Yeah, as I was reading the article I noticed a lot of parallels to gun control in the US.
The harder one part of society pulls against guns, the more convinced gun rights advocates become that this is all a bigger conspiracy to to disarm them and take away their agency.
I live in a rural part of the US and have many, many strong pro-gun friends and acquaintances. The vast majority (95%+ at least) do not think there is any conspiracy to disarm existing gun owners. To imply otherwise is disingenuous at best.
The problem is that a lot of times the restrictions don't make any sense. We'll ban 30-round magazines but not 20. We'll ban barrel shrouds that are entirely cosmetic. We'll ban pistol grips on shotguns that actually reduce the lethality of the weapon by making is less accurate. All the while these things are proposed by legislators who truly do not understand what they're talking about. It's worse than octogenarian Senators discussing the internet, it really is. There you have "it's a series of tubes," and here you have people referring to "the shoulder thing that goes up."
If you could have a well-spoken conservative Democrat who actually understood firearms and the culture surrounding them, who could propose real gun control solutions that aren't based on emotion or cosmetics, you'd probably get something passed.
The harder one part of society pulls against guns, the more convinced gun rights advocates become that this is all a bigger conspiracy to to disarm them and take away their agency.