How did Connecticut & Massachusetts become so anti firearm?

[orpington]

Everything about this post is not only wrong but wrong-headed and part of what is wrong with the perception of guns in America.

What's wrong with "tacticool AR's" and "high cap mags"?

The problem with the NRA is that it has to exist in its present form at all. It 'should' be an organization to promote safe firearms' ownership and use. We shouldn't have to have a full time lobby to protects rights that are already guaranteed by the Constitution. Same for manufacturers. They're 100% regulated by the federal government, yet that same gov't once tried to bankrupt the entire industry with frivolous lawsuits. If you think the NRA is just a lobby for the manufacturers, you must get your news from CNN.

I responded to a thread not too long ago that folks running around in camouflage with ARs and high capacity magazines, firing off numerous rounds as one can in semi automatic fashion presents a terrible image to the anti 2A general public.

It certainly doesn’t help our cause.

BUT, at that time, I stated maybe we don’t need all that, and that is simply opinion, and maybe it’s okay if all that disappeared.

I was WRONG. Maybe tactical sports aren’t my cup of tea, and maybe it seems rather unsettling to the general anti firearm public. But the trouble is, once YOU give an inch, THEY will take a mile. Before you know it, Johnny Redneck will have trouble buying a 20 ga shotgun and a box of shells to shoot a few doves.

In reality, THEY are winning the war already. Sure, but as many firearms as you want, hundreds or even thousands. Enjoy your paperweights. That’s what they quickly become when your ability to obtain primers and gunpowder is severely restricted by this artificial scarcity that has been created.

I am so thankful I had the foresight to stock up during the Trump glory years, and before Obama, when this nonsense was irrelevant.

 

[AlexanderA]

I get the sense that things are changing rapidly. A lot of my liberal friends are suddenly much more open to gun ownership. They're scared witless that the armed Right is going to come after them, and they want to be able to protect themselves.

The hard-core Left has always been pro-gun. Karl Marx himself said that the workers should never allow themselves to be disarmed.

If this is what it takes to bolster the 2nd Amendment, I'm not sure we want to go there. With guns in so many hands, some of them are bound to be used in ways that we might not like.

This country, in general, is arming up at an amazing pace. At this rate, the antigunners are going to find themselves irrelevant, left in the dustbin of history. As I've said, these people are naive idealists. If history is any guide, such people are the first to be swept aside in times of crisis.

 

[theotherwaldo]

Karl Marx himself said that the workers should never allow themselves to be disarmed.

Yep.
The Revolution cannot succeed if the revolutionaries are unarmed - and the law-abiding are armed... .

 

[Bruce D Pease]

As a former Ma resident for nearly 79 years I say the following:
Land wise there is more forest in MA today than there was in the 1850s(think farming self sufficiency)
Population wise the three most populous areas ( Boston inside rte 495, Worcester, and Springfield in the CT river valley) are all areas with a large, very very large, number of colleges. Colleges are almost universally Uber liberal and do their best to proselytize the liberal message to the student body. Thus these three areas controll, in a very real sense the fabric of state politics. As a former college instructor I was one of the very few on the faculty who knew anything about guns, let alone owned one (or a few more). It is tough to have a rational discussion with anyone on the “other side when they “”know”” in their hearts that you are wrong in every fact you present is wrong because CNN and MSNBC etc tell them they are right. The liberal mindset affected every part of their psyche. I moved from behind the lines last year and am glad I’m in a constitutional carry state. The sad part, for me, in MA is many in my family worked
for either The Springfield Armory, and/or Smith and Wesson. I grew up a twenty minute walk from either of them.
So the population centers with their liberal educational and as previously mentioned liberal ethnic make up now predominate. Luckily when we were there our town Police chief was pro 2A, so we had no trouble getting our licenses in what was a may issue state.

 

[wiscoaster]

Yep.
The Revolution cannot succeed if the revolutionaries are unarmed - and the law-abiding are armed... .

And after the revolution succeeds, the first step is for all the revolutionaries to turn in their guns. "For their own good", as Castro claimed, when he came into power, and took all their guns.

 

[Bruce D Pease]

Actually the Springfield Armory was put there by George Washington because the transportation via the Connecticut River made it easy to get materials in and produced weapons out. The river is/was navigable by ocean going vessels up as far as Hartford Ct. the water power for the original “water shops” of the armory was provided by damning the South Branch of the Millers River to form an impoundment known as Watershops pond and the Armory was built over the dam to use that power. The Armory was not on the banks of the CT river. The original armory name was the Arsenal at Springfield. It was a repository/ storage facility not a manufacturer.

 

[orpington]

As a former Ma resident for nearly 79 years I say the following:
Land wise there is more forest in MA today than there was in the 1850s(think farming self sufficiency)
Population wise the three most populous areas ( Boston inside rte 495, Worcester, and Springfield in the CT river valley) are all areas with a large, very very large, number of colleges. Colleges are almost universally Uber liberal and do their best to proselytize the liberal message to the student body. Thus these three areas controll, in a very real sense the fabric of state politics. As a former college instructor I was one of the very few on the faculty who knew anything about guns, let alone owned one (or a few more). It is tough to have a rational discussion with anyone on the “other side when they “”know”” in their hearts that you are wrong in every fact you present is wrong because CNN and MSNBC etc tell them they are right. The liberal mindset affected every part of their psyche. I moved from behind the lines last year and am glad I’m in a constitutional carry state. The sad part, for me, in MA is many in my family worked
for either The Springfield Armory, and/or Smith and Wesson. I grew up a twenty minute walk from either of them.
So the population centers with their liberal educational and as previously mentioned liberal ethnic make up now predominate. Luckily when we were there our town Police chief was pro 2A, so we had no trouble getting our licenses in what was a may issue state.

Let me ask you this, as I simply don’t know. WHY are colleges & universities so liberal/anti firearm/anti 2A? Being educated to me means having an open mind and being educated also should be apolitical and university professors would be split 50/50 or nearly so, R vs D. I could even reason that public universities might be slightly more liberal as salaries come from public funds, but, conversely, private university funding does not have a public fund for salaries and therefore should lean Republican/conservative.

And so, it should stand to reason, those who attend public universities would be more anti 2A, and those that attend private schools would be more pro 2A. Except that reasoning is obviously not true.

I should add I lived in New England quite some time ago, I’ve never spent one day in a private institution as a student (who can afford that?), I am obviously pro 2A, cannot bring myself to support a Democratic candidate, although, in hindsight, Bill Clinton wasn’t horrible. I’m also proof you can be educated in New England, have a college degree, and still earn minimum wage in supposedly wealthy states, although this was during a recession in the early ‘90’s. And so I left. One less voter to consistently vote Republican in elections. I’m sure I’m probably not sorely missed.

 

[Bcwitt]

Dude, you can’t be serious. Tacticool ARs with high cap mags have been used in the most deadly and devastating mass shootings. That is why the non-shooting public is AFRAID of them. And in my hunting career I’ve never gotten a 24th shot at my game. Or a 14th. Or even a 4th, so a 10 round mag is still more than twice I’ll ever need. Hell, I’d get fined for having more than 3 shells in my shotty during duck and goose season. So there is no legitimate hunting purpose to high cap mags. They only exist for fun and potential combat.

Some think the 2A protects private gun ownership for potential combat with a tyrannical government. Others, many many others are afraid of people that believe, articulate and open carry with body armor to prove the point. I’m just making this observation in response to the OP. Can you see any merit to this perspective?

I do see merit to this perspective. Fear. Fear is a product of Ignorance. How are you not responsible for the non shooting public if you fearmonger here? I would remind you to be thoughtful when you post in a PUBLIC place like THR; but I'm pretty sure you thought about it quite a bit.

 

[wis bang]

Not quite New England but NE PA in 1972 I was part of the first freshman class with women on campus and a large co-ed commuter population.

Jesuit University that also just dropped manditory ROTC [I remember watching my draft number being pulled in a dom TV room] and was dissapointed at how elite the rifle team was.

Ten years later the basement rifle range is now the campus Rathskeller...while I'm sure lots of townies are 2A and hunt I wonder if any on campus still bring their deer rifles [had to leave the bolt in the Provost office] to the dorms...

Not the most elite private school but very liberal for a catholic institution.

 

[theotherwaldo]

Let me ask you this, as I simply don’t know. WHY are colleges & universities so liberal/anti firearm/anti 2A?

Shortly after the end of WWII, certain agencies within the Soviet Union began a program that included funding department chairs in major U.S. colleges and universities. This insured that anyone that succeeded in graduating from these departments had to at least appear to lean to the left.
The Schools of Journalism, Education, Economics, History, Philosophy and Political Science were obvious targets, although there were others.
Once the chairs were established as filters, it was very difficult for any non-leftists to become an instructor in any major educational institution.

This information came out in the Soviet records shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union.
It quickly faded away from common knowledge... .

 

[bdickens]

A lot of people conflate "liberal" and "leftist." They are not the same.

 

[Robert]

This has wandered far off anything resembling a topic for THR.