What's gun control worth?

[nancylebov]

I've seen the theory a time or two that the Democrats could have won the 2004 election if they'd given up on gun control. However, I think everyone I've seen promoting that theory is against gun control anyway

Comments

[agrumer]

I've seen the theory that Kerry could have won if the weather had been nicer in Ohio on Election Day. The margin was pretty close.

Anyway, even though I'm a pro-gun-rights liberal and would like the Democrats to ease up on guns, I don't know how much of an effect it would have really had in this past election. It's possible that, had the Dems not adopted gun control as a key issue decades back, we'd have a different political landscape today. That assumes there are a large group of voters who lean Dem-wards, but have gun rights as a hot-button issue. I've no idea what the actual numbers are.

[pnh]

Like Avram, I'm more or less a "pro-gun-rights liberal," or at the very least, a liberal who thinks guns are an issue best handled on a more local level. The citizens of Harlem are strongly pro-gun-control, and the citizens of Montana are strongly against it; both have some pretty good arguments in favor of their positions.

That said, I doubt that the road back for Democrats consists of trying to strike wheedling bargains. People follow leaders. We have to get better at being for stuff, and framing it in stronger, clearer terms.

[malkingrey]

The three big Democratic issues that seem to attract the most vehement single-issue-voter opposition are abortion rights, gay rights, and gun control. Of those three, I'd say that in purely practical terms the one that could most easily be dispensed with is gun control.

[dsgood]

I suspect many conservatives and/or Republicans would not be able to believe that a Democrat could possibly be for gun rights. If Howard Dean had been the candidate, Republican politicians and conservative commentators would have been yapping about Vermont's ultra-fascist gun laws.

That aside: According to every analysis I've seen, the area where I grew up should have gone heavily for Bush. Ulster County, NY used to be rural and is now micropolitan. But it went for Kerry. It's not exactly a typical rural/small city area; but by all the pronouncements, that either shouldn't have mattered or should have made it more likely to go for Bush.

[agrumer]

Whenever GW Bush does it. Which is to say, just about every damn day.