Roe vs Wade / gun laws

Because American conservatives tend to believe that
a) killing a fetus is murder
b) carrying a gun is self defense and having gun laws will just stop the good people from having guns while doing nothing to stop the bad people from getting them.
I don't agree and I think people who think this are a bit dim. But that is their position, and that's why they simultaneously support these two policies.

‘Have you seen the footage of the actor (his name escapes me) talking about how they had to identify a child by the colour of their shoe?’

Yes.

‘Could you explain to me one good reason for having a gun? One good thing that a gun does? Any good reason that justifies the murder of thousands of people every year?’

No. I dislike guns. I wish they’d never been invented. But in asking me for a justification of the murder of thousands of people every year, you still don’t advance your argument that other people want those deaths to happen.

I have never lived in the Appalachian Mountains, or the Rockies, or rural Texas. I assume people there believe they require guns for self-defence, hunting, family tradition. I don’t believe those reasons outweigh public safety (I dislike guns) but I don’t believe they amount to wanting kids dead either, and by insisting that they do, we only entrench their cynicism about our motivations.

This. I'm not an expert on this but I have a relative who has been fervently anti abortion for years - it's a real cause for them. They are evangelical Christian which is a large part of the reason.

Is this move representing religious beliefs?

No doubt Americans also have deeply entrenched mysogyny. They didn't vote for Hilary, they don't offer maternity pay, we have better women's rights on this small isle...

‘Well, anyone who agrees with having guns certainly doesn't care about the lives of children. Or anyone, really.’

Is that what you honestly think? Deep down?

And on democracy, I know the US system is very complex and the President isn’t necessarily leading a majority, but the argument that the government of the majority doesn’t protect the preferences of a minority is problematic for me. There’s no legitimate governance by a minority. We have words for those types of governments - oligarchies, aristocracies etc. If you can’t persuade enough people round to your viewpoint to get a majority, and you still get to enact your laws, how is that legitimate government?

‘I hear what you're saying but we don't care that children are shot dead in schools but consider ourselves passionately 'pro-life' gets a big eyebrow raise from me.’

I know. I find it hard to square away as well. The concern I have is that the rhetoric (as tempting as it is) that pro-life Americans as a whole don’t care about the lives of seven year olds doesn’t convince anyone. It riles people up but it doesn’t work, because (I think anyway) it’s not true.

" what do you want, a divine fiat?" I would prefer to leave God out of this. He has yet to prove himself a friend of women.

I also want to point out that your arguments based on the democratic process don't recognize the events of the January 6 insurrection, where forces spurred on by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's wife attempted to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. Resulting in the deaths of five Capital police officers. How is this democracy?

You keep going back to the idea that majority rules without acknowledging that the US system of government is not based on strict democracy or that it's possible for a president to be elected without carrying the popular vote. As is the case with Trump's election.

He was not elected by the majority of the voters.

I also disagree that women are more likely to be pro life.

Please respond to my question about a GOP candidate punching a woman candidate in the face at an abortion rally and how that ties into your contention the issue can be settled thru a democratic process when pro abortionists are being violently assaulted while trying to convince people to support their cause. Do you consider that to be an example of oppression?

Also, who is "they"?

What are you proposing, some sort of divine fiat?

People need to deal in realpolitik. If they want to have legislation, they need to get people behind it. If they can't, the legislation will not be brought forward, or it will not pass. Or it might pass but there will be other problems because so many disagree with it.

Who is your minority here? Women are half the voters, and more to the point, women are even more likely to be pro-life than men. If you can't convince them to support your position then maybe you need to consider your strategic approach.

In a democracy, how do you convince people to listen to your side when police officers running for public office, on a platform advocating for no gun control, punch women speaking in support of abortion rights in the face?

The United States is not a strict democracy.

Majority rule rule does not protect the interests of the minority.

Well yes, not everyone will just do what you want. In a democracy you need to convince people.

On a very controversial topic where people are split about half and half, with views that many consider extreme dominating the ends and the discourse, political leaders are unlikely to see much benefit in proposing legislation that will bring lots of criticisms and in all likelihood, very few plaudits.

I just don't really know where this idea that liberal democracy doesn't involve convincing others or making compromises comes from.

You cannot blame women because they are oppressed

We haven't failed to push for protective legislation. Legislation to protect the right to abortion has been passed in some states but not in others and has failed at the national level because many politicians will not support it and some actively oppose.

This is oppression

I would say that it's true the way this has been played has not won over hearts and minds. I'm not sure there has been a strong shift to the right on abortion specifically though. It has been the case for many years that most Americans are moderates, and that they are pretty equally split as far as people who consider themselves pro-choice or pro-life. The line moves a little but not a lot. The more conservative populations are Catholics and evangelical Christians, but also Hispanic, black, and female voters are more likely to lean pro-life. So I suppose it's possible demographic change could play a part.

But as far as people getting turned off, I think that's true. Most Americans are moderate on abortion. They tend to think something like the abortion laws in the UK or the Netherlands are a good approach. Most of them do not believe killing a third trimester fetus is morally indifferent.

Pro-choice activists in the US are prone to some pretty strong performative stuff, and they tend to very vocally take the view that abortion at any stage is morally neutral.

Strategically the whole thing is a bit weird - at times it seems like they don't actually want to convince people. I've wondered if that isn't behind their failure to push for legislation, it would involve trying to convince people and possibly political compromise.

Murder is actually illegal in the US. Allowing gun ownership is not precisely the same as saying it's ok to murder people. There are lots of things allowed that can potentially harm people if used in an illegal manner, but that does not automatically equate to banning those things.

Gun ownership is protected by the constitutions in the US, largely due to their history. It's quite different from the UK but if you think about weapon ownership in terms of class hierarchy in the UK and Europe, and also the fact that there was real wilderness much more recently in the US where regular citizens hunted for their food regularly - something often not permitted to regular people in Europe - it maybe is easier to see that firearms have a very different place in the national consciousness. The idea of the state disarming the citizens has really different connotations.

There are other points people will make, probably the most significant one being that most gun crime is not related to legal guns, and states with strict laws don't have better outcomes. They tend to think the idea that cutting of legal gun ownership will prevent illegal acts is pretty questionable.

I would also say that in recent years the Democrats have lost a lot of moral authority on crime and violence issues. "Defund the police and take away citizens legal guns" doesn't sound like a great combination if you are in a place like San Francisco these days.

Roe v Wade is quite different - it was struck down mainly because it was always a shaky legal ruling.- this was admitted by the justices who made it at the time. It's not a law - as in a piece of legislation - as some people seem to think. As much as pro-choice activists at the moment want to say this has happened only because there are not more conservative chief justices, you could equally argue it only stood as long as it did because of the way the court was weighted before. If you want federal legislation it needs to come from the federal congress which is what pro-choice activists should have been pushing for, it's not like their hasn't been time.

There are similarities between the two in that conservatives are more likely to argue with both that legislation is properly made at the state level rather than the federal level, for reasons completely apart from their views on either abortion or guns.

The thing really makes no sense is that they care very little about these children once they are in the world and the right to bear arms is part of this. They don’t have statutory maternity leave, they don’t have easily accessible/affordable health care and they won’t place some form of logical control on guns to stop them being take into Schools and killing innocent children. Oh and there’s the death penalty too often course. Right to life is absolute bullshit it’s about the right to control and punish, rooted primarily in white suprematist Christian fundamentalism. Yesterday was a ver sad day for America.

Can anyone please assist with linking? Idk how but there was an incident in the US. A police officer in the state of Rhode Island attended an abortion rights rally as part of a counter protest group and punched a Black woman in the face twice after she spoke

The incident is even more relevant because he is also running for public office and so is she. His platform is opposition to gun control.

I ask you to regard this incident because it illustrates the paradigm between pro lifers who also adamantly oppose gun control. It shows you what we are up against as women. Not only the political oppression but also the personal violence.

Could you imagine a police officer also running as a Conservative MP punching a woman at Speakers Corner for delivering a speech they disagree with?

I saw a quote somewhere this morning;

'Guns have more rights in the US than women do'.

Sums it up for me. It's abhorrent and a very scary step backwards, not only for the women of the US, but it's likely to cause a shift in attitudes worldwide.

I hear what you're saying but we don't care that children are shot dead in schools but consider ourselves passionately 'pro-life' gets a big eyebrow raise from me.