imported post
I'd still like to know why the current GOP is supposedly so dedicated to Second Amendment rights.
Yes, yes, I know that historically, Democrats are pro-gun and Republicans anti-gun.
But where does this line up with the beliefs of the current Republican party? How can a rabidly fascist (see Flag Pin an immigration comments), pro-"security", pro-militarization party be trusted with protecting our rights? Or how can they be trusted any more so than a party that favors minorities' rights, the power of the people (rather than the State), and who clings to anti-gun issues as a secondary issue?
Most importantly, if the GOP no longer needed true gun owners for votes, what would stop them from having their elected leader ban guns in the name of "security"? I'm fairly certain that if another 9/11-style attack happened tomorrow, and George W. Bush went on television tomorrow night and explained how everyone must turn in all their guns for national security, 99% of gun owners would do so, and the majority would be happy to do it "for the State", er, "for safety".
What I'm saying, in a roundabout way, is that it's dangerous to assume the GOP has the interests of gun owners' on their minds. The GOP panders to gun owners for votes, and will ditch true gun owners when it becomes convenient. And "conservative" and "liberal" mean no more than which rights a particular person supports and which he rejects based on his convictions. See "illegal" guns versus "illegal" immigrants. Big authoritarian government versus big socialist government. Safety from outsiders versus safety from insiders. Can you trust future SCOTUS appointees to choose "our" side of the gun debate when the cherry-picked freedoms have been so politicized as to be meaningless?
Even more succinctly, I'll take a socialist over a fascist any day.