[WS:] I think that you are quite wrong on that. The left is marginalized for a host of other reasons, and its position on gun rights has zero effect on that marginalization. On the other hand, pushing for gun control can be an important frame bridging strategy - which in social movement literature means adopting positions that are tangential to the core goals of a movement but matter to potential supporters so adopting them can elicit their support for the movement. Gun control matters quite a bit to liberals who otherwise are not very sympathetic to the left - so left's support for gun control can be an important frame bridging strategy that will bring the mainstream instead of alienating it. Opposing gun control, otoh, will likely further marginalize the left, because it will alienate liberals, who are only potential allies. The right will never accept the left, no matter what the left's position on gun control or any other issue is.
I understand that some hard core lefties historically would rather go to bed with fascists than support social democrats or liberals - but I have written these clowns off long time ago. They are pathetic and inconsequential.
Wojtek
On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 9:24 AM, Maladvocate <maladvocate at gmail.com> wrote:
> andie_nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> > Gun rights are a core right wing shibboleth, like anti-abortion,
> therefore
> > worth attacking.
> >
>
> Which basically validates the right wing belief that the left would remove
> gun rights completely if it could. I can think of no better way to further
> marginalize the left in the eyes of two thirds of the population.
>
> Left and right both support the first amendment, the fourth amendment, and
> others (albeit with minor differences in interpretation in places) so there
> is fertile common ground and plenty of it, save for this. Pity.
>
> --ma
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-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."