Alien Space Bats wrote:Actually, it goes well beyond THAT.
Republicans favor applying rural gun laws to CITIES in order to make life more convenient for RURAL Americans. Quite specifically, Republicans who advocate for lax gun law EVERYWHERE feel that rural gun owners from Wyoming or Texas ought to be able to travel anywhere (including into Downtown Chicago or Manhattan) without having to worry about whether the local gun laws in these places they visit are any different from the ones they face back home.
They quite literally have no regard for the wishes of the people who live in the places they visit; from their perspective, as random travellers and guests, they shouldn't have to change their behavior one jot. The world should be optimized for the sake of RURAL citizens, and to Hell with anybody else.
Closely connected with this is the belief that high crime rates ALWAYS coincide with tight gun laws. You can see this the aforementioned comments: The posters take it for granted that Detroit has the tightest gun laws in the country, and when you point out to them that this is not in fact the case (Michigan State law prohibits municipalities from regulating firearms in any fashion whatsoever), they scream "YOU LIE!!!", as though their perception of reality — which cannot POSSIBLY be wrong — is all that really matters. "Don't contradict my opinions with your so-called 'facts'; my opinions outweigh anything you might tell me."
This further reinforces their belief that casual visitors to America's cities have a right to be armed to the teeth, even where local opinion and custom would dictate otherwise. From the perspective of pro-gun Republicans, it is a matter of the fundamental right to self-defense; cities are crime ridden cesspools, and it is immoral to expect anybody to go down there with anything less than a full combat arsenal, ready for war and backed by laws permitting them to shoot on sight if "threatened".
So it's not just the rural-urban divide; it's rural perceptions of urban life and the belief that the Nation should be legally organized in such a way as to maximize the safety, security, and convenience of rural citizens, with no concern whatsoever for the needs or desires of those animals who live in our cities (who, to be perfectly honest, should probably not be allowed to vote anyway, not being Genuine Americans™ to begin with).
ADDENDUM: And just wait until the take things to the next level: Gun ownership and carriage as a fundamental human right across the planet. Several Republican politicians have already made noises about how the U.S. should use its power and influence to "persuade" other nations all around the world to recognize American-style gun rights. Today, America; tomorrow, the world.
Speaking as someone who shares that general philosophy, you're rather dramatically mischaracterizing it, ASB. One could just as easily (and I'd argue more correctly) point to it as a desire to see urbanites provided the same rights and privileges as their rural cousins in regards to carrying a firearm for self-defense. Promotion of training in such weapons usage therefore would be a primary component, and hence invite a nationally recognized standard of training which permitted one the right to carry a firearm in public for the purpose of self-defense.
To extend it (and this is where Republicans in large part might jump off) applying harsher gun laws to urban (and predominantly poor) districts is targeting specific groups to have less access to a right just as pushes for voter ID and such targets specific groups to have less access to a right. If a white farmer in Oklahoma takes a class which the government says qualifies him to carry a firearm in public areas, I see no reason why a black man in downtown Chicago shouldn't be afforded the same privilege. States haven't been able to agree on a training standard (or, more specifically, certain states have instituted much harsher standards than wide swathes of the country) which do impact travelers to those areas. But more importantly than that is how unfair they are to the citizens of that area, as they are being specifically denied access to a right because 'Oh, "urban areas" (read: poor/minority areas) have such crime problems'. The Democrats sideways speech on this is just as transparent as the Republicans.
Edit: And the Republicans jump on the latter topic in terms of the unfairness. They just don't apply it to urban race or class because...well...they're Republicans.
