Posted: Mar 09, 2018 5:33 am
aliihsanasl wrote:Cito di Pense wrote:aliihsanasl wrote:Why USA or any single state cant go to referendum on that problem ?
I mean if the people who want gun control are higher in number and still they cant pass the laws they want, how can anyone call that a democracy ?
As already noted in other threads on gun violence and gun control, we can enact laws until the cows come home; we still have to implement all these fine laws.
Direct democracy, referendum, plebiscite are means of channeling public rage.
I'm quite interested in exploring the reliability of public rage as a force for positive social change. On the one hand, it ended the US involvement in Vietnam and ended legalized racial segregation in several societies without requiring a referendum. On the other, it led to the Brexit campaign and the election of Donald Trump. You may have your own examples available to analyze in Turkey, but you can see an erosion of sorts going on with the passage of time.
I guess public rage is smart when it achieves good and stupid when it achieves evil. Rage is just a means of showing how right you think you are, which is about what calling one's society a democracy is good for. What ended Soviet rule in Russia? Did whatever it was end living under authoritarian rule in Russian society at large?
Public rage (Gezi park protests) caused Erdoğan to step back from giving the most expansive piece of land in İstanbul to his beloved contracter. On the leaked phone call contractor was saying "we'll screw all these people's mother when we get it"
Sorry, I was only responding to your question about why there isn't a referendum to change gun laws if that is the will of the people. Rehashing civic scandals over land use in Istanbul is not useful for solving the firearms crisis in the US. There is corruption in both cases, sure, but you can see how much easier it is to exercise damage-control in your chosen example, in which one politician and one businessman are simply sucking each other's cocks.