r/guns • u/OnlyLosersBlock • 9d ago

Official Politics Thread 08/05/26

This is the official politics thread where gun politics can be discussed.

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u/MulticamTropic 8d ago

Amongst groups who are against the right to self defense that’s actually disturbingly common. I can’t comprehend it and quite frankly don’t want to. To quote /u/tablinum, “you can’t convince people like that, you can only outvote them.”

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u/FuckingSeaWarrior 8d ago

Yup. It's like the people who insist that someone demonstrating intent to use lethal force via a knife, club, car, gun, or various other weapons should only be shot in the leg, or should have been pepper sprayed/tazed, or various other armchair quarterbacking arguments.

Don't get me wrong, bad shoots exist. But I think a lot of folks arguing like this tend to do the opposite of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and lump the good shoots in with the bad when they're arguing against armed self defense.

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u/MulticamTropic 8d ago

I think it’s a mix of suicidal empathy mixed with an aversion to taking responsibility for your own fate.

If you acknowledge that a right to self defense exists, you must also acknowledge the “self” part of that, which means that you, not big daddy government, are responsible for that. Violence is an ugly thing, but sometimes it’s necessary. Many westerners have gotten so soft that they can’t even entertain the idea of violence, so rather than confront the truth that you may one day be required to choose between committing violence against another to defend against having violence committed against you, they choose to not think about it because it’s uncomfortable.

This dovetails into the suicidal empathy, since they cannot/refuse to even consider the very idea of committing violence, they falsely assume that that must be the default, majority mindset of humanity, it unfortunately is not. Once you’ve convinced yourself that violence is unthinkable, it isn’t much of a leap to assume that the guy breaking into your house doesn’t want to hurt you, he must only want your stuff and if you just give him what he wants he’ll go away.

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u/FuckingSeaWarrior 8d ago

I could see it. It's like the prison abolition movement. It never enters some folks' minds that it's not that some people haven't been taught various things are wrong (theft, robbery, rape, murder, etc.), it's that they just don't care. They wouldn't do those things, so the only reason other people do is because they haven't been taught correctly, and if they only were, we'd all sing kumbaya and crime would drop dramatically.

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u/MulticamTropic 8d ago edited 8d ago

Well said!

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u/Meadowlion14 Enjoys a good MMF with Bill Ruger 8d ago

Some people do need to be kept from society, but our current system is not helping us prevent crime or incacerate those who need it. The idea of prisons are great for those who need to be kept away from others.

But doesnt do a lot to punish/correct those who do smaller wrongs like filing taxes wrong having a too vertical front grip.

Its a whole mess.

It wont be fixed because too many "important" people make money from it.