Since I won't ever get to vote for a Pro-Choice Pro-2nd Amendment president, I guess I'll just stop watching the news, because I can not fathom how we can be skewing Republican after everything that's happened.
"Everything that happened" includes cancel culture, woke culture, etc. It includes images like Kenosha burning. If you're a poor working-class white male, it's hard to vote for the party who calls you privileged. If those are the images you're seeing, you'll vote one way. If you see images of police killing minorities, you'll vote another way.
that's very true and it goes both ways (right-to-left and left-to-right). When you call someone the enemy long enough they will eventually start to feel the same way towards you.
https://ballotpedia.org/Jo_Jorgensen_presidential_campaign,_...
After receiving 5% of the national vote, third parties qualify for federal funding. After receiving 15% of the national vote, third parties qualify for participation in national debates.
Out of all the candidates on the ballot in the last election, Joe Biden was my favorite, but I didn't vote for him. I live in Massachusetts, a state which had a near-100% probability of sending all of its delegates to the electoral college in the name of Joe Biden. I voted for Jo Jorgensen, not because I support her or her party, but because she and her party had the greatest chance of hitting that 5% threshold and I personally value a chance of increasing political competition between parties over the empty virtue signalling I would have achieved by voting for Joe Biden instead.
I strongly believe that having more parties will strengthen our democracy, and by strategically voting for Jo Jorgensen, I know that I increased the impact of my vote and my likelihood of making the world a better place. Unless you live in a proportional state (e.g., Maine, Nebraska) or a swing state (e.g., Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin), you are absolutely wasting your vote and your time by voting for a Democratic or Republican presidential candidate instead of a third party.
The American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021
I think the current Democratic administration is most notable for its fecklessness and inability to get anything at all done. Maybe that's what's driving voters away.
On the state and local levels there is the tug of war between governments trying to keep covid under control and those same measures being deeply unpopular. I don't know what the solution to that is but there is a sizeable enough group of voters who just want to get on with their lives that its having an effect.
As long as COVID and the economy aren't "fixed" whoever is in power will have them as major problems.
Fuck, there are homes everywhere, we have the ability to dig, plant, make food, we still have the ability to transport things around. I know that no one wants to work anymore - but at this point, the entire economy is a state of feeling - and that's exactly what a president (or actually all of the leaders of the world) MUST fix. The resources are ALL there, but I think everyone is just letting it all go to shit.
This says it all for me:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/san-francisco-chronicle-ripped...
I know Biden isn't responsible for this, but it's just echo chambers from the top down that causes this.
edit: @nradov, thanks for the clarity there.
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-joe-biden-no-vaccines-ma...
If you had said people are moving toward the R column because Biden hasn't met his campaign promise, that would be a valid argument. There was a shortage of N95 masks under the previous administration, there continues to be a shortage, and you ascribe that to some movement toward the left. That is a non sequitur.
As for the homeless problem in SF: again, has that issue changed since Biden took office? You have cultural myopia if you think a local SF issue is causing national polling trends to shift right. SF homelessness was an issue in 2020 when Biden was elected and people voted Dem to begin with.
Huh? Being able to produce something illegally is in no way a substitute for having a right to possess that thing legally.
1. 3D printed guns are crap.
2. Some people would like possess a gun that isn't a "go to jail card."
3. Some people would like to be able to conventionally practice shooting their guns, without attracting "go to jail" attention.
The only thing that 3d printed guns and homemade "ammunition from unregulated components" is to how gun control to be a futile effort, because criminals will still have access to them even if law-abiding citizens are blocked. A criminal planning a crime might not mind points 2 & 3 above, but a law abiding citizen certainly will.
Hybrid like FGC-9 can be reliable for over a thousand rounds. Non-firearm parts added in US to a printed AR or glock receiver ['firearm'] can be good for several thousand.
>Huh? Being able to produce something illegally is in no way a substitute for having a right to possess that thing legally.
Aight so how do I carry a glock for defense in Hawaii? How about carrying a glock for defense in DC after catching a felony for illegally importing a lobster? Can I drill a 3rd hill in an AR without asking daddy for permission?
>3. Some people would like to be able to conventionally practice shooting their guns, without attracting "go to jail" attention.
Aight, so tell me how I could avoid being infringed while mag dumping a lightning-link.
2A is dead, we have a patchwork of [compared to rest of world] liberal gun laws that allow you to enjoy some firearms in some situations. But it's infringed to hell, particularly if you are a 'felon' [not in the sense of a felon when constitution was written -- just walking onto a prohibited water conservation area without disturbing it is a felony in my state].
The alternative is the politics of the deed, just make it.
Sure 2A would be better than mere ability to make them. But you have to live within reality. The needle isn't moving back to free of infringement.
>but a law abiding citizen certainly will
Well 2A says keeping/bearing a gun can't be illegal. Unfortunately state and federal laws say otherwise, and judges are happy to bend over and make any excuse to infringe, particularly against felons.
> Hybrid like FGC-9 can be reliable for over a thousand rounds.
Crap is relative. How good is that gun compared to one manufactured using conventional techniques?
In general, you're missing the point: the 2A isn't dead, since it's what allows people who aren't fools (i.e. people who have the sense to avoid doing things that could land them in jail even though they personally think they should be able to do those things) to own and use a gun.
Now, if you are a fool who wants to act like the law doesn't apply to you, I can see how you might think the "2A is dead," but that's just an artifact of a foolish perspective. People like that might also want to setup a GoFundMe for their commissary account.
>since it's what allows people who aren't fools (i.e. people who have the sense to avoid doing things that could land them in jail even though they personally think they should be able to do those things) to own and use a gun.
I don't think I'd call say someone who got caught with a scary mushroom 10 years ago a fool for wanting to be able to defend himself and his family.
I would. How well will he be able to defend his family from jail, after he's arrested for illegal possession of a firearm? If he decides he doesn't want to be arrested, how well will he do with his 3D printed gun in a shootout with the police? Will he do well enough to avoid jail time?
You're engaging in some weird fantasy. The world doesn't actually work the way you might wish it to, and if you pretend it does (and take action on that fantasy) you're very unlikely to do better than a sovereign citizen does in court (i.e. fail totally, with everyone shaking their head about how nuts you are).
The whole point of 3d guns for many people is to avoid ever entering the court system, because by procuring all unregulated components and building it themselves, it's much more difficult for them to be caught.
> OK, grandpa
is very much not up to par with what's expected here.
Huh?
Democrats couldn't move the needle even a tiny bit on gun control, even with nominal control of all three branches and stuff like Sandy Hook as a rallying cry. The most meaningful gun regulation at the Federal level in the past few decades was Trump banning bump stocks.
There's zero reason to believe the current court - which is likely to be around for decades - will do anything but increase gun rights.
Nowhere in the country can you just drill the third hole in an AR and go at it without asking for permission.
Nowhere in the country can someone with a federal felony [except some white collar trading crimes] exercise their second amendment right, even if all tehy did was illegally import a lobster.
Nowhere in the country can you saw a 16 inch barrel down one inch without asking daddy for permission.
Several states now require universal background check just to exercise a right (own a firearm). None of this has been strucken by supreme court.
2A is dead, now we just have a legacy of fairly liberal gun laws in certain circumstances and states.
2. While the First Amendment does protect speech, the Supreme Court has held that time/place/manner restrictions on speech can be created by the Government as long as there is a rational basis for them. Compare against content-based restrictions, which will be strictly scrutinized by the courts.
Legal analysis is complicated and actions rarely fall into black-or-white categories. Even Second Amendment law has a large number of contours.
Permit for a protest is also utter horseshit on par with restrictions on 2A.
A dealership tried to do this to me when I bought a truck with cash, and I told them [politely] to get fucked (I had insurance but no proof on me as I bought it over phone). Then they finally admitted since I owned the truck outright they wouldn't stop me.
> You can't test drive it without a driving license too.
When you're test driving you haven't bought the car. The dealership can refuse to let you drive their car for pretty much any non-protected reason.
> Name a single place in US where you need a permit to buy a car or drive it on private property
Even if you don't need a permit to back your car down your driveway (after someone with a permit has brought it to your home), you still need one to drive it anywhere anyone would actually want to go. So you effectively need a permit to drive.
This is obviously NOT analogous to the 2A, where you need licenses and registrations just to buy a gun. In an analogous situation to cars, you would not need a license to buy a gun and shoot it at a firing range. So the low effort quip "lol what about drivers licenses" that adgjlsfhk1 and many others make is not reasonable.
No, I haven't. Driving on public roads is what most people mean by "drive."
I agree they are not precisely the same thing in all respects. However practically, the situations don't seem very different.
>>> So the low effort quip "lol what about drivers licenses" that adgjlsfhk1 and many others make is not reasonable.
It kind of is reasonable, given this sub-thread started with some pretty unreasonable or at least weird positions (e.g. 2A is "dead" apparently b/c everyone can't get a full-auto without a permit).
You keep using that word...
> 3d printing is an insurance policy.
Is it? An insurance policy isn't something that can blow up in your face, literally and figuratively.
Realistically, 3D printed guns aren't a direct solution to gun control, they're an argument for loosening it because they're proof it can't achieve some of its major aims.
I’ve wondered this myself. All the 3D printed things I’ve seen feel like really cheap, soft plastic. It’s hard to imagine it not exploding or at least melting from combustion like that.
For international crowd, something like FGC-9 is closest to reliable printed firearm they can get. It is hybrid. The barrel is created by 3d-printing jigs for electro-chemical machining a standard high-pressure pipe, yielding glock-like accuracy and durability of barrel. Bolt requires some work by hand. Rest is unregulated components and 3d printed.
In the US, the receiver ['firearm'] is the only component that looks regulated to the consumer. The UBAR for instance is a printed AR receiver reinforced with off-the-shelf U-bar that is extremely durable, and unless you're mag dumping or leave it in a hot car in the south or something should last thousands of round. The non-receiver parts can be bought without regulation in US.
Also bear in mind here, in self defense less than 15 rounds are typically fired.
>feel like really cheap, soft plastic.
FDM materials like PLA+ can be resilient when kept out of heat. Nylon-X and carbon fiber reinforced materials, depending on application, can provide even more rigidity and strength. Most of the stuff you've seen printed has probably been with cheap PLA with low in-fill (faster print time, somewhat hollow inside the shape). 3d printed guns are printed with very high 99+% infill (mostly solid inside the shape) with at least PLA+ to provide much more strength.
You mean like onto a trailer, then off a trailer, then a bunch of left turns then back onto a trailer?
Because that sort of recreational use is pretty analogous to what people used to do with machine guns and mortars and stuff back in the day before they were heavily restricted.
To borrow an analogy from Jerry Garcia, Bernie Sanders is the black licorice of American politicians. Most people don't like him, but the people who like him really like him.
> Democrats make up less than half of votes
Not the popular vote. Even Hillary managed to win the popular vote in 2016.
[1] https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/494602-pol...
I was referring to registered democrats, as I believe was the article.
Regarding Medicare for all, those numbers are misleading. It has 70% of support until you get into the actual details of implementation. It's the same when folks say "An overwhelming majority of Americans support higher taxes on the rich". Well yes, but those surveys tend to leave out the definition of rich, so people tend to interpret it as "Rich = Someone who makes more money than I do".
This is not to advocate against medicare for all, but rather to say that it's easy to garner support for something in the abstract without getting into all the messy details that reality likes to impose.
Biden's agenda is dead, he blown up BB spectacularly, he is limited to executive orders power but he does not seem to be willing to apply it properly(cancel the students' debt, legalize weed, use ACA to the full extent, etc)
Republicans have NOTHING to offer to people except of cultural issues, but they are winning because they are not democrats.
People might not want that, and vote against it, but it's an actual policy platform they could run on
But Biden has been consistently against marijuana legalization. His power to make such changes is greater than his willingness to do so.
As for weed, he just need to remove it from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.
Keep in mind that this is what Bernie run on, so it is feasible.