Guns. I wasn't going to write about guns today, but, well, another shooting. By the numbers, people who can't do math make way too much of this. You are way more likely to die in a car accident than in a shooting. Here's the obligatory link to CDC statistics. Then, of course, there's my thing about how if you really cared about lives saved and lives lost... waterborne pathogens. It's just that Americans don't care about that because the people who die of that come from "shithole" countries. I guess there's a reason this country elected Donald Trump. Ooooh, did I strike a nerve there?
Is there a coalition in Congress to pass "gun control?" Like immigration, "gun control" is a broad term. There's an old bit from Yes, Minister*: something must be done. This is something, therefore it must be done. "Gun control" debates frequently fall into that pattern. A shooting happens, and the pro-gun control side just argues for some gun control... any gun control. Something must be done. This is something, therefore it must be done. Background checks! (Never mind whether or not the perpetrator would have passed a background check, or had, say, gotten the weapon from a parent anyway...).
Regardless, "gun control" is a broad category of policies. It isn't just a single thing. To ask why we don't have a national registry is a different question than to ask why we don't put those on the terrorist watch list on the "do not buy" list, which is different from why we don't check people's social media feeds and use those to determine who can and cannot buy guns.
Right now, though, compare any of these policies to immigration. In the Senate, it is possible to hypothesize a bipartisan coalition for a variety of immigration policies. The House has the Freedom Caucus.
For guns, though, one of the issues that liberals tend to have is the "BUT EVERYBODY AGREES WITH ME" problem. No. That's not true.
You know who doesn't? The majority in the House of Representatives, the Senate and the President.
Fun demonstration. In the 2008 American National Election Studies survey-- the election prior to the passage of Obamacare, we asked a standard healthcare question. On a 7 point scale, how much should the system be government-run versus private? 20.3% pure government (1), 14% almost pure government (2), 13.2% mostly government (3) and 18.9% half-n'-half (4). By the numbers, that's 47.5% primarily government, with another 18.9% half-n'-half.
Obamacare passed, which still left the system primarily private. Subsidies for private insurance, along with regulations of private insurance, but still private insurance-based.
So, was it considered too public or too private?
Yeah, you see the problem.
MY POLICIES ARE POPULAR AND THEY MUST BE IMPLEMENTED!!!!
It doesn't quite work that way when you move from generalized survey questions to actual policy.
And on gun control, yes, liberals, people disagree with you. And they run both chambers of Congress. What does Trump think?
Trump doesn't think anything. He'll just go along with his party line right now. But, on immigration, there are Republican Senators, like Lindsey Graham, who are actively working on legislation because they have policy preferences that run along different lines from the Freedom Caucus.
On guns... no. Opposition to gun control is too central to conservatism right now. And you don't get to look at your favorite survey results to tell yourselves that everybody secretly agrees with you, even the ones who tell you, vehemently, that they don't. Like the ones running Congress.
*Ray Wolfinger referenced this show all the time in grad school, and it's amazing what sticks with you...