Let's have a little lesson in US history, shall we Mr/Mrs/Ms/Him/Her/They Bryce.Bryce wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 2:11 pmHeard this question posed on one of the podcasts I listen to. Albeit somewhat rhetorical, I thought it was something to ponder.
If the left is in favor of removing LEGAL guns from the population because it might save lives, why are they against removing ILLEGAL immigrant criminals from the population for the same reason?
According to the Cato Institute, over 86 million LEGALLY immigrated into the US between 1793 and 2019. But the quote in their Executive Summary does fit today's situation. "Conflicting visions and piecemeal legislation have left the United States with an archaic and barely coherent immigration system" * Over the last number of years, Congress and the Executive Branch have used immigration as a cudgel, talking point, scare tactic and sometimes dog whistle. But every attempt to actually work to solve the problem ends up with no progress and lots of partisan chatter.
This country needs people to fill jobs. The lack of labor is a major cause of the economic woes we suffer today. (Please don't bother to dispute this... without some sort of backup. I have plenty, but you won't read it anyway.) Many of those people are already living here, hiding from authorities because they entered "illegally". They are only "criminals" because of their method of getting here. Your Jose Ibarra story is one that can be told of thousands of "LEGAL" US citizens who ended up committing bigger crimes after authorities released them after petty ones. This argument is meant to inflame and scare people and doesn't address the real problem.
And what's the real problem - politics. Specifically primary election politics. Just look at Ohio. Bernie Moreno IS an immigrant (legal, for sure) who spent the campaign parroting the border fanaticism of the Trump faction of the party to squeeze out a primary victory. This problems bleeds into Congress, where the threat of being "primaried" keeps spoiling the chance of any real legislation passing.
We need sane, level headed people from both sides who can at least spend the time, energy and resources to figure out how to solve this problem rather than keep kicking the can down the street that allows more people to attempt to enter the country any which way because there is no actual practical "legal" way to get in. We need to change the primary system to stop a VERY small minority of voters from choosing the candidates. And we need to cool down the inflammatory rhetoric that does NOTHING to solve the problem.
But let's address your original question -
The Constitution does provide the "legal" basis for guns, and as a die hard Leftie I would agree that guns, per se, are legal and I am not in favor of "removing" them. But on the other side, the Constitution says NOTHING about immigration. In fact, the borders of this country would be wide open if we followed in the footsteps of our Founding Fathers.If the left is in favor of removing LEGAL guns from the population because it might save lives, why are they against removing ILLEGAL immigrant criminals from the population for the same reason?
Thanks for actually reading this all the way thru.
* https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/br ... troduction