Ten oz

We don't need 350 million people to act. 42 percent of households in the U.S. have firearms. There are 126 million households. So that is 52 million people. For a appreciable economic impact on the industry we'd not about 10% of those 52 million people to act. So we'd need about 1/70th of the 350 million people you referenced. That isn't an impossible number.

Vermont has a population of 620,000 people. It is the 49th smallest state and has a below average population density. I don't think Vermont is a good state to use as representative of anything.

I don't think I know a single person that hasn't shot a gun. My point isn't about the guns we already own or bullets we've already fired. It is about adjusting our behaving moving forward to force the hands of govt (which is currently heavily influenced by industry lobbying). No different than Climate Change. We've all used fossil fuels. The idea is to start using less and supporting alternatives with our consumption rather than just changing nothing and lamenting about what we wish Washington would do. Right, and where do those corporations get the money they're using as speech?

This isn't true. When Rosa Parks refused to give her seat up on a bus it was a small thing.

Urine doesn't pollute the Ocean. The seas are full of fish and mammals defecating. It is a natural part of the ecosystem. A better analogy would be tossing a plastic bottle in the Ocean. A single plastic bottle is minuscule yet because so many people toss plastic bottles in the Ocean it has become a very serious problem.

I haven't suggested you give up what you already have. I have suggested you stop continuing to support the industry with your money. The industry is using your money to lobby against the policy you claim to support. You ignoring how that is a major part of the problem. If all the responsible gun owners in the U.S. that support change took even a single year off from buying more guns, ammunition, spending money are ranges, and etc the economic impact would force change.

Right, we are all suppose to sit down politely and focus on what we agree on with the caveat what we agree doesn't require any change.

Why would this be a problem? If the price greatly inflated I'd imagine less High School students would have the money to get their hands on one.

As you pointed out in response to iNow it is amazing how little gets done despite such broad agreement. The industry in question is over $50 billion a year. You personally could impact that. This is a capitalist nation. Stop giving them your money and they will either change or go out of business. Both scenarios are better than nothing.

There's 2 sides to the coin the way I see it. On one side it is impossible to quantify how successful the propaganda was. No one can say definitively they would have voted any different or felt any different about a single candidate had the interference not accorded. On the other side of the coin every objective the Russians had were successfully met. I assume this is the catch 22 underlying all good propaganda and or marketing. Outside looking in one would assume we've been manipulated into feeling the way we do. Inside looking out we aren't convinced. Hillary Clinton lost be a hair. She won the popular vote by 3 million yet lost the electoral vote by like 10 thousand or something. Sanders received 750 thousand write in votes and who knows how many Sanders supporters just didn't vote at all. Sanders and his supporters (I voted Sanders in the Primary) certainly didn't help matters and certainly behaved as Russia encouraged them to. Add that to the facts Sanders isn't even a registered Democrat and will be 79yrs old on election day in 2020 and I think it is best Sanders takes a step back. I am not implying he should resign but rather should stop jockeying for a leadership position and another presidential run. His action well meant or not have been counterproductive to everything he claims to care about. Let other people (Warren, Newsome, Booker, Harris,etc) take center stage moving forward.

"In fact, in 2016 the firearms and ammunition industry was responsible for as much as $51.3 billion in total economic activity in the country." https://www.nssf.org/government-relations/impact/ Yes, many of us all agree on specific policies but action is required. Doesn't matter if 100% of us agree on policy if we're going to undermine agreement by voting in Representatives that won't act or we continue fueling the industry with our money.

President Trump tweeted late Saturday that he is "very sad" the FBI missed the possible warning signs about Florida shooting suspect and the they are "spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion." He also added "there is no collusion" and the FBI should "get back to the basics and make us all proud!" https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-attacks-fbi-handling-of-florida-shooting-suspect-russia-investigation-in-tweet/ Trump is blaming the amount of time and energy the FBI is spending investigating Russia as the reason warning signs in Florida were missed. Meanwhile members of Trump's campaign have already plead guilty to misleading FBI officials. The FBI wouldn't have to have spent so much time and continue to spend so much time investigating Russia if Trump and his team simple cooperated with the investigation.

It was a huge week of confirmations regarding Russia's interference into the 2016 election. Intelligence officials testified before the Senate and called the evidence that Russia interfered incontrovertible. Not deep state Obama hold overs but Trump appointees like H.R. McMaster and Dan Coats. Then the Mueller investigation laid out indictments naming names and outlining how it was done. It turns out part of Russia's strategy to help Trump was to bolster Bernie Sanders. Social media accounts were created and professional Russian trolls sought to aide Bernie Sanders campaign. I find this to be an interesting revaluation,not a surprising one, because since the election Sanders and his supporters have continue to push for him to have more of a leadership position in the Democratic Party. In lieu of the fact he was the beneficiary of Russia propaganda should he take a step back now? Does it diminish the lefts ability to complain about Trump receiving help from Russia if they continue to support Sanders who apparently did the same but to a lesser degree? "The social media accounts run by the Russian defendants supported Trump and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton's chief primary rival for the Democratic nomination, the indictment alleges. In addition to Clinton, Russian accounts also denigrated Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who challenged Trump for the GOP nomination. " https://www.npr.org/2018/02/16/586500591/grand-jury-indicts-russians-linked-to-interference-in-2016-election

You vote and donate to candidates that care about the issue but you also buy guns and spend money within an industry that supports the NRA and Candidates who do nothing about guns. You are basically driving around in a giant SUV that gets 12 miles a gallon with a bumper stricter on the back that reads "Global Warming is REAL". Our approaches are not equal. I do not support the gun lobby and you do. This was the point Dimreepr was making.You are oblivious to the impact of your own actions. Zapatos' position Is the most often repeated and well accepted one in the United States. In isolation it is emphatic, considerate of all sides, logical, and fair. However it has been around for decades, repeated by the majority of all sides for decades, and things have only gotten worse. Despite all the positive attributes it contains in isolation the position is clearly flawed. There is no good reason to double down on what hasn't worked. The gun industry is an like any industry it is fueled by money. Those who buy guns, buy ammunition, buy gun locks, buy gun safes, buy accessories, buy clay pigeons, and etc, etc, etc are fueling the industry. Zapatos has good intentions but is unwittingly contributing to the problem. Just as all the parents buying their 10yr old kids rifles that Raider mentioned are contributing to the problem. My father smoked cigarettes for many years. Did give them up till he hit his mid 60's. He was always a polite smoker. He never smoked in the house, never tossed buds on the street, and etc. Polite or not he contributed to a bad industry. Over the decades he spent thousands of dollars on cigarettes which means he was helping fuel the tobacco industry. It doesn't make my father an evil man but his actions were stupid and he would even admit as much today if you asked him about it. Zapatos, Moontanman and Raider all are supporting the very industry they concede needs to change. With their support why would it?

Because it is about you? You being alienated, disagreed with, laughed at, and etc. You've made it abundantly clear how you are treated is an important focus. IMO this issue is bigger than how you feel. It has been held back by those who insist on being of all sides while strongly boas to a single side. You own guns, cool, so do loads of people in the U.S.; you're average just like like every body else. No round of applause required. The difference is nuanced but clear. You are arguing for a continuation of the status quo claiming it is a useful approach. It isn't. Less could not be accomplished if we all agreed to do nothing. The way issues are discussed matter. The tone, attitude, and style all matter. You seem to believe that untapped potential exists within the stalest parts of the status qou. I strongly disagree.

What steps am I taking and not what steps do I support? Seems you are moving the goal post around a bit. To my knowledge none of us are law makers. For starters Gun Control, Climate, and Abortion are lines in the sand with me. I won't support (Vote for or give money to) candidates that hedge on those issues. I am not one of these willful ignorant types that vote for the "best" candidate is a vacuum from the policies they support. That said I am a voting resident of California. My House rep is Barbra Lee and my Senators are Harris and Feinstein. I am very pleased with them. Have have contributed money to Feinstein several times. She specifically has a very strong position on guns stemming from personal experience. I also contributed money to Harris in 2016 and have written to her.

As spoken by so many after every mass shooting for years now. Rinse and repeat.

Most kids in High School today will be voting age in 2020. Some will be/are voting age for the midterm this year. It can start now and can involve us.

I wish individuals agreeing was always the origin of change. It was national disagreement over Vietnam that ended U.S. participation. Close to the same time frame the South broadly rejected desegregation. Military soldiers had the escort children to school. George Wallace ran for President on Segregation forever and won 5 states outright and nearly 14% of the popular vote. Sometimes one side or the other just loses. Neat and tidy agreements where middle ground is found hasn't always prevailed. It is what we should strive for when possible but it isn't always possible.

I have actually never heard anyone advocate for a full on ban of all guns. I do not doubt such calls exist but they are so rare I cannot think of a single Politician, Pundit, Community Leader, or etc who has asked for a full ban on all guns. Which it is part of my point about the tone of this debate. We aren't debating between two extremes: full gun ban (-10) vs unlimited access(+10). Debate is happening from a place where gun ownership is already assured. The sticking points are over whether or not we'll have background checks and what not. If a Zero is middle between the extremes listed above current discussion is between +5 and +10. No matter what the solution is hammered out the unlimited access side will be getting way more of what they want.

Yet we already had an assualt rifle ban in place. SCOTUS didn't knock it down Bush let it expire. The 2nd amendment doesn't prevent any of the policy ideas most in here are calling for.

The 17 kids in FL certainly were. Perhaps we should focus more on them and their families than on hunters and responsible gun owners who have not contributed anything useful to the issue for decades.

I read this as platitude. There is no reason for me to compromise an inch an advance of even 1/10 an inch of progress. As a nation we have acquiesced too much in the name of meeting the other side half way.

The way other countries have solved it would be a nonstarter in the U.S..You suggest I am being confrontational now imagine if I was advocating doing what Australia did in 1996, LOL. The gun control discussion in the U.S. is overly sensitive to specific groups. People are dying. As many people die per year in the U.S. by firearms than in auto accidents. We need to have more bluntness in the debate. The tone of discussion needs to meet the level of the problem. I understand that many of us gun owners consider ourselves well-intentioned. It doesn't matter. We have a serious problem in the U.S. and everyone who votes via electing officials who do nothing or with our wallets is support of the industry share blame. I don't see how one side (in this case me) being more worried about alienating the other side (zap) than vice versa is useful. I think we have respectfully listened to more than enough self proclaimed "responsible" gun owners over the decades. Giving a little voice to others can't make anything worse just as continuing down the same rinse and repeat path isn't going to make anything better.