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[Dorsidwarf]

[Redacted for just being a dig at someone without actually helping]

[Lord Shonus]

That's a red herring however, because any ban will be for a specific thing. Where "X" is banned, they do in fact specify a definition of "X" which then becomes the official definition in that jurisdiction. Federal and state legislation does in fact specify what is banned, and that becomes the formal definition.

They can call it a "flubble-gun" ban, but that doesn't mean they can ban literally anything, they need to legally define what a "flubble-gun" is under that law.

Of course the law spells it out - except they call every form of the legislation the same thing, even when the details vary widely. Then they sell it based purely on the name, to the point where most of the people at ground level supporting it either think it is more limited than it really is (I own a .22 rifle that was accidentally made illegal in two states under such circumstances), or else they think it is needed to get rid of guns that have been illegal for decades.

[Frumple]

Here is the thing. Keeping guns out of the hands of unsupervised children, criminals, and the mentally ill has virtually 100% approval. "Arming kids for their own protection" is pure strawman. Teaching kids gun safety and how to shoot, so they learn to respect a gun and what it can do? That's popular. Allowing responsible, law abiding adults to possess firearms in areas that are now "gun-free-zones"? Those are popular. Saying all kids should have guns to protect themselves? Not seriously argued by anybody, but a popular talking point among the left.

I mean... you say it's popular, but popular is not policy. Keeping guns out of the hands of the mentioned has near 100% support and approaching 0% support among the GOP elected for implementing laws and regulation that would actually make it possible (barring a potential exception in doing stuff that would disenfranchise minorities, which as ree noted is one of those areas pro-gun folk seem oddly quite on and the GOP oddly supportive of), and the ATF et al have had their functioning sabotaged and undercut damn substantially. Teaching kids gun safety is popular, but making sure they have it? Largely untouched, left to third parties (that are of wildly varying quality) at best, and if there's been any attempts on making it something approaching mandatory or providing federal support or control for quality, availability, etc., particularly from the "pro-gun" crowd, I haven't heard about it. Allowing responsible, law abiding adults to do something that would be near guaranteed to get more people killed, supported, but any means or methods to actually be able to identify that sort of adult? Staunchly opposed and usually hamstrug even if something does get through. As for arming kids... you say it's a left talking point. It's something I've literally heard with regularity. Usually for older kids rather than particularly young, but regular comments that if some high school that got shot up had guns among the kids, that it wouldn't have happened? Yeah. If it's a left talking point there's a hell of a lot of party line R voters around here that'll cheerfully claim they'd shoot someone coming after their guns that have somehow simultaneously become leftists.

Thing you may be missing is that all that shit you just mentioned is only getting basically any practical support from the pro-control crowd. The other side of that particular argument does just about everything in their power to make any and all of that impossible, unsupported from a legal or governmental angle, or just not even considered for the books.

E: Also grei, an initial possibility may be Jim Webb, a former senator from VA and a near candidate for the 2016 POTUS race. GOP until '06, currently democrat, seems to match most of what you mentioned to a fair degree if not necessarily entirely.

[Lord Shonus]

The other side of that particular argument does just about everything in their power to make any and all of that impossible, unsupported from a legal or governmental angle, or just not even considered for the books.

And you don't think that just might have something to do with the fact that most of the initiatives towards enforcing such things comes from the people that openly advocate going to a European "no-gun-rights" system, and most of the proposed solutions being excellent stepping stones for forcing such a system in the future? The pro gun groups are supportive of most measures in principle - every poll says so- but they don't trust the pro-gun-control group to do it.

[Powder Miner]

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=fd9Qc0neMjYC&pg=PA11&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
Gun Buyer's Digest book talking about the origin of the term assault weapon. It was a marketing term for the style of weapons. It mentions tons of gun buyer's magazines were using similar terminology to market the things in the 1980s, the marketing materials themselves for these style of weapons were listing them erroneously as "assault rifles" or "assault pistols". So the firearm industry did in fact use that language to sell the things, before the anti-gun crowd also adopted that language.

So the term originated as a style descriptor without a whole lot of merit when it was used in marketing, and then the gun control bloc took that BS style descriptor and ran with it, which would do a lot to explain why a lot of pro-gun people complain the term is a meaningless, cosmetic descriptor... because it is.

[PTTG??]

When these conversations get really deep into the mess, I like to take a step back sometimes and ask, let's just pretend for a minute that the US legislative branch (federal and all states) was replaced with the Cintamani stone. Presuming that no negotiation can take place, and that the gem is limited to only working its miracles on legislature, which party platform would be best installed whole and instantaneously?

The Democrats, or the Republicans?

And I mean, of course, you have a better idea than either, but remember, we're talking about an infinitely powerful cosmic jewel. Even it can't add a third party to American politics.

As we've seen already, a pure Republican polity would have no environmental protection, would have no safety net, would have no privacy, have limited gun regulation, no minimum wage, no abortion, in fact no prenatal care at all to speak of.

Whereas a pure Democratic polity would have a functioning EPA, would have a strong safety net, would have net neutrality and privacy, would have gun regulations that are sometimes stupid, would have legal abortion, and a number of other things besides.

Of course in practice the Cintamani stone has more important things to do, so this is a hypothetical. But one has to ask, is it really worth buying the whole Republican swamp in order to have a marginal effect on the types of guns you can buy?

Or is Gun Control really just another "ban gay marriage" issue created by the Republicans?

[Strife26]

Wow, what a pointless hypothetical.

[Frumple]

And you don't think that just might have something to do with the fact that most of the initiatives towards enforcing such things comes from the people that openly advocate going to a European "no-gun-rights" system, and most of the proposed solutions being excellent stepping stones for forcing such a system in the future? The pro gun groups are supportive of most measures in principle - every poll says so- but they don't trust the pro-gun-control group to do it.

They don't trust anyone to do it, and the people they are voting for are actively undermining it. If that's the measure of "principle" the term doesn't mean what I thought it meant. That may have something to do with it, but it doesn't explain the near complete bloody lack of any initiatives that aren't perceived to be of that nature being supported or started by them. Also a perception that doesn't make much bloody sense. Every sodding thing under the sun is being able to be stonewalled now, how exactly is that going to change if they push to get laws that'll support their claimed principles and decide to stop things there, instead, with most everything they claim to be for actually supported?

Maybe the non-politician folks support those measures, but the people they're electing damn sure don't or we'd have long seen things that managed to get that shit done without triggering whatever bit of paranoia is fueling the distrust mentioned.

E: In other discussions, @greiger, give this link a try. I'm not sure it'll actually work, but after rummaging around a bit I ran (most of) the stances (GMO wasn't on their list) you mentioned through the site's issues quiz with everything else neutral and that's what popped out. Might have more later, but nap didn't come and I'm starting to get foggy, heh. Pretty sure there's at least two or three other sites out there with similar features, though, which can be a good place to start if you're digging into actual statements and voting history to see what you match up with instead of leaning on overt news sources.

[Powder Miner]

"A pure Republican polity would have [...] no privacy" "A pure Democratic polity would have [...] privacy"
Someone's gone and missed the last presidency.

[PTTG??]

"A pure Republican polity would have [...] no privacy" "A pure Democratic polity would have [...] privacy"
Someone's gone and missed the last presidency.

Someone's gone and missed the last couple of days.

[Wolfhunter107]

The other guy being worse does not make you good.

[Frumple]

Does make you better! Though it could probably stand to be "some" instead of a blanket thing. Reminder again there was a vote a week or two ago where the GOP voted down a dem privacy regulation put in place by that last presidency. Though I guess I just got beat to the reminder. Eh.

In any case, point being the dems at least have it as something of a platform point and something that gets legislated toward. GOP... well, maybe they would have in the past. They do occasionally go along with 'em. Probably wouldn't push for it after bush 2, though, if that recent.

[alway]

Zero democrats voted in favor of repealing protections against your ISP harvesting data about everything you do online and selling that to advertisers, political organizations, or anybody with a few bucks and grudge. Nearly every Republican did.

But sure, go right ahead and say both sides are bad. After all, Democrats put those protections in place, and Republicans tore them to shreds. It's practically the same thing to an internet troll.

[Baffler]

Zero democrats voted in favor of repealing protections against your ISP harvesting data about everything you do online and selling that to advertisers, political organizations, or anybody with a few bucks and grudge. Nearly every Republican did.

Except that's not what it is. You can't buy someone's data now any more than you could in the bad old days of 2015 when the rule was introduced. They're "just" selling semi-anonymised user data to ad bots. I'd prefer it stay, to be honest, but lying about it doesn't help anyone.

[Shazbot]

Right, these regulations had not gone into effect nor were going to until December. All Republicans did was remove a new regulatory burden on ISPs that would further impede their ability to monetize data through targeted advertisements. The objection was that the FCC regulating the ISPs was unfair and that they should go through FTC regulations, just as Facebook and Google do. The FCC was overstepping its bounds.

Expect the FTC or Congress to put something together, and stop pretending you have to burst into outrage and call other people trolls for disagreeing. Virtue signaling is tiresome.