Why US liberals are now buying guns too

[spin]

60. While Obama is a popular Presdient, during his time in office...

the Democratic Party lost control of both Houses of Congress, a number of governorships and over 900 seats in state legislatures.

I come from a long line of Democrats who worked in the iron and steel mills of Pennsylvania. All of these Democrats owned and used firearms and several used their weapons for legitimate self defense.

When I go shooting at target ranges I find most shooters say they are Republican. As a registered Democrat I find myself often as the odd one in the bunch and take a lot of good natiured razing. However when i have discussed politics with other shooters I find they often agree with many of the ideas the Democratic Party favors. Unfortunately they tell me that even so they could never vote for a Democrat as they oppose gun bans and limits on the amount of rounds a magazine can hold. In their opinion a new Federal Assault Weapons Ban is just the first step to the imposition of gun laws similar to those the Great Britain on the citizens of our nation.

There are at least 80,000,000 gun owners in our nation and a significant percentage turn out at the polls to vote against any and all candidates who support gun bans and restrictions on common firearms.

In my opinion it is quite possible that the gun owners in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida may have cost Hillary the necessary electoral votes she needed to win the Presidency. Consequently we ended up with Trump in the Oval Office.

Most gun owners I talk with do wish to see some improvements to our existing gun laws. First they want to see existing gun laws enforced. They are open to improvements to our NICS background check system. They would like to see the straw purchases of firearms and the smuggling of weapons for sale in our inner cities stopped. However they do no favor any form of federal gun registration and of course oppose any firearm bans.

I am now 70 years old. I understand that the Democratic Party has changed significantly over my lifetime. I still support many of the concepts our party stands for but I personally feel that our efforts to push for gun bans and strong laws like those in Great Britain are a ball and chain around the ankle of our party.

Now I understand that many Democrats are buying firearms because Trump became our President. Support for many of the gun control ideas our party has proposed is even diminishing in our own ranks.