I am just wondering how many people on here identify with the right,center and left wing side that are pro gun. I have been accused of being a leftist on here but the polls I have taken put me just right of center. Not bashing anyone just want to see how politically diverse we are as a pro gun group on here.
I am a libertarian who believes in what our Founders had to say. Not an anarchist type libertarian or the fruity tin foil Alex Jones followers.
The biggest issue seems to be keeping criminals or mentally ill from getting ahold of guns, and I simply say we have a revolving door justice system and it’s really effecting the crime stats. 5-10% of the population are doing 90% of the crimes. Look at the Petit murders, how horribly heinous they were, and both perps had rap sheets pages long…yet they were let out.
We can never stop all crime, and I do not believe in group punishment. I hated it with a passion in Army because 1 or 2 known fuck ups would get a DUI or some such shit and we all had to pay. Weekend safety briefs went from 10 minutes to an hour, and we ended up getting treated like children.
I think this type of ‘collective punishment’ is creeping into things, and now its people are criminals because they are economically disadvantaged, and other such shit…so we can’t stick it to them because it wasn’t really their fault to begin with.
The mass shooting thing, while sad for the victims, is over blown. Crime like this HAS been trending down, you’re really more likely to get killed by a kids baseball bat and/or a hammer. Handguns constitute the lion’s share of firearm shootings.
I am much more right than conservatives, and I view modern conservative as being socially conservative yet trending towards being fiscally liberal. The left is changing minute by minute, and while I am socially liberal I don’t support the progressive view of things which is intentionally meant to be harmful to American society. Gays can be gay, and they can go play with a bag full of penises all they want. Don’t care at all. I think thing’s like gays in the military is wrong, and so is women in combat jobs. I also do not care if someone is a minority but, just like women in combat jobs the left oversteps reason, and pushes blacks and others as needing lowered testing standards and such. If I were black, and someone told me I need lowered testing standards I’d be offended as shit.
While some people look to find racism in every corner they can it’s not really something I care about myself. When I was stationed in Germany I had two roomates total, both black, and they were very different people. The first black guy was great, and the 2nd thought he was a LA gangster. I have also known other black guys who we traded racial jokes, and no one took it personally. I don’t care much for people who find racism behind every corner, and take anything less than the liberal tone as the person being some bigot.
All the parts in red are well stated in my opinion. Thanks for sharing.
I think one would have to define the center 
John McCain is a great example of a modern so called conservative progressive type
Considering I am one that has called you a progressive type its not your lack of being pro gun its the idea that things that can help you but stomp on others are OK since they help you !
And all others should accept that cause it can help a few
Now maybe thats not what you are really about ?
Don’t know you personally so just a observation of things you have posted
Watched David Kucinich (spelling) radical left yet he seemed to understand the issue today is loonies doing crimes and not the guns
Was shocked cause he is so radical left
Also not bashing anyone
Myself very conservative Christian that believes both dems and repubs are against the common man so maybe more a libertarian
Having run my own business pretty much my whole life I believe in self sufficiency and no gov help for any business and limited help for some people but they must earn that ! Those that are truly mentally ill can be exempt and take better care of our military in return for what they have given the rest of us !
I am all for a safety net but it should not be a way of life to live off of the government and I think every able bodied person on government assistance should have to work for their money. I like the idea of workfare not wellfare. Where people are required to pick up trash or do what is needed in the community to earn their food stamp or what not.
Pat
You might be surprized but I agree with the part in red.
I believe ya do
and never think cause someone leans one way or the other makes them good or bad that is something all together different
I know some great left leaning people and some horrible ones the same can be said for right leaning
and same for some gun owners I have no desire to hang out with and some that are best friends
I’m a Republican in the true sense of the word and take to heart the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Anti Federalist papers. I take bits and pieces from both sides, but generally side with the Anti Federalist’s view that the more local the government, the more power it has, which is why the county sheriff has more power than federal LE.
As far a firearms go, people think I’m an extremist, but Thomas Jefferson said something to the effect that “no free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms”. If you aren’t in prison, you are a free man and should be allowed to be armed if you so choose. Gun control does not work. Background checks don’t work, they will just buy them on the black market or steal them. A free man should be able to call up Remington, order a firearm, and have it shipped direct to his house without question or additional nonsense. You can’t tell me we didn’t have mentally ill citizens in the late 18th century when our country was formed. They have the same rights as the rest of us and aren’t excluded anywhere in the Constitution. I’d rather live in a country with dangerous freedom than peaceful slavery.
To deter gun crime, we need to utilize the firearm enhancement in sentencing and not pussy-foot around with it. If you have a firearm and commit a violent crime while in your possession, 15 years no parole. Do it again, execution. Murder someone with a firearm, execution. Oh, you’re a Crip and you shot a Blood with a firearm and killed him? Execution.
That is true. My MIL is a very nice lady, and gone out of her way at times for our family yet leans left, and we had a ton of debate in 2008 about Obama. At the same time plenty of shitbag right leaning people who with zero compassion on a personal level for anyone else.
My politics?
I have no ideological political orientation, or at least actively resist having one insofar as possible. Left, right, libertarian, conservative, liberal, socialist, communist, anarcho-capitalist, anarcho-syndicalist, fascist, etc. — these are all self assumed identities that serve as excuses to keep believing things when reasons fail. In other words, political ideologies allow people to espouse certainties before even understanding problems; they give answers before comprehending questions. Even when an ideologue thoroughly understands an issue, his conclusions are muddied by preconceptions. Ideologies are lenses which blur our vision and constrain our options. They cause us to reflexively come down on certain sides of various issues without exploring them individually and exhaustively.
So, I take only one axiological (this means dealing with values) “leap” when it comes to political decision making (everyone must take one, this is philosophically and logically inescapable). I accept as an axiom that the worst conceivable misery for everyone is “bad” and the greatest amount of well-being and human flourishing is “good.” Figuring out exactly what that means is a long and complicated story; I won’t go into it here. It’s less of a philosophical utilitarianism and more of a basis for political decision making in this context.
From there forward, I rely on an extremely strict empiricism. I examine each issue individually and make a determination about the best way to move away from “the worst conceivable misery for everyone” toward “the greatest amount of well-being” using only information gleaned from a strict adherence to the scientific method in an attempt to eliminate biases and feed the best possible information into the decision making process.
This often leads me to agree with libertarian thought on some issues, and leftist thinking on others. Sometimes my positions don’t resemble any discernible political group’s. I reject that this is hypocritical or contradictory. Theories and ideologies that purport to explain everything are almost never right; I consider this method pragmatic. If the state is better organized or placed to solve a problem or produce an outcome, let it. If markets are the answer, let them have it.
My view on guns?
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Small arms parity between civilians and police / military. If you can carry it you can have it – suppressors, F/A, belt fed MG’s – you name it. I might disallow High Explosive munitions like 40mm. Not sure. I’m open to argument on that though.
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100% background checks on all sales with NO RECORD KEEPING. Details about how to make that possible would have to be worked out. Yes, some criminals could still get some weapons. But just because something doesn’t work 100% of the time doesn’t mean it’s useless. If a way to ensure that no records would be kept whatsoever could be devised, I see no logical reason not to implement a universal background check on all sales. Again, I’m open to argument if you think I’m wrong. I just literally can’t think of a single negative consequence of a timely background check on all firearms purchases – especially if we’re going to allow M240’s to be sold left and right – if there are no records kept. Again, I understand that some people will just break the law and acquire weapons anyway. That is not a negative consequence of this suggestion. Even if 90% of guns were sold by people breaking the law and not doing the background checks, that would still not be a negative consequence of requiring it of them by law. It would still have the possibility of preventing a sale to a violent felon 10% of the time with no negative effect.
Here you have an example of a mixture of positions traditionally thought of as from the left and right.
I voted Libertarian, but that doesn’t adequately describe me completely. I’ve been a registered Republican my entire adult life and I always considered myself a conservative. Yet I passionately disagree with some entrenched GOP viewpoints and these days, I’m primarily a disgruntled Republican.
I believe in fiscal conservatism and small government, which seems to have been abandoned by the GOP entirely. I don’t believe in legislating the bedroom at all. Community standards should be just that, standards, not laws. The GOP certainly doesn’t seem to believe in that either! I’m a staunch opponent of hypocrisy and double standards, which again, the GOP seems to love these days.
I could probably most correctly define myself as a classical liberal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism), but that’s pretty much been made extinct by modern liberalism since the New Deal. The Democratic party has some attractive aspects, but between their militant radicals and love of progressivism, on the whole they’re utterly repugnant.
The Libertarian side seems well populated with conspiracy theorists and complete nutbags, so while they may have a few good ideas, on the whole they’re unlikely to ever overcome their own deficiencies.
So where does that leave me? I feel like a political outcast more than anything. Perhaps I’m forever doomed to be nothing more than anachronism, like some neanderthal caveman thawed from a block of prehistoric ice. :jester:
The problem for me is I’m neither right, nor left, nor even a centerist.
In the grand shell game that is politics Party A supports half of the average persons views while Party B supports the other half thus ensuring most people aren’t fully represented and nothing meaningful is accomplished.
My laundry list of complains about Democrats is only matched by my list of complaints about Republicans. If the Libertarian party ever became a true “third party” power I would have a similar list of complaints (though possibly not as long) about them.
I think we have only had four GREAT Presidents since the beginning of the 20th century and they are Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. And despite the fact that they seem to be better than all the other Presidents combined, I can find major disagreements and faults with each and every one of them.
I don’t think it is the function of government to take care of us. Government exists so that we may more effectively take care of ourselves. But there is no money in that, you can’t charge for freedom or liberty.
This is compounded by the fact that the vast majority of those involved in politics are there SOLELY for power and money. Government has evolved into a significant enough threat to freedom and liberty as to actually rival some foreign countries who are hostile to the US.
^^
Ideology is good and bad. Yes it can cause people to come to pre-conceived conclusions which may be wrong, but also explains why people have to make the hard right over the easy wrong. Thing’s like welfare, while seemingly easy, is a wrong because it opens up pandoras box to people voting themselves money out of other people’s pockets.
Simply picking and choosing how to interpret things without an ideological base seems like an easy way to make knee jerk decisions. You have to have some convictions on a majority of thing. I do not agree with some libertarians who advocate open borders. It was ok when having open borders wasn’t the threat it is today, and I’d like to see a return to that but the reason why it’s no longer a viable thing to have is because of government…the WOD and WOP which has provided incentive for the wrong types of people to cross the border.
For instance a basic rule I believe in is that government creates or either exploits a small problem and turns it into a bigger problem. This a basic survival skill. To remain employed people want to prove why their employer should keep paying them. Government does the same, just a bit different, but creates, exploits, or lies about problems they thus have to fix, and thus remain employed.
Strict ideology is not right but there are quite a few basic ‘laws’ that almost universally apply.
Coolidge…used to take routine naps because he believed government should stay out of the way. Lowered tax rates so low very few people even paid income taxes. Presided over the Roaring 20’s.
I almost think thats what we need now. Basically get some MF’er up there who will spend a couple months EO’ing the repeal of a shit ton of regulations and tell agencies not to enforce XYZ, and then go nap out the rest of is presidency. By the time his 4 years would be up I bet the country would be far better off than we are now.
The problem is that any conception of right and wrong that doesn’t deal directly with human suffering vs human well-being seems fundamentally irrational to me. A traditional political ideology would say, for example, either “federal involvement in education is wrong” or “federal involvement in education is necessary.”
Says who and why should I believe it? I’ll weigh both options against human well-being and human suffering as best I can with the best information available and THEN decide which is right and which is wrong. I can’t accept either one axiomatically (that is, as a self-evident truth) as a political ideology would require. I see nothing inherently right or wrong in either statement. Everything gets weighed against suffering and well-being based on consequences.
This is why any ideology that makes any statement beyond “the worst possible misery is bad” and “the greatest possible well-being, happiness, and flourishing is good” seems problematic to me. I have no idea how any ideology that gets any more specific than that could possibly keep those two possibilities in mind. It’s doing things in the wrong order, and worse, inviting intelligent people to be lazy and let the ideology make the decision for them.
Moderate slightly leaning to the right currently but I reserve the privilege to slightly lean to the left depending on the issue. 
You can answer that, as I do, by believing that things should be handled by the lowest level possible to get the mission accomplished.
I am sure you can relate…should the company commander handle every issue in the company? No…things are delegated down because if he had to handle every issue the quality of his decision would be lowered accross the board, and he wouldn’t be able to effectively handle things. At the same time he knows when to butt out of things, and let the NCO’s handle many issues.
There HAS to be some established truths and rules on how to handle things which is what an ideology is. Looking at every issue by itself, and not applying lessons learned or rules to things leads to instability, rash decisions, and in the end poor quality results.
This logical chain of thought would simply be integrated into my decision making process. All I’m arguing is that I won’t accept a statement like “things are always best handled at the lowest level” as an unarguable truth that isn’t subject to rational inquiry and disputation. A traditional ideology would require more or less doing this.
If handling things at the lowest level leads to less human suffering and more human flourishing 90 out of 100 times, then great and I’ll keep that in mind, but suffering and flourishing are still the standards against which everything is measured. I’m not going to say that federal involvement is inherently right or wrong. Consequences are everything. I can’t buy into an ideology that declares specific solutions (like federal involvement in education) as self-evidently right or wrong in and of themselves as a matter of reflex.
I’m not sure I’m making the distinction clearly enough. I guess I’ve just found that thinking for myself with a constant concern for human well-being has served me better than any political affiliation. The thought of running Conservative or Liberal software on my brain is just something I’m not going back to. And I really think that’s the best analogy.
…while getting the mission accomplished.
If you look at things like national defense…a bunch of state armies with independent commands and commanded by a civil authority with their own self interests would not be as effective as a single army with all the state’s input…thus we do not have state armies we have a national army.
On the opposite end is the national civil authority best suited to enforce speed limits in a nation this size or run our animal shelter? No.
Of course you do have to look at every issue…just that the general rule is to push things down to the lowest level possible to effect a good outcome.
I say this to people often when they ask
to me voting for a republican or a democrat or republican is like being asked do you want to be hit in the right side of the face or the left side !
and we are saying we dont want to be hit at all !!!
that is my political thoughts more than anything just dont hit us let us live our lives let me keep my money let me do my things
I dont mind reasonable tax to fix roads support things that need be
but reasonable and EVERYONE pays !
maybe flat %15 and flat %10 on everything luxury
food your first $1000 a month is not taxed over that its %10 as luxury
and all gov workers get entry level military salary
I bet no republican would want that ! and that shows what side they are on IMHO ! they are on the side of themselves and the gov !
100% agreed. It wouldn’t take long to get the economy going again once the weight of government is taken off the backs of the people.