Just a question for this group.

[oneshooter]

How much do you believe the vote was because of the democratic platform on firearms, Australian type confiscation, and a renewed and expanded ban.

Discuss please.

[TheMastersNemesis]

1. Take Your Guns Meme Was Probably A Big Factor.

Trump supports the end of gun free zones. What that means you can carry any weapon anywhere at any time in public and in the open. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS SHITHEAD POLICY.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

4. Making the election about all the things wrong with trump worked wonderfully

Most of what trump stands for is problematic. But I have a question: How many folks have won elections while campaigning for an assault weapons ban?

Other questions: In places that have assault weapons bans, have there been reductions in mass killings? Have there been reductions in killings at all? If the answer anywhere is yes, can that difference be attributed for sure to an AWB?

Is trump a terrible person? ... sure he is; no argument.
Is having an AWB in the platform a liability without a tangible benefit? ... you bet!

[Eleanors38]

9. In answer: Losing elections, and willfully ignorance of dropping crime rates.

Few can say demonstrably that the so-called "guns everywhere" meme will lead to lowered crime rates, but it has not led to measureable increases.

I note also that the WHAT COULD GO WRONG... meme has lost whatever rhetorical flourish it had, and like a lot of the gun-control sloganeering, rings of a past era.

[pablo_marmol]

12. What could go wrong with over-using the sentence "What could go wrong"?

Gun owners across America are reminded -- when they here this -- of how completely ignorant so many on the left are w/regard to the gun violence issue.........and know that we can't be trusted to dialog meaningfully on what constitutes "common sense gun control." Without knowledge of the fundamentals, no "common sense" solution can be envisioned.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

13. Thanks mostly to MSM...

...the term "common sense gun control" is about as well defined as "assault weapon".

[pablo_marmol]

14. And we're supposed to believe that people too lazy and dishonest.......

........to learn what defines a semi-automatic firearm can be trusted to exercise "common sense"?!

People that believe in myths such as "gun show loopholes", so-called assault weapons, the "epidemic" of gun violence etc. possess any common sense?!

Uh huh. When pigs fly.

[heaven05]

2. yeah, a lot

but only white people will be assumed non-threatening when the national open carry instigated by the trumpfuhrer becomes policy. PoC will still, not be allowed to open carry without threat to their life being constant because of racists, racist police. Period.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

3. How much? I'm just not sure exactly.

I believe that however small the real number of Democrats was who didn't vote HRC for any reason like voted 3rd party, voted for the GOP (great orange plague), just didn't vote at all... that number in 3-4 states (Florida and Pennsylvania for example) made the difference.

So by all means let's continue with policies like those underlined:

Preventing Gun Violence
With 33,000 Americans dying every year, Democrats believe that we must finally take sensible action to address gun violence. While responsible gun ownership is part of the fabric of many communities, too many families in America have suffered from gun violence. We can respect the rights of responsible gun owners while keeping our communities safe. To build on the success of the lifesaving Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, we will expand and strengthen background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws; repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to revoke the dangerous legal immunity protections gun makers and sellers now enjoy; and keep weapons of war — such as assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines (LCAM's) — off our streets. We will fight back against attempts to make it harder for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to revoke federal licenses from law breaking gun dealers, and ensure guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists, intimate partner abusers, other violent criminals, and those with severe mental health issues. There is insufficient research on effective gun prevention policies, which is why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must have the resources it needs to study gun violence as a public health issue.

https://www.demconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Democratic-Party-Platform-7.21.16-no-lines.pdf

[petronius]

5. I have no idea how much of an impact it was, but I'm confident that the issue

hurts us more than it helps. The continual drip of more more more regulation, often focusing on ill-defined policies that are unlikely to have any substantial benefit, is just low-hanging fruit for the opposition...

[flamin lib]

6. I must grudgingly admit that the gunner vote made a minuscule difference.

However, the loss of the election can be attributed to a single action by a single person; James Comey.

I was checking 538.com multiple times daily for the last two months of the election. HRC was ahead 5-7% in all demographics except non college educated white males. Beginning four days after Comey announced the 're-opening' of his investigation of the emails, the time that post announcement polls took effect, the lead began to narrow to the point that there was only a 2% edge nationally and less in some swing states. The same trend was mirrored in the Senate races.

In the final analysis HRC turned out about 5% fewer voters in minorities, millennials and college educated whites than the polls ten days earlier indicated would turn out.

With a margin that thin the less than 1% of voters that the NRA can dependably turn out became a factor.

With the help of Russian hacking, editing and planting of DNC emails and Comey's intervention the power of a tiny subgroup (roughly matched by an equally fervent gun safety movement) was given a possibly pivotal role.

So yes, the gunner vote made a difference but only because the Comey letter suppressed the Democratic turnout. The Trump numbers remained flat so the NRA can't claim that they generated extra turnout of the gun vote. The $50 million spent by the NRA didn't increase Trump's vote. With the suppression of marginal HRC voters the Gunner vote, which would not have gone to HRC in any event, would have meant nothing.

Much to my dismay, the gun issue is still too far down the list of concerns of US voters to be a factor in either direction.

[spin]

11. Did you see the lines at gun shows every time the Democrats pushed the idea...

of passing another Federal Assault Weapns Ban? Did you read how gun stores sold almost all the weapons in their stores during those days and many popular firearms, both handguns and long guns were on back order. Ammo was also extremely difficult to obtain for most common calibers.

This video shows the line at a Birmingham Alabama gun show.

Gun owners wee well aware of Hillary's position on another Federal Assault Weapons Ban and it's my opinion that enough were willing to show up at the polls to vote against Hillary and other Democrats to tip the election.

[LP2K12]

15. Agreed.

I don't know about every American, but my 9-5, government working father voted for Trump. Why? Because he was tried of what he felt was a Democrat run on his firearms. He disliked Trump, he disliked a party threatening bans more.

[gejohnston]

7. I don't know

Congressional and statewide races, certainly in some cases. Some of it seems to be a pushback against progressivism in the US and Europe. Not against liberalism, but it seems to many, me included, that progressives have gone full circle to sounding like 19th-century conservatives in Europe. Some of that is being discussed in GD and Postmortem.

I do know this much. A lifelong Wyomingite in my city, the only politician I actually worked for, lost to Liz carpetbagging poaching big money from California fucking Cheney. Would he have won if he didn't "party of gun control" millstone around his neck? I don't know.

[Eleanors38]

8. In relatively close elections, it figures in big time. We've had another close election.

But the phenomenon has been with us since Al Gore, and no appreciable change has been made by the Beltway Democrats and old-line MSM for going on 20 years. This nexus WILL persist unless directly challenged. The persistent culture war on gun-owners allows "moralistic" progressives to use the same "N" and "C" word approach of the trumpers on millions of gun-owning Americans without (they seem to think) consequence. They are willing to cling to this approach and refuse to see the actual consequences.

BE ASSURED, fellow Democrats, the rhetoric about gun control, here and elsewhere, is closely followed and inculcated into Republican/FR politics! We ain't on land lines anymore.

[pablo_marmol]

10. When multiple factors result in a political loss, ones biases dictate the most likely cause(s).

We "gunners" understand that the Democratic Party seriously underestimates the political damage that our dishonesty produces. That said, given the many factors that produced our recent loss I'm unwilling to say that gun restriction spelled the difference.......though it very well could have.

Semi-auto firearms are not complex mechanical devices. When a political party repeatedly, over decades tells stupid/obvious lies about the nation's most popular rifle there's bound to be consequences. How do we expect our fellow citizens to side with us on climate change when we hang on to the pathetic "assault weapon" lie? (If you understand how an internal combustion engine functions, you understand how a semi-automatic firearm functions.) And as I've mentioned before, if you think that the Rust Belt wasn't aware of what has happened recently in California and Massachusetts ---- you're dreaming. Period. People don't just get irritated when culture war is directed at them, they get angry. And they express that anger at the polls.

I believe that Hillary was overconfident. She never dialed back her rhetoric approaching the general, and was spouting "gun control" rubbish days before the election. Sure didn't help us, and I've noticed that in the 2016 Postmortem forum nobody is bringing up the gun issue as one of the potential reasons for our defeat. Unreal. Still numb. I don't think we'll ever learn. Confirmation bias rules the day........and the hatred of all things guns won't change anytime soon.

Time for bed.

Edited to add article re. Hillary's Folly:

http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/30/9-ways-hillary-clintons-gun-control-plan-could-cha.aspx

[pablo_marmol]

16. Bumped as a reminder that Applegate lost to Issa by less than 2,000 votes.

Ya think that all of CA's stupidity and dishonesty re. gun restriction had anything to do with that? Nah ---- that's just a Gungeoneer talking point.