That said, I don't think the political sides are really asking for twice what they want. It seems very clear on most subjects that they really do want all that they are asking for, but will occasionally accept less and continuing to press for the rest in the long run.
Lawmakers: "We intend to outlaw all semi-automatic rifles with scary black stocks"
Gun owners: "Please don't do that."
Lawmakers: "Ok, let's compromise, we'll only outlaw scary rifles with collapsing stocks and vertical handgrips on the front."
(time passes)
Lawmakers: "There is a terrible loophole in our gun regulations..."
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/guns-became-leading-killer-...
Selective-fire means it's not just semi-automatic (one shot per trigger pull), it can also be set to fully auto (shoots as long as you pull the trigger) or burst (shoots a few rounds when you hold the trigger, then stops). These are essentially unavailable to the average civilian.
In popular usage, though, "assault rifle" means a short semi-automatic rifle with a plastic stock--anything that looks like a modern military rifle. Heck, I bet if you chopped down grandpa's bolt-action .30-06 deer rifle and put it in a black plastic stock, somebody would call it an assault rifle.
Personally, I think the AR-15 pattern rifle is a deeply boring and unattractive firearm. It's also become a symbol in a culture war: a terrifying "weapon of war" to some, a statement of rebellion and "owning the libs" to others. At the end of the day, though, there's just not a hell of a lot of difference between an AR-15 civilian rifle and, say, the Ruger Mini-14, except that the latter has a less scary wood stock.
The etymology supports this as well, going back to the first ones during WW2.
One thing to note, is that the law can define terms however they want. So places are applying their own novel definitions, largely involving cosmetic features or make/model.
Of course one other thing to point out is that the assault rifle bans are mostly a red herring given the relatively low contribution to homicides.
US police is violent, but how terrifying it can be when every car you pull for a routine control may contain a person who may shoot you?
Arguably any car pulled over in any country has the potential for an occupant to shoot (or otherwise kill) you, even if guns are illegal and uncommon (as are murders). The likelihood just varies. In general, an officer should not be "terrified" of being shot on a routine stop. There are many technologies and procedures designed to minimize risk. Once you are no longer a rookie, the practice is routine. Being shot or shooting someone is fairly rare. I believe the lifetime chance of firing your weapon on duty was 2% or so, which is relatively low. Likewise, I remember non-violent fatalities were larger overall percentage (car accidents, drowning, suicide, illness, etc). Yet most officers are not terrified of covid nor car accidents. Situational context is a huge factor.
"I find it very effective how in US the discourse can be shifted to which tools to kill should be limited more or less, rather than considering if society wouldn't be better off without them."
Sporting purposes include target shooting in addition to hunting (see the Olympics, etc). The needs and ideals in one country are not necessarily the same as in other countries. It certainly does come up about repealing the second amendment and banning guns almost entirely. Some of the counter points are that much of the US is rural, where police response can take hours or even days (remote Alaska), and many of those residents require a firearm for various rural purposes, like protecting livestock from other animals.
On top of all that, it's a fairly large minority that owns guns. Many do not want to be burdened by additional regulations. It's similar to any other issue in a democracy - people vote for their own interests and benefits.
These issues were cultivated by right-wing think tanks over decade with the sole purpose of making it impossible for voters to even think of doing anything but electing Republicans.
I’m not excusing the idiocy of the Democrats here, but you can’t both-sides the fundamentals of the culture war — it’s not a symmetrical problem.
For example, are we talking about sex, gender, or something else? In the context of reproduction, sports, or something else?
Most people agree that the various labels exist. It all depends on how we want to define them.
It can get even more complicated because we have this artificial tautology of man or woman, but in fact there are naturally occuring intersex individuals who fall in between and are mostly forced to choose.
So in closing, I feel the facts are not at issue here (xx vs xy vs intersex). It's how we are utilizing them and applying them to our social constructs which do not necessarily follow nature. If we are are talking about gender, then we take it a step farther into artificial labels and buckets built purely on one's preference (no way to factually check claims). The facts of the subject are simple and agreeable, yet the way we apply them make for controversy around our policies.
How often do people see a graph or something on twitter, and the data seems to go against what they believe, so they examine it and conclude that the graph is misleading and that actually the data says the opposite? Nearly every graph posted on twitter experiences this phenomenon.
But emotional responses to absolute numbers aren't a good mechanism to inform policy making either. That's why absolute numbers are usually normalized to a "per capita" figure. If 1000 kids die in modern India (pop > 1 billion), that is less cause for concern than 1000 kids dying in a rural town in Pennsylvania (pop < 10000). But just looking at the raw number "1000" can't tell you that, you need to give it context. Yeah, 1000 kids died either way, but in the Pennsylvania case something very bad is clearly happening (poisoning, disease, etc), whereas in India a freak one in a million accident could have happened 1000 times.
The even stranger thing is that I’m not sure we even all agree on what knowledge is. I think some believe more that knowledge is about what you can argue, sort of a rhetorical/debate centered argument vs a scientific observational/data centered argument.
You can see this clearly in pro-choice/life debate for example.
One side is saying it is murder and the other side is saying everything from it is not a murder to society doesn’t support the born kids, so this should be allowed.
What are the ‘basic facts’ here?
Though hopefully they won't get ideas to make it involuntary again.