I've always felt it was odd that gun control was a progressive issue...

Generally, progressive platforms have tried to focus on positive functions and benefits as a way to bring changes. Things like gay rights and women's rights are where they are because of strong efforts to change public perception on what a real gay person is like. If you asked someone 20 years ago to describe a homosexual, you'd probably get something along the lines of Richard Simmons.

Ask that question today and you'll likely hear a completely average person who just happens to be gay (Maybe dresses really well, heh). Women take up more management positions than ever before, which has the effect of showing others that woman can do those jobs.

Progressives have always been good about shining the spotlight on positive effects of those movements. Discussion about effective companies with women at the helm, or articles of healthy homosexual relationships and their (adopted) children leading very normal lives push public perception towards viewing these changes as good things.

They tend to push for legalization of weed and proper sex-ed being taught in schools as they are not nearly the problems they had been made out to be, and that education and information are the best way to promote not only safety, but rights and freedoms.

Even though those things can, and have, been abused, showing the positive outcomes to the public really pushes the country forward in areas like rights, safety, privacy, and respect.

Firearms, however, don't get such treatment. Many progressive policies focus on correcting the minority of negative aspects of firearm ownership in the United States at the cost and punishment of the vast majority of positive aspects...

Progressive news coverage focuses on when a firearm is misused in a crime or murder. During interviews at rallies and gun shows the least diplomatic and, quite frankly, dumbest firearm owners are shown as if to say 'see? look how stupid these people are! This is what a gun-owner looks like!"

A progressive journalist is the one who would write a story about an inner city barbecue, showcasing the good community and cohesion of a neighborhood of people singing and chatting about while food is cooked out on the sidewalk. Interviews will be with long time residents, kids, even local law enforcement, all to show that people in inner cities are normal people, not crooks and bullies. Things like that promote understanding and support. They promote trust and bring the country together, seeing the positive functions of inner city life.

For gun owners, though, they get lambasted as uncaring, mindless, and radical blockades on the road to progress. There's no progressive reporting on the Boy Scout troop going target shooting with their parents, or the police officers talking about proper firearm safety and interacting with inner city kids, or the local gun club who get together to banter and talk about their latest treasure find at an old auction. There's no coverage about the gun enthusiasts of the south, going out to the range with their homosexual friend to show them how to safely use a firearm, or even the women that carry a pistol so that they can be just a little more self assured that they will be better able to take care of themselves should something happen. There's no coverage about the high school students that bring their rifles to school because they're going hunting later that day.

There's no coverage on the 99% of the times when firearms have a positive effect on their owners and communities...

Progressives have always pushed for more education and information to make good decisions; to counter-balance the negative numbers in papers with what people are really like. They focus on the best parts of the melting pot, on humanizing the seemingly inhuman.

We need stronger communities and trust to rebuild black communities, not harsher penalties and stricter policing. We need education and information to end drug abuse, not more arrests and longer sentences. We need empathy and experience to solve our healthcare crisis, not demonizing and neglect.

Gun violence will not be solved by bans and registries, it'll be solved by communities and education, by showing the positives of what firearm ownership can do for people.

I wish Progressives could see firearm owners the way they see the rest of the world.