Why do Democratic Politicians Hate Gun Owners?

Because Sally’s freedom to shoot up heroin has detrimental social and cultural effects. Her freedom to shoot up does not just affect her; it affects others and society, by affecting her ability to participate in the economy, by increasing medical care costs and needs, by requiring access to mental health counseling or hopefully rehab treatment, by increasing policing, crime prevention, etc - hence the laws restricting that freedom. It would be better if no one used heroin except as part of a monitored medical treatment (and even then it’s addictive qualities bring a number of ethical considerations that should be weighed by health care providers). I don’t actually care what Sally does in the privacy of her own home, except for the ways her behavior affects all of us. The reason the war on drugs has been an abject failure is because the laws that have been able to get through the entrenched interests and political posturing in Congress have failed to actually address the root causes of heroin use and addiction, namely poverty, mental health, and the lack of initial regulation and proper oversight of opiates (a whole other related issue). The kind of freedom you’re suggesting has not, nor will ever, exist because we do not exist in a vacuum. Our behaviors affect others and we have to live together; our personal responsibility is not just to ourselves but to each other. It’s “We, the people” for a reason, and it’s easy to overlook that this whole experiment started by declaring that “we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” All that said, to get to an already belabored point, democrats believe this same logic applies to guns. The freedom to freely and easily buy and access guns creates downstream social and cultural issues that require some degree of restriction or regulation to address. That’s what the debate is actually about. And, I suspect the majority of democrats would agree that gun restriction and regulation *alone* will not be enough to address the downstream social and cultural issues that arise from easy access to firearms. Like heroin use, addressing poverty, mental health, policing, etc. will also be necessary to actually fix the problem.