Progressive commentator David Pakman has some advice for Democratic candidates: quit talking about gun control.
Pakman made the somewhat surprising comment not because he’s had a change of heart about the Second Amendment and its importance. No, he’s still all in favor of restricting the right to keep and bear arms. He just doesn’t want Democrats talking about imposing new gun control laws on the campaign trail; preferring instead that they just stealthily enact those laws once they’re elected.
Fascinating clip of @dpakman admitting that gun control is unpopular in national politics. He wants Democrats to avoid the issue to win elections but, once in power, he wants them to enact these unpopular policies.
This strategy is deceptive and immoral. pic.twitter.com/djGqManO1z
— Bryan LaFonte (@bryanlafonte) August 9, 2025
Speaking on the Within Reason podcast, Pakman said that talking up gun control generates is problematic for Democrats because it empowers the opposition more than it excites the Democrat base.
What seems to happen is it doesn’t bring out anyone new to support you. And it can really work to generate donations for the opposition and to bring out voters that are coming out specifically to vote to prevent some of those laws from passing. So even though you asked about this as it applies to abortion, I think when it comes to gun safety, I’ve not seen evidence that it makes sense to include that in a serious manner in national political platforms, which I find regrettable on a personal level but strategically accurate.
In other words, more voters are motivated to vote against gun control than to vote for it. Now, you’d think that might cause Pakman to reevaluate his own support for things like gun bans, waiting periods, and other measures that aren’t as popular as Democrats believe they are, but the pundit says there’s a difference between not campaigning on an issue and abandoning it as a political principle.
While that’s true enough, I will say that Pakman himself doesn’t appear to be all that familiar with Democratic rhetoric or the anti-gun moves they’ve made once elected.
In order to pass legislation you have to be in power. In order to be in power you have to win elections. So why would you run a campaign likely to prevent winning an election, getting in power, and being able to pass legislation. Now, this is not theoretical. Joe Biden did not really run on gun safety regulations. Democrats in 2020 did not really run on that either. But when Joe Biden became president there were some strengthenings of gun safety regulations that were passed at the federal level and they included the ability to take guns from people in certain legal and medical situations, red flag laws, etc. It’s a perfect example of how we know the principles that these folks believe. They didn’t campaign on them, but as soon as they got power they did do something about it.
Did Joe Biden really shy away from talking about gun control on the campaign trail in 2020? Not so much. What Biden did do was to portray the firearms industry as “the enemy”, while claiming he had no problem with gun owners… even NRA members. It was a variation of the “I support the Second Amendment, but….” statements we’ve seen from Democratic candidates over the past 30 years, but Biden still spoke regularly about his support for bans on so-called assault weapons on both the campaign trail and in office.
And despite what Pakman says, Biden didn’t enact a federal “red flag” law when he was in the White House. Congress did include grants for states to adopt their own “red flag” laws as part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, but there wasn’t nearly enough support to include a federal “red flag” statute in BSCA.
Despite Pakman’s unfamiliarity with the particulars of what Biden did and didn’t say and do, there’s some evidence that Democrats and the gun control groups that support them have already figured out they’re better off not saying much about their plans for the Second Amendment. Everytown and other groups ran plenty of ads in the 2024 campaign cycle that discussed abortion as much or more than talk about unnamed “gun safety” policies, and Kamala Harris talked more about her supposed gun ownership than her past support for handgun bans and her desire for a new “assault weapon” ban.
Pakman’s right that gun control isn’t a winning issue for candidates to run on. And unfortunately, he’s also correct that once in power, Democrats can enact as many anti-2A laws as they can get away with.
With Democrats as unpopular as they are, they’re liable to say and do anything to claw back power in the midterms, and we can expect to see a lot of candidates follow Pakman’s advice not to talk about gun control until they’ve won their races. That’s why it’s critically important for Second Amendment advocates and gun owners to call out these politicians and expose their plans… especially if they’re not talking much about what they have in mind for our right to keep and bear arms.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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