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This.
It's caused plenty an awkward turn in conversations with friends as well as friends of my girlfriend's who are almost universally Classic American Liberal Democrat™
I'm with them on domestic policy, marriage equality, LGBT rights, racial justice, electoral reform, and abortion.
Then we get to guns.
And I'm certainly not some kind of NRA nut or Y'all Qaeda tacticool dope, so it's a lot tougher to make a strawman against gun owners when there's one sitting there across from you that you know, like, and respect.
That being said, those occasions also give me pause because I know if we're falling into that easy line of thinking on guns, we're probably also doing that sort of strawman on the issues we all agree on too, there's just nobody present to challenge that view.
Honestly, I feel like it's so easy, especially in gun crazy states like Texas to run a Democrat who includes enjoying days at the range in their campaign advertisements, that Southern Dems have to be throwing their campaigns on purpose for some reason.
That's not to say we should be advocating for unlimited magazines and fully auto weapons. But there should be a candidate who is like "Hey, you like your constitutional right to protect yourself? Me too. How about we start funding/investigating the programs that are already supposedly in place to catch red flag purchasers, and find out where the issues are there?"
I feel like a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ, pro-immigratjon candidate would actually make some headway if they just let go of the gun argument, or at the very least dialed it back substantially.
From what I'm aware, Beto O'Rourke completely dropped gun control as a campaign issue when he ran for governor in Texas. Granted, he was also the biggest advocate for gun control of all the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 election, so I don't think anyone trusted his reversal
Beto never had a chance of getting elected in Texas on a policy of banning assault rifles. There are certainly policy decisions voters do not forget you made either so he is unelectable there now. Most people in texas support abortion rights, legalizing weed, and gun rights, but they care about the gun rights the most. Beto at this point is just a way for the democrats to raise funds from texas democrats to help themselves in other states.