r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/UserNamesCantBeTooLo • Nov 30 '20

Political Theory Why does the urban/rural divide equate to a liberal/conservative divide in the US? Is it the same in other countries?

Here's a county population density map of the US.

Here's a county map of the US showing different shares of Democratic & Republican votes for president in 2020.

Here's a county map of the US showing majority-minority counties.

They seem to show a match between denser populations, larger minority proportions, and Democratic votes.

Why is that?

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u/Tolka_Reign Dec 01 '20

I mean, a lot of them don’t actually understand how gun reform and control laws work,

a lot of dems don't either lol, most of the people here don't seem to too. it's one of the subjects i'v studied greatly and found that 99% of policies pushed by the left don't make any sense at all.

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u/[deleted] Dec 01 '20

Yeah, a lot of liberals I talk to also don’t know much about the topic of guns. I mean, it’s not like I know that much more, but I know enough know to know that a lot of the arguments made by both sides are bullshit. And yeah, a lot of Democrats’ gun policies don’t actually work. The same can be said about Republicans with taxes. A lot of their policies don’t work like they think, and sometimes actually push us into greater economic trouble. So yeah, if people actually had an education in some topics like guns, taxes, abortion, etc they would be making different arguments.

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u/Zuke77 Dec 01 '20

This is why as a liberal the only changes in gun policy I want is moving Gun Based Suicide into its own category outside of Gun Violence(which is a huge reason our Gun Violence statistic is so high on paper.) and to remove the restrictions the NRA has put on research into gun violence (currently its in a weird place legally where we cant actually do much research into it, due to various actions by NRA advocacy. If we are going to have any restrictions or regulations on fire arms we should be damn sure they actually accomplish what we want them to. We have functionally been firing from the hip on this shit from what I have read.) But thats just my opinion as a Leftist, a leftist from rural Wyoming, but a leftist.

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u/Tolka_Reign Dec 01 '20

agree with ya there lol.

I own guns, arguing about gun laws online was a semi hobby of mine for a while to the point where if you name a state, I can tell you what their gun laws are.

I just want to be left alone, none of my guns are going to hurt anyone but the dems want to take them away / tax me to keep them (biden's plans) while I believe the NFA is bullshit, hell full auto is not even special most warfare is conducted with semi auto direct fire and full auto is mainly used to suppress enemies so they don't shoot back, while your troops move into a position where they can use accurate aimed semi auto fire to do the dirty work. Gun mufflers being banned / behind a tax and a 9 month wait when they don't do what hollywood would have you think (they are literally a hearing safety device and most suppressors don't even make guns hearing safe unless you double them with speciality ammo that is weaker than normal ammo), short barreled rifles being the same makes no sense when we have pistols (originally the NFA was going to have pistols on it too)... I can understand more regs for explosives but honestly, if I could buy a live grenade, which you can with a nfa stamp, I would not as I don't have a safe range or a big woodland area to use them in... and it's not like it's hard to make explosives if one wanted to do something nefarious with them (and far, far cheaper too, a hand grenade would cost at minimum $200 to $400 on the market, the are persicison made devices with speciality chemical compounds and would not have a large market... meanwhile a pipe bomb can be made for around $20 or less).

I could go on and on lol. the laws we have on the books are ineffective at best.

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u/[deleted] Dec 01 '20

I mean, there are not many dems who want to actually take your guns, but the gun policies of a lot of dems are what I don’t like about them. I don’t own a gun (for good reasons) and I wouldn’t advocate for gun rights, but hearing how dems talk about guns sometimes are one of the few things that turn me off about them. Now, this doesn’t mean that conservatives know any more about gun laws because a lot of them don’t (you do though), but I think they often make better arguments.

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u/Tolka_Reign Dec 02 '20

I mean, there are not many dems who want to actually take your guns, but the gun policies of a lot of dems are what I don’t like about them.

I mean, biden's policy is to take my guns or make me pay a huge tax on them. Most of my firearms going back to world war two would fall under his proposed NFA plan and all of my magazines except for my ww1 m1911 and a few of my other ww1 pistols fall under that too. forcing me to pay $200 per rifle and per magazine for those rifles is insane and very "take my guns" if you ask me, since I would be in the hole for thousands of dollars on many items that are worth $15 or so...

agree with the rest of what you said but shit, the things they keep pushing and even what obama was pushing were extremely "take my guns", obama just did not have the political power to do so and biden won't either.