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Comment by sseagull | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty liberal and (used to be) a gun owner. I can see supporting those things (I personally would like nationwide reciprocity [0]).

It's just very hard for me to understand how this issue (or others like abortion) would be above all others. You are voting for a government with a tremendous amount of power and responsibility (military and defense, infrastructure, running a huge economy, world trade, healthcare, etc). I just can't imagine voting based on a single issue like the 2nd amendment while ignoring all the others.

I respect your opinion, and I know you are not alone. It's just hard for me to understand it, that's all.

[0] I've always wondered what would happen if democrats adopted this into their platform, maybe in exchange for universal background checks.

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My mom voted for Trump because of the abortion issue. The reason it's above all others in her mind is that she literally views it the way we view the holocaust. (e.g. "Millions of people have died because of pro-choice policies.")

So, whether or not you agree with her, you can see that there is some logic to making that issue a high priority if she views it that way. "Hitler's really got a great economic package, has better public experience than his opponent, is better all across the board, and is in favor of the extermination of a bunch of helpless people."

In my mom's case, she'd be Democrat, except for this one issue. She's pro Syrian refugee, pro immigration, against capital punishment, etc.

You should tell your mom that there are fewer abortions when women are given access to them. It's counter intuitive but there's data to back it up.

Bill Clinton said it best: abortion should be safe legal and rare.

> My mom voted for Trump because of the abortion issue. The reason it's above all others in her mind is that she literally views it the way we view the holocaust. (e.g. "Millions of people have died because of pro-choice policies.")

I hope she understands that prior to Roe vs Wade, abortion still occurred, and women died in many cases because they didn't have access to a safe clinical means to obtain them.

She should understand that if the laws are changed regarding abortion, that women will still have abortions, will still need abortions, and will still find means to obtain abortions - even if it kills them - which it most assuredly will.

If she is fine with that - if she is fine with women dying - then I don't know what to say.

If she really wanted to decrease the number of abortions, she (and others like her) would do what we know actually works: Increase access to contraceptives, and teach people proper non-abstinence based sexual education.

But we are unlikely to see that really happen - because being anti-abortion isn't about saving the unborn, it's about punishment (via pregnancy and birth) of women for having sex (premarital or otherwise as it happens).

So wouldn't the sensible position be universal contraception to prevent a fetus from forming?

I wouldn't want Trump as dictator but believe institutions and laws constrain what he can do in most of the other areas where I disagree with him; improving 2A rights is more complex and discretionary.

(I'd be supportive of both some kind of pre-purchase background check AND of some way to trace a physical gun used in a crime to a registered owner provided it also did NOT build a registry of all guns owned by a given owner, or a way to identify that a given person was an owner of guns or not. There are some technical ways to implement this, especially the latter.

There have been technical improvements to NICS over the past few months which have made it both more efficient AND more accurate; there's a lot of potential to improve the existing background checks used for all sales via dealers, and once it gets good enough, it's a lot easier to provide access to it for private party transfers as well. If I were in a state where I could privately sell a gun to someone w/o going through an FFL, I'd be uncomfortable selling to anyone I didn't know personally, and given that I know how hard it is to validate physical credentials well without checking a centralized database, even something like LE ID wouldn't be as comforting as being able to make a NICS check. Outside of known-person transfers, I'd generally rather just spend the $10-25 to let an FFL handle the transfer for me, although this is already legally required in WA state.)

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