I may just link to other people today: it’s been a goram long week and I’d like to get some actual creative, non-political work done. Anyway, James Taranto on gun control polls:
The senators who voted down the gun-control measures did so on the basis of a deeper understanding of the constituents they represent than can be conveyed by a single number from an opinion poll. They’re professional politicians, and they managed to get elected, in most cases from states Barack Obama never managed to carry. If they misjudged popular opinion, they can be voted out of office. It’s an example of representative democracy at its best.
When fascist or socialist movements have managed to gain a foothold, it has been by appeal to a pre-existing organic source of identity, whether national, ethnic or religious. Today’s dominant strain of American leftist thought is multiculturalist, not nationalist, which means leftist identity politics is mostly a matter of trying to forge alliances among disparate and potentially antipathetic ethnic and other identity groups.
Multiculturalism is pernicious in many ways, but perhaps its only virtue is that it is self-limiting because the identity coalitions on which it relies are inherently unstable. The left’s desperate attempts to conjure up a 90% or 99% supermajority are reflections of weakness, not strength.
I never trust confident assertions that X Will Win/Lose In 20YY. Yes, even the ones that I make. Especially the ones that I make. But optimism is a life choice. And a healthier one that most, I’m thinking.
Moe Lane
I think that they understood that the 90% number bandied about for support for background checks wasn’t a real number, and I’ll tell you why. Last weekend, on my way to the NRA 500 NASCAR race actually, I was talking to a fairly liberal friend of mine and he asked me how I could possibly oppose background checks. When I asked for why he supported them he said something like, “well, you shouldn’t just be able to go into a gun store and buy a gun without a background check”. He didn’t realize that what he wanted has been the law for twenty years. When I explained to him what the bill in question actually did, he opposed it.
Now I’d actually have been ok with some sort of a compromise. Say, create a system where private sellers, in exchange for absolute immunity from prosecution for selling to a prohibited person can get a check run, and have the ATF buy tables at shows to provide the service. That would have had the benefit of getting rid of the liberal carping about the so-called “gun show loophole” but still not prevent folks from selling their personal guns to their friends and neighbors without Federal permission. But I said “compromise”, so in exchange, I need something back. Say, national reciprocity for concealed handgun permits. Or heck, just let me buy a pistol from out of state – right now you can buy long guns outside of your home state, but not handguns. Or take silencer/suppressors off of the machine gun list – they’re a dadgum safety feature after all.