is a good means to reduce something.  As we all know banning guns (or alcohol or drugs or sudafed) doesn't reduce the demand, it just sets up a booming black market.

You have to realise that most Liberals that support gun control (I'm talking the rank and file, not the Chuckie Schumers and Dianne Feinstiens) really believe this.  They've also never really thought about it.

Look at it this way.  If you've never been on a farm, and someone tells you that chickens with black spots on their feathers will peck your eyes out; because the black spot means they have too much testoscerone, what do you know?  They look scary with those black spots, like some kind of demon-chicken.  You've never been on a farm.  You'll probably never be on a farm, and you'll probably never see a chicken with or without black spots on their feathers.  If you hear that wives tale enough, you'll probably think its reasonable, and believe it, without any real evidence either way.  Also, because it doesn't effect you, you won't really put the effort into researching it.  It's basically the same thing with guns. 

Your everyday joe and jane hear "guns cause violence" and they think, "sure! guns are dangerous and kill people so let's ban 'em!"  If you have no experience with guns, don't WANT to have any experience with guns, you won't challenge the assertation.

This is also why I think the media is the way it is in regards to guns.  (The fact that scaring the tar out of people makes them money doesn't hurt either.)

Most of it is ignorance and laziness.

[Standing Wolf]

Leftist extremists have been preachingand enforcingso-called "gun control" since Lenin was in short trousers. They've understood a long time people who can fight back are harder to turn into serfs than those who can.

[HankB]

JFK:  Shot and killed.
RFK:  Shot and killed.
MLK:  Shot and killed.

I think that's what got the ball rolling.

Early gun control efforts were aimed at newly-freed slaves and (like New York's Sullivan law) immigrants.

NFA '34 was supposedly passed to rein in gangsters, but there were a few incidents where union goon squads attacking mining facilities were dealt with by company agents using FA . . . so it was at least in part enabling legislation for union violence & intimidation tactics.

Agitation for what eventually became GCA '68 began before the JFK/RFK/MLK assassinations; if you pick up a pre'68 gun rag, you'll find LOTS of ads for milsurp rifles - including '98 Mausers and such. these were cutting into new sales of commercial guns from makers like Winchester and Remington, so there was mounting pressure from Northeastern congresscritters (where US gunmakers were concentrated) to cut off low priced imports. But protectionism couldn't be the reason, so they cited crime as an excuse.

Modern gun control efforts were kick started by the Stockton school shootings of 1989; rather than blame the "catch and release" justice system (the shooter had multiple arrests & convictions), the Feds who financed the gun purchases (the guy was getting SS payments for mental disability) or the utter failure of the waiting period law (LAPD apparently screwed up and may have  violated Federal law by giving a person with known mental disability permission to buy guns) they decided to focus on the gun itself, and in 1994 we got the AWB.

Today, it's become an article of liberal faith that guns are bad, and it's thoroughly ingrained into the liberal/leftist psyche. And they never look back to see how it all began.

[roo_ster]

Gun control is just one part of the government control agenda pushed by progressives.

[Manedwolf]

Part of the leftist agenda is that the government knows better than you, can spend your money better than you, and must protect you from yourself.

They can't maintain that level of crushing control if the people can effectively fight back when they get fed up, can they?

Armed "peasants" terrify ivory-tower elistists, as they have since the "peasants" were able to take down a feudal lord's knights with a longbow, and then knock down the walls of their keeps with a cannon.

They hate the idea of someone being responsible for their own welfare, as it runs contrary to their beliefs, and they hate the idea of someone not only not answerable to Big Government, (they can't give you orders to take your gun and go suppress dissent) but able to fight against if it it squeezes too hard.

Remember, Chavez is a leftist. Stalin was a leftist. Mao was a leftist. Pol Pot was a leftist.

[elrod]

Look at it this way.  If you've never been on a farm, and someone tells you that chickens with black spots on their feathers will peck your eyes out; because the black spot means they have too much testoscerone, what do you know?  They look scary with those black spots, like some kind of demon-chicken.  You've never been on a farm.  You'll probably never be on a farm, and you'll probably never see a chicken with or without black spots on their feathers.  If you hear that wives tale enough, you'll probably think its reasonable, and believe it, without any real evidence either way.  Also, because it doesn't effect you, you won't really put the effort into researching it.  It's basically the same thing with guns. 

Your everyday joe and jane hear "guns cause violence" and they think, "sure! guns are dangerous and kill people so let's ban 'em!"  If you have no experience with guns, don't WANT to have any experience with guns, you won't challenge the assertation.

This is also why I think the media is the way it is in regards to guns.  (The fact that scaring the tar out of people makes them money doesn't hurt either.)

Most of it is ignorance and laziness.

That's good, damned good.

[mek42]

Agitation for what eventually became GCA '68 began before the JFK/RFK/MLK assassinations; if you pick up a pre'68 gun rag, you'll find LOTS of ads for milsurp rifles - including '98 Mausers and such. these were cutting into new sales of commercial guns from makers like Winchester and Remington, so there was mounting pressure from Northeastern congresscritters (where US gunmakers were concentrated) to cut off low priced imports. But protectionism couldn't be the reason, so they cited crime as an excuse.

So - the current prevalent anti-gun attitude is partly an outgrowth of what the gun manufacturers wanted?

[Perd Hapley]

Why are we discussing this in isolation?  The term "liberal" has come to describe a whole host of positions that are not liberal at all, nor progressive, unless the progress is in the wrong direction.  Oppressive taxation, bizarre levels of gov regulation, gun control, and the list goes on.  I will refrain from naming some of the more controversial issues.  Gun control didn't just happen to fall into the "liberal" camp; it fits with the larger mindset that views the citizenry as a resource to be managed and herded. 

Nitrogen, I definitely agree with your view, and it explains why many conservatives don't get the gun issue, either.  But BigJake is more or less correct, as well.  Liberal has become a euphemism for "making all things right through government." 

[shdwfx]

Weapons bans are a mark of control and oppression - it's always been that way (I Samuel 13:19, 22)
Socialist liberalism, at it's core, is all about control.

[Tallpine]

I need my guns to protect myself from the spotted chickens 

[Scout26]

Shouldn't there be a law against spotted chickens ??  I had no idea they were so dangerous.  It would be for the children, afterall.

 

[Josh Aston]

They're coming for you! 

[xavier fremboe]

I need my guns to protect myself from the spotted chickens 

SPOTTED CHICKENS!!!?!!?  DOES CONGRESS KNOW ABOUT THIS??1!!11 OMG!11!

[Scout26]

Spotted chickens aren't the only dangerous animals that Congress is ignoring:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg&feature=related

[Perd Hapley]

Well, we definitely need to allow the importation and sale of Holy Hand Grenades from Antioch. 

[Manedwolf]

It's not about gun control. Just about control.



Isn't that right, Chuckie?

[Art Eatman]

Digressing for the moment:  There is "classical liberalism" of such men as Hume and Locke and then there is modern-American "liberals".

The first philosophy gave us our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The latter label was pretty much invented in the late 1920s by the Socialists, since that term had become quite unpopular.  It was a deliberate effort to twist a word around to a different meaning.  "Progressive" is commonly substituted where "Liberal" is unpopular, in the same sort of effort.  As many have noted, "Liberals" do not fit the dictionary definition of the word insofar as respect for the ideas and rights of others.

Art

[Perd Hapley]

And "progressive" is a very malleable term.  Anyone who advocates any sort of change might call themselves "progressive," in reference to the object of their progress.  If an armed, polite society is our goal, then all of us here are progressive.  Well, maybe not so much the polite part, but...

[CAnnoneer]

There are many good and truthful observations above.

I would add that there also are many middle-class and upper-middle-class liberals who are absolutely terrified of blue-collar workers and blue-collar culture. For them, the blue-collar are not that much different from the rapist yokels in the movie Deliverance - capable of all sorts of crime, cruelty, and depravity. These people live in upscale communities, drink wine instead of beer, and live very sheltered lives. Their perception of the "common folk" is decidedly negative, the way one would view a semi-necessary but repulsive inconvenience. The idea that "those people" can be legally armed to the teeth is beyond reprehensible to such elitists. It is not even social. It is cultural.

[Perd Hapley]

a semi-necessary but repulsive inconvenience.

Like a politician?

Or a forum moderator?

[geekWithA.45]

When did gun control become an element of the (neo) liberal platform?

That goes allllllll the way back to the progressivists of the late 19th century. You can read HL Mencken and others grouse about "do gooders" seeking to prohibit the carriage of revolvers.

The common element to the whole thing is "Government as the source of (all) good", be it temperance, economic equality, social justice, etc.

[Manedwolf]

That goes allllllll the way back to the progressivists of the late 19th century. You can read HL Mencken and others grouse about "do gooders" seeking to prohibit the carriage of revolvers.

Mark Twain, who also carried a revolver, has written on the same subject.

Clemens poses with a pistol shortly after a burglary at his home in Redding, CT., 1908.