.....Gallup released the results of a poll which included a finding that should surprise no one:

Americans oppose a ban on AR-15s

and similar semiautomatic firearms by robust a margin of 17%. Meanwhile, current support for such a ban is 7% lower than the historical trend dating back to 1996, when Gallup first began polling on the issue. Americans, in other words, appear not to have been swayed by the intense media editorializing, celebrity pontificating, and youthful activism of the past year aimed at prohibiting what are by all accounts the most popular types of rifles in the country.

Of course, even in America, you could probably find people who would claim to support a ban on apple pie. It’s not very nutritious, they might say. It’s regressive, others might insist. Americans, after all, have the right to their opinions, even the unpopular ones.

When it comes to guns, the minority opinion is strongest among people who identify as Democrats. Gallup’s latest poll shows 56% of Democrats would support a ban on semiautomatic rifles, 16% above the national average. That is more than twice the percentage of Republicans (25%) who responded the same way. But even among Democrats, support for a semiauto ban has fallen 7 points since this time last year, notwithstanding the fact that some pundits were predicting that 2018 would finally be the year when banning highly popular guns would somehow become a winning political issue.   

So what has all the “game-changing” post-Parkland grandstanding accomplished in the last eight months?

When it comes to banning guns, apparently nothing.

And it’s not just us who think so.

No one individual has shoveled more bad money into the gun control cause than billionaire Michael Bloomberg. In fact his insistence on burning huge sums of money on the issue for minimal returns almost makes you wonder how he ever got so rich in the first place.

But even he seems to understand the reality of the current situation.

According to an article in the Washington Times, Everytown for Gun Safety – the umbrella group for Bloomberg’s gun control activism – has actually shifted its midterm election spending into “ads covering abortion, health care and the Republican tax bill – but nary a mention of assault rifles … . “

Commenting for the article, gun control advocate Adam Winkler mused, “Perhaps the gun issue has waned a bit in the absence of highly publicized mass shootings in the past few months.”

And that, of course, is the irony of the gun ban movement: it needs the very events it claims to want to prevent for anyone to pay attention to it.

Even then, however, that attention and intensity typically prove to be short-lived.

Hyping other issues, of course, does not actually signal a retreat by Everytown from its gun control agenda. Rather, it’s a recognition that gun controllers will have to buy votes and politicians by other means to force their prohibitionist views downward on the American people, rather than using those views to inspire people to support their candidates in the first place.

In other words, it’s pretty much the opposite of a true grassroots approach.

Take, for example, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who was embarrassed this week by the release of audio recordings catching her and her staffers admitting that they conceal or downplay her true positions on issues like gun control in order to mislead voters on the positions she will take once elected.

All this is exactly why NRA-ILA – a true grassroots organization – is dedicated to ensuring that voters know exactly what they’re getting when it comes to the Second Amendment views of political candidates.

You might even say we try to make it as easy as pie … apple pie, of course.

American Kids Learning About Gun Control --- The AMERICAN Way

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If I lived in the US, I would like to be able to carry a gun.

So no way can I virtue signal on this topic.

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miketrees wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2018 at 11:17am:




I wouldn't. My penis is big enough.

Americans oppose a ban on AR-15s and similar semiautomatic firearms by robust a margin of 17%.

If you get 17% support in a poll how do you go about spinning that it is a good result ?

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — There are a lot of reasons people love their AR-15 semiautomatic rifles, and it doesn't much matter to them what the haters say.

For some, the gun is a tool, a finely tuned machine that can cut down an animal or intruder, or pierce a distant target, with a single precise shot.

For others, it is a toy, a sleek beast of black plastic and metal that delivers a gratifying blast of adrenaline.

And for many, it is a symbol, the embodiment of core American values — freedom, might, self-reliance.

“There are very few things that serve such a great form and function, and look cool,” said Daniel Chandler, 26, an AR-15 owner here in suburban Maryland. When he takes his AR out of its case at a shooting range, he smiles like he just unwrapped a gift. “There are few things you’ll find that are wonderfully appealing to look at, wonderful exercises in mechanical engineering, and that could save your life.”

This is the side of the AR-15 that many don’t see, or ever consider.

Because an AR-15, or a variant, was reportedly used in several mass shootings — including Aurora, Colorado; Newtown, Connecticut; San Bernardino,California; Sutherland Springs, Texas; Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida, in which a total of 154 people were killed — this civilian sibling of a military assault rifle is an exceptionally polarizing product of modern American industry. The AR-15 and its semiautomatic cousins — they shoot one round for each pull of the trigger ─ incite repulsion among those who see them as excessive, grotesque and having no place on the civilian market.

It is the focus of multiple attempts at prohibition, which in turn has prompted people to run out and buy more. Such “panic buying” drove sales of AR-15s to record levels during the presidency of Barack Obama and the 2016 presidential campaign. Gun merchants say some buyers are also driven by a fascination with a weapon used in notoriously heinous crimes.
Once banned, these assault rifles are hugely popular in the U.S.
June 15, 201600:53

Fears of a ban have subsided under gun-friendly President Donald Trump, and so have sales; gun makers are in the midst of a year-long slump that has driven down prices for AR-style rifles. Those discounts appear to have driven a record number of Black Friday gun background checks.

Devotees say the AR-15 has been wrongly demonized, arguing that the vast majority of owners never use it in a crime, and that despite the rifle’s use in mass shootings, it is responsible for a very small proportion of the country’s gun violence.

Thanks to that ardent following, and shrewd marketing, the AR-15 remains a jewel of the gun industry,

the country’s most popular rifle

, irreversibly lodged into American culture..........

SadKangaroo wrote on Nov 26^th, 2018 at 5:23am:

Prime Minister for Canyons wrote on Nov 26^th, 2018 at 8:50am:


I would think prevention is better than the "cure", especially when it's people's lives we're talking about here.

But the right to own, carry or conceal a gun seems to be more important than that.

If only we could use the same sort of language used about firearms and Obama when we talk about Trump, but I guess, as Panther puts it, it's ok to threaten to kill the Ex-HNIC, even when he was president.

I doubt that follows on for Trump, he's not black.

SadKangaroo wrote on Nov 26^th, 2018 at 9:46am:




I agree, its just from what I read that most Americans feel that there should at least be some limits on who gets guns, whilst 2nd amendment nuts are comfortable with violent psychotics owning them cause of the slippery slope fallacy.

Prime Minister for Canyons wrote on Nov 26^th, 2018 at 9:49am:


 

Absolutley pointless for the reason I just mentioned, it is impossible to stop the mentally ill obtaining firearms if they are available to the average person.

rhino wrote on Nov 26^th, 2018 at 11:00am:



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.........Chandler loves the AR he built. He admires its simple, efficient mechanics, its precision, and how much fun it brings. He fires almost weekly for target practice, along with a Glock 17 handgun. He’s taken his wife to the range with him, and she’s become an AR fan herself, preparing to build her own.

Chandler, who is black, doesn't have many friends who enjoy guns as much as he does. So he has created afirearm-focused Instagram page to find similarly minded people, many of them millennial first-generation gun owners like himself.

“The AR-15 makes sense, and I think that’s why more people my age are gravitating to it,” Chandler said.

Megan Hill’s relationship with guns goes back as far as she can remember; her parents and grandfather kept firearms in their Southern California homes, and an early boyfriend took her hunting and target shooting. But it wasn’t until she married, moved to Utah and was preparing to have children that she decided to get her own.


She and her husband researched which gun would meet their needs: something safe, reliable and versatile.

“We looked at the AR-15, and it was all in one package,” Hill, 26, recalled. “You can target-shoot with it, protect yourself with it, hunt with it. Luckily we haven’t had to use it in self-defense, but it’s a comfort knowing that it’s there to protect my children and my family.”

Her husband ordered parts and built one himself. They’ve since acquired a few more.

This year, after the birth of her second child, Hill decided to start working on becoming a competitive shooter, documenting her journey on Instagram.

“It gave me a sense of myself again: I’m going to make this goal, I’m going to accomplish something,” Hill said.

For Hill, life with an AR-15 can best be described in one word: freedom. She means both personal freedom and a symbolic freedom that connects her to the gun’s use by the U.S. military.

“What makes us a strong nation is our freedom, and the AR-15 represents that freedom,” Hill said.

The AR-15 Is Comfort

[url]https://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2017_52/2267816/171219-megan-h
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Megan Hill, 26, target shoots this month with an AR-15 at the Nephi City Shooting Range
in Nephi, Utah.Kim Raff / for NBC News

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Mortdooley wrote on Nov 26^th, 2018 at 9:54pm:


How often do you imagine me masturbating?

I'm curious.

   
 

And, they are a lot of fun to shoot!

Four or more victims isn't enough for you? 

Stark number of gun deaths, yes.

Captain Nemo wrote on Nov 30^th, 2018 at 5:44pm: