Quick up: Bad segue

In his 2023 State of the Union address, President Biden demonstrated why Democrats cannot achieve "meaningful gun reform". They don't seem to understand why Americans want guns. In fact, they continue to embarrass themselves by failing to listen to gun owners.

Here's what President Biden said:

Let’s do what we know in our hearts we need to do.

Let’s come together and finish the job on police reform.

Do something.

That was the same plea of parents who lost their children in Uvalde: Do something on gun violence.

... Ban assault weapons once and for all.

With this, he basically said: "The government should stop being so violent with citizens, and should also ban their tools of self-defense." This is logically inconsistent. To gun owners, it's almost an insult. It says, "I haven't heard anything you're saying, even though we're saying similar things."

American "assault weapon" owners are unwilling to relinquish these weapons largely because of increasing police violence. More broadly, because government at all levels is increasingly authoritarian and frightening. Police are simply one manifestation of that trend.

Democrats are not logically consistent in championing both reforming police and banning guns, because those are contradictory positions. Likewise, Republicans aren't logically consistent in championing the opposite. The logically consistent position is that police need reform, and citizens need the means to defend themselves.