u/SnooCupcakes4729

In right wing circles there is a common rebuttal to certain gun laws that it doesn’t really have an impact because the only ones that listen to the laws aren’t the ones committing the crimes. The two big ones I hear are about gun free zones and magazine capacity limits.

For gun free zones the idea is that criminals or people looking to cause harm are going to do it regardless of the law. Basically if you’re willing to shoot people what’s another charge going to do. There’s also a common argument that these areas make better targets for those bad people.

For magazine capacity limits the idea is that it isn’t that hard to revert some of the magazines that are mechanically capped at 10 back to normal. There’s also the argument about 3d printers being able to make magazines with any capacity.

The reason I’m asking the left about this is I usually hear that the left just wants reasonable restrictions on fire arms. I’m curious to hear how these types of policies fit into that framework. I can get that no guns in schools or movie theaters isn’t the end of 2nd amendment but how do you balance restrictions with their effectiveness.

I’d really like to hear what your thought process is when it comes to deciding what gun control measure you support.

The way I see it the way our voting system currently works is that most politicians are chosen based on their ability to campaign. Obviously policy proposals, voting history, money, and other things go into the formula but it does boil down to who convinced the most people to vote for them.

I think problems arise because a lot of American can be swayed by how issues are framed, misinformation, and other tricks candidates are able to use. As a result we don’t necessarily get the person who skills necessarily make them the most qualified to be in the position but instead the person who did the best job selling themselves. There’s also the added level of how campaigning impacts candidates decisions in office. For example when republicans blocked the immigration bill so they’d have something to campaign on or the fact the left never made abortion rights a constitutional amendment so they’d have something to campaign on.

When I’ve tried to think about solutions I get stuck. The one spot I end up going back to is putting some level of competency requirements in before you’re able to vote but that gets messy and dangerous way to fast. The other option I’ve come up with is some type of panel of various experts pick the candidates but then it isn’t really democracy anymore. I know the common answer around this type of thing is campaign finance reform but where I get stuck there is that it’s so vague and I’m not sure how fairly it’d be implemented.

Long story short I’m stuck and would like some help thinking this through. How can we elect leaders based on theirs qualifications to be president as opposed to those who just run a good campaign?

Throughout the Trump admin we’ve seen the following actions taken by the federal government.

ICE enforcement has ramped up.
Student loan programs been changed.
Parts of the economy like science research have lost funding from the government.
War in Iran.
Tariffs.

I’m sure those on the left can list plenty more examples that are on theme with the list I provided.

What I would like to know is if through any of the chaos if you’ve thought about how much the federal government can impact peoples lives and if changes should be made to limit the risk in the future. I’m a libertarian so I’m sure you can guess my solution but I’m curious how those of you on the left think we can prevent peoples lives from being one election away from being turned upside down?