LIBERAL HERESIES

And I thought Kevin Drum was the only left-wing blogger capable of second-guessing left-wing pieties. Check out Chris Bowers from MyDD:

There are two liberal issues that I think we should drop ... The first is gun control. Even though I have never owned a gun, and never intend to own a gun, this is an issue that has never resonated with me. Have any of our gun control laws reduced gun-related violence? Are there any further laws we could pass that would be more effective than just enforcing the laws we have? Forgive me if I sound a little NRA, but are guns really a major part of the problem with our violent society?

I can almost feel the ground moving, however slightly. What's more, the (gazillions of) commenters below his post are not completely antagonistic to his point. A few invoke "Bowling for Columbine," of course, but a surprising number confess that they really aren't all that anti-gun themselves.

It's too soon to say, but maybe this election will bring about some kind of political realignment. Maybe now we're getting somewhere.

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Update, 11:42 a.m. Wednesday -- It turns out Nick Kristof wrote something rather similar on Saturday. I don't like many of his alternate solutions -- the signal-if-loaded idea is especially bad -- as they make the same mistakes as previous policies. Then again, I don't hold out much hope that the left will altogether "drop" their objections to guns as Bowers seems to recommend; rather they'll soften certain positions, more like Kristof proposes. But for the time-being I'll take their willingness to rethink gun policy as a good sign.