U.S. politics isolation tank

[midwestyankee]

I will sound a heartfelt fuck off to anyone who believes that a person who decides to carry after having a gun shoved in their face is not entitled to the decision. However, I also think that there should be strict and MANDATORY training. Just like with cars.

And I will argue to my last breath that even those of us who have had loaded guns shoved in their faces deserve to believe that guns are an abomination and an embarrassment to a civilized nation that ought to be banned without being called a wimp or worse. Twice I've looked at the wrong end of a criminal's handgun without flinching and yet because I believe that the NRA's interpretation of the second amendment is 200 years out of date, everyone on the other side of this debate concludes that I have no courage. Bullshit.

 

[BiBunny]

I consider myself to be pro 2A also, but being in favor of does not, for me, mean eternal unfettered no matter what on demand with no organization just show up at the gun show truck and buy it up "pro."

People like me have no political home. The NRA are a bunch of yahoos and the regulation freaks tend to grow up in 'hoods where police show when you call. They believe that the possibility of armed confrontation is remote and impossible and something other people must deal with, preferably the same way they would.

I will sound a heartfelt fuck off to anyone who believes that a person who decides to carry after having a gun shoved in their face is not entitled to the decision. However, I also think that there should be strict and MANDATORY training, at which time psychological disqualifiers are considered. Just like with cars. Onerous? Yes. Oh well. Not too terribly.

I always thought some gun training could be arranged in schools in the same way that drivers' ed is. In our school, drivers' ed was mandatory unless you were disabled in some way that prevented you from driving. We also completed part of the hunters' safety course (just the studying and the written test, not the field portion) that you have to pass in order to get a hunting license in the state of Alabama in our (elective) ag class.

Also-also, we studied for and took the boater's license test (which is also just a written test) in school as well. We took it fairly young because we lived near the largest lake in the state, and you can get a boater's license at 12 here. I don't still have my certificate thing, so I never got it officialized, but I'm technically licensed to drive a boat (Do you drive boats?) and half-licensed to hunt in this state, and it was all done in our crappy public school.

Sure, teaching 16-year-olds the basics of gun safety and use seems like a logistical nightmare, but when you think about it, so does teaching them to drive. I think it could be sorted out somehow.

 

[Netzach]

And I will argue to my last breath that even those of us who have had loaded guns shoved in their faces deserve to believe that guns are an abomination and an embarrassment to a civilized nation that ought to be banned without being called a wimp or worse. Twice I've looked at the wrong end of a criminal's handgun without flinching and yet because I believe that the NRA's interpretation of the second amendment is 200 years out of date, everyone on the other side of this debate concludes that I have no courage. Bullshit.

You can believe whatever you want to believe, I have no problem with that, and I don't think that insularity is the only reason people come up on the other side of the issue, or that being a wuss has anything to do with anything. I'm saying that the people making policy on this issue tend to live in a big bubble surrounded by cops and security, while deciding the health of the "inner cities." I'll be the first in line to say have a buyback and get UNregistered freaking guns the fuck out of circulation, but I'm not going to tell a woman living alone "oh honey it will only get used on you" as if I'm the arbiter of fate.

I AM a wuss.

Shit, you're not going to see ME running out to the range or shooting ducks.

I simply know too many perfectly sane people who could not get meat up the block - lo and behold, they own guns and they're not crazy. They're not even Republicans! Or cops.

I honestly had never even encountered this before the age of 26.

I've just had enough exposure to the idea that it's not merely the option of the insane redneck, which is the idea that I had drilled into me.

I know people who are pink pistols and TG pistols, and I'm not going to tell disenfranchised people who are far more likely to be attacked than I am what they should be doing.

It's not a civilized nation.

 

[Netzach]

I always thought some gun training could be arranged in schools in the same way that drivers' ed is. In our school, drivers' ed was mandatory unless you were disabled in some way that prevented you from driving. We also completed part of the hunters' safety course (just the studying and the written test, not the field portion) that you have to pass in order to get a hunting license in the state of Alabama in our (elective) ag class.

Also-also, we studied for and took the boater's license test (which is also just a written test) in school as well. We took it fairly young because we lived near the largest lake in the state, and you can get a boater's license at 12 here. I don't still have my certificate thing, so I never got it officialized, but I'm technically licensed to drive a boat (Do you drive boats?) and half-licensed to hunt in this state, and it was all done in our crappy public school.

Sure, teaching 16-year-olds the basics of gun safety and use seems like a logistical nightmare, but when you think about it, so does teaching them to drive. I think it could be sorted out somehow.

I think this is actually pretty cool. Where it breaks down is that it's all very wholesome and good out in the country but convince anyone that this applies in an urban setting, and you're going to have the weight of the world crash down around you completely.

Imagine, though, if it was something demystified and respected, instead of fetishized and wrapped in myths?

 

[BiBunny]

I think this is actually pretty cool. Where it breaks down is that it's all very wholesome and good out in the country but convince anyone that this applies in an urban setting, and you're going to have the weight of the world crash down around you completely.

Yeah, that's the only thing I can't figure out, how you'd make it work somewhere that wasn't the backwoods. I mean, they do it in the "town" schools around here, too, but our "towns" and places like, I dunno, Atlanta, aren't exactly the same thing.

I think it can be done, but I know it'd be difficult.

Imagine, though, if it was something demystified and respected, instead of fetishized and wrapped in myths?

See, I think this can be done. Eventually. Somehow. Maybe.

 

[Homburg]

I consider myself to be pro 2A also, but being in favor of does not, for me, mean eternal unfettered no matter what on demand with no organization just show up at the gun show truck and buy it up "pro."

Short of the extremists, most people for gun rights would agree with you. He'll, I have personally written letters in support of various gun control measures, on state and federal level. They were damned smart, functional, and did not hamper law-abiding types (NICS being the big. I wrote a good bit in support of NICS and still consider it a good thing).

The difference lies in where the line is drawn.

People like me have no political home. The NRA are a bunch of yahoos and the regulation freaks tend to grow up in 'hoods where police show when you call. They believe that the possibility of armed confrontation is remote and impossible and something other people must deal with, preferably the same way they would.

I'm a life member of the NRA. Around 15-20 years ago, they ramped up their political lobbying massively. They used to be an organization aimed at increasing marksmanship skills and safe gun-handling, believe it not. Then they formed the NRA-ILA and it eventually ate the NRA in total. I wrote a letter telling them to never send me another piece of mail again, and cancelled all subscriptions etc. haven't given up my membership because 1) it gives me literal insurance on my firearms, 2) it gives me access to minutes of meetings and such, and 3) I figure ill wait until they really jack things up.

I will sound a heartfelt fuck off to anyone who believes that a person who decides to carry after having a gun shoved in their face is not entitled to the decision. However, I also think that there should be strict and MANDATORY training, at which time psychological disqualifiers are considered. Just like with cars. Onerous? Yes. Oh well. Not too terribly.

I've been shot at , had a knife pulled on me, carried a gun as part of my job, drawn that gun, and also had to protect it from a nasty situation where someone was trying to take it. Never had to pull the trigger, thankfully, and hope I never do. And, as part of all of this, have taken appropriate training and shown competence more than once (it has been a while though).

I'm all for training. If you own a gun, you should obtain training to safely own and operate it. That said, MANDATORY training is where I have a problem. That means you have to jump through some sort of hoop to exercise a right guaranteed to you in the Bill of Rights. I've got a problem with that. I don't have a license to speak freely, and shouldn't have to. Nor should I have to have a license to be free of search and seizure.

But if it got down to brass tacks, I wouldn't holler too loudly if this came to pass, so long as it wasn't used as a defacto ban such as literacy tests prior to voting, as we've seen in history. Also would worry that it would be used to exclude minorities, as, historically speaking, gun control started in large part to keep guns out of the hands of minorities.

Frankly, I haven't political home either. Libertarians are close, but it's hit and miss as to how wacky a given libertarian is.

 

[Netzach]

Yeah, that's the only thing I can't figure out, how you'd make it work somewhere that wasn't the backwoods. I mean, they do it in the "town" schools around here, too, but our "towns" and places like, I dunno, Atlanta, aren't exactly the same thing.

I think it can be done, but I know it'd be difficult.

Racism is, as usual, the sludge at the bottom of this discussion.

Nothing Richard Pryor didn't nail in the 70's.

The gun toting hillbilly just shooting squirrels is always white. The gangbanger is always black, in the collective dumbconscious.

Reality breaks those assumptions hard.

 

[Netzach]

Short of the extremists, most people for gun rights would agree with you. He'll, I have personally written letters in support of various gun control measures, on state and federal level. They were damned smart, functional, and did not hamper law-abiding types (NICS being the big. I wrote a good bit in support of NICS and still consider it a good thing).

The difference lies in where the line is drawn.



I'm a life member of the NRA. Around 15-20 years ago, they ramped up their political lobbying massively. They used to be an organization aimed at increasing marksmanship skills and safe gun-handling, believe it not. Then they formed the NRA-ILA and it eventually ate the NRA in total. I wrote a letter telling them to never send me another piece of mail again, and cancelled all subscriptions etc. haven't given up my membership because 1) it gives me literal insurance on my firearms, 2) it gives me access to minutes of meetings and such, and 3) I figure ill wait until they really jack things up.



I've been shot at , had a knife pulled on me, carried a gun as part of my job, drawn that gun, and also had to protect it from a nasty situation where someone was trying to take it. Never had to pull the trigger, thankfully, and hope I never do. And, as part of all of this, have taken appropriate training and shown competence more than once (it has been a while though).

I'm all for training. If you own a gun, you should obtain training to safely own and operate it. That said, MANDATORY training is where I have a problem. That means you have to jump through some sort of hoop to exercise a right guaranteed to you in the Bill of Rights. I've got a problem with that. I don't have a license to speak freely, and shouldn't have to. Nor should I have to have a license to be free of search and seizure.

But if it got down to brass tacks, I wouldn't holler too loudly if this came to pass, so long as it wasn't used as a defacto ban such as literacy tests prior to voting, as we've seen in history. Also would worry that it would be used to exclude minorities, as, historically speaking, gun control started in large part to keep guns out of the hands of minorities.

Frankly, I haven't political home either. Libertarians are close, but it's hit and miss as to how wacky a given libertarian is.

I'm with you, other than this. I'm not a huge fan of mandatory anything, it kind of makes me want to vomit, but it's time to decide the shape of the acceptable camel's nose.

I like education as my version. Because education demystifies. It becomes a fact, less cool, less uncool. I like it better than "put crazy people away."

What we're doing isn't working. I had to pass a test to use a car.

Shooting is like driving, not talking. It's not "expression" - you know that as well as anyone. I have trouble with the interpretation in which the "right to bear arms" has been divided out so completely from "well regulated militia" that it's got the interpretation we're stuck with at this moment in time.

Well regulated. Not unregulated.

If it isn't mandatory, then assume a LOT of people will do zero. Zero safety, zero training, zero child-safe, more dead toddlers, bottom of the barrel dumbassery. There is a point where the collateral damage has to cause you to revisit some less than ideal options.

"Also would worry that it would be used to exclude minorities, as, historically speaking, gun control started in large part to keep guns out of the hands of minorities."

I agree completely. Education done RIGHT pulls in ALL demographics.

I'm not saying "hey let's do this" with no thought about how. Part of the problem is that there's a big race problem in the discussion. BIG.

 

[BiBunny]

Racism is, as usual, the sludge at the bottom of this discussion.

Nothing Richard Pryor didn't nail in the 70's.

The gun toting hillbilly just shooting squirrels is always white. The gangbanger is always black, in the collective dumbconscious.

Reality breaks those assumptions hard.

Yep.

Funny thing is, we had plenty of black folks in our classes where we did all this stuff. For a school out in the middle of Bumfuck, Alabama, we were super-integrated.

When I got to college, I met quite a few people who were all like "OMG, why are there so many black people here?!?!?!" Me, personally, I couldn't figure out where all the black people were. That was one of those times when I realized that growing up in a (very) small town, working-class, middle-class, whatevs, was a totally different world from the rich white suburban fucks from the Birmingham and Atlanta areas that I went to college with.

I mean, like I always knew it intellectually, but every now and then, something would bring it home, and I'd remember that even though I was college-educated, liberal arts, sorority girl, I was still the other, and I had the accent to prove it.

/tangent

 

[Netzach]

Yep.

Funny thing is, we had plenty of black folks in our classes where we did all this stuff. For a school out in the middle of Bumfuck, Alabama, we were super-integrated.

The whole sticks = white people thing is so completely Northern and myopic if you are in the North, too.

 

[rosco rathbone]

People like me have no political home.

I hear that!

I have a lot of libertarian views (on guns for instance) but most libertarians annoy the fuck out of me.

 

[Netzach]

I hear that!

I have a lot of libertarian views (on guns for instance) but most libertarians annoy the fuck out of me.

It's like the 420 issue! YES legalize it. Now get your white boy dreaded patchouli ass off my lawn!

 

[Homburg]

And I will argue to my last breath that even those of us who have had loaded guns shoved in their faces deserve to believe that guns are an abomination and an embarrassment to a civilized nation that ought to be banned without being called a wimp or worse.

It offends me to see this sort of thing happening. In the history of the world, some of the all time stand out bravest people were hard core pacifists. No one (with any sense) would call Ghandhi a wuss.

----

It's not a civilized nation.

This. I'd planned to say this when I read the post, but see no reason to repeat when I can quote and give props.

--

I think this is actually pretty cool. Where it breaks down is that it's all very wholesome and good out in the country but convince anyone that this applies in an urban setting, and you're going to have the weight of the world crash down around you completely.

Imagine, though, if it was something demystified and respected, instead of fetishized and wrapped in myths?

This used to be the case. Schools used to have gun safety programs available. It went along with school marksmanship teams, hunting clubs, etc. that went away when violence exploded in the 60-70's and we likewise took a turn for the litigious. It was too dangerous. I remember being in rural areas that had only recently gotten rid of target shooting teams, and have friends (my age) that were on those teams in high school. They were in places more rural than where I've lived.

Interestingly, I read an article a while back that if you remove the high density urban areas from the violence statistics, the US drops down closer to similar levels of homicides and such as the rest of the big money nations. Well, not precisely the same, but a significant drop nonetheless. Given the size of this and the number of high density urban areas we have, we'll, it's a thing.

One of the few good things the NRA still has going for it is the Eddie Eagle program. "Stop! Don't touch it! Tell an adult!" as the steps a child should take if they find a gun. It's simple, and prudent, and how I taught my kids.

And I'm a big fan of demystification. I grew up around guns. To me, they're tools no more onerous in itself than a hammer or saber saw. It has different safety procedures, but a gun sitting on a table is no more dangerous thana car sitting in a garage or a hammer sitting on a work bench. None of these items are remotely dangerous until they are picked up by a hand.

So, to me, it was no big thing. Shooting is fun. I go to the range here and there, and every once in a while to a friend's farm. I follow the appropriate rules, and nothing gets hurt aside from paper or the occasional soda can.

And I carry (legally), which is a VERY big thing. It's not some bullshit about paper targets. It's very bloody real and a chance I take. It took a lot of soul searching prior to getting my CCW and even more thought afterward. And, not infrequently, I revisit those decisions and make sure they're still valid. In my case, I've avoided enough dogs, geese, and turkeys (yes, turkeys) to know that my job is not the safest thing in the world, and that has nothing to do with two-legged predators (because, frankly, they aren't a meaningful threat. In no way would anyone with even a modicum of sense interpret my big ass as a victim).

Personally, while I disagree with MWY's position overall, I have enormous respect for how he arrived at it (presuming I understand the implied narrative). I consider it eminently more real, if you will, than the person whose life has no intersect with such things but seeks to impose their opinion on the matter on others. That is not to say those people aren't entitled to an opinion, that their opinion is invalid, or even that I'm disinterested. Just that I have more respect for the opinions of someone who has a material intersect, one way or the other.

Oh, and I've had guns pointed at me twice outside the shooting, with one of those times in my proverbial face. Forgot to mention that.

 

[Netzach]

My point isn't who's had violence or who hasn't had violence. My point is that I'm not going to decide for someone else how s/he is permitted to make themselves safer if/when attacked because MY experience of violence is not that person's experience of violence. I can't possibly feel justified.

(Knife here, M had the gun threat pleasure. Consider my life a privileged one free of major threat, which is why...)

I'm in defense of someone else's unpleasant, and possibly life-ending actions, even while they might not be ones I would choose to take.

I can respect people who have reached different conclusions - I'd be very lonely if I could not, but I'm not able to join them, much as I've tried to return to my former position of no civilian should have a gun.

 

[Homburg]

I'm with you, other than this. I'm not a huge fan of mandatory anything, it kind of makes me want to vomit, but it's time to decide the shape of the acceptable camel's nose.

I like education as my version. Because education demystifies. It becomes a fact, less cool, less uncool. I like it better than "put crazy people away."

What we're doing isn't working. I had to pass a test to use a car.

Shooting is like driving, not talking. It's not "expression" - you know that as well as anyone. I have trouble with the interpretation in which the "right to bear arms" has been divided out so completely from "well regulated militia" that it's got the interpretation we're stuck with at this moment in time.

Well regulated. Not unregulated.

If it isn't mandatory, then assume a LOT of people will do zero. Zero safety, zero training, zero child-safe, more dead toddlers, bottom of the barrel dumbassery. There is a point where the collateral damage has to cause you to revisit some less than ideal options.

"Also would worry that it would be used to exclude minorities, as, historically speaking, gun control started in large part to keep guns out of the hands of minorities."

I agree completely. Education done RIGHT pulls in ALL demographics.

I'm not saying "hey let's do this" with no thought about how. Part of the problem is that there's a big race problem in the discussion. BIG.

I won't get into the linguistics, save to say that modern usage of those words has drifted from Colonial usage. Lingual arguments are a nightmare, and people always feel like they're being bamboozled, even though they know logically that folks spoke, and wrote, differently then than we do now.

As to education, if it was made available in all public schools as a freely available part of the curriculum like driver's ed, I would be ALL for it. At that point, there is no additional cost to the individual (ignoring taxes for argument's sake), it is freely available to all people same as public school (in theory), and does not produce a discriminatory burden that can be used to exclude. That would be mandatory training I could get with.

 

[Netzach]

I won't get into the linguistics, save to say that modern usage of those words has drifted from Colonial usage. Lingual arguments are a nightmare, and people always feel like they're being bamboozled, even though they know logically that folks spoke, and wrote, differently then than we do now.

As to education, if it was made available in all public schools as a freely available part of the curriculum like driver's ed, I would be ALL for it. At that point, there is no additional cost to the individual (ignoring taxes for argument's sake), it is freely available to all people same as public school (in theory), and does not produce a discriminatory burden that can be used to exclude. That would be mandatory training I could get with.

Yep yep yep. Taxes, meh who knows. Maybe every time a celebrity has an "unlawful discharge" they pay for a state.

 

[Homburg]

My point isn't who's had violence or who hasn't had violence. My point is that I'm not going to decide for someone else how s/he is permitted to make themselves safer if/when attacked.

I'm in defense of someone else's unpleasant, and possibly life-ending actions, even while they might not be ones I would choose to take.

I can respect people who have reached different conclusions - I'd be very lonely if I could not, but I'm not able to join them.

Oh, I was only mentioning that to put my own conclusions in perspective. I have my own bias and my own reasoning and wanted it clear in context. No worries, and no dick-waving, I promise. Frankly, I'd be happy if those incidents hadn't occurred in my life, and often wonder why I'm not paranoid or something.

 

[Homburg]

As an aside, while it is a useful phrase, and I use it, I'm getting annoyed at "law-abiding citizen".

 

[Netzach]

None of this really fully addresses the "what do we do when someone who has gone completely off the deep end gets a hold of guns" issue, which I don't think is going away even if we made private ownership completely illegal tomorrow.

I hate agreeing with people I can't stand, but laws are only so much a barrier. Why are we SO nuts? This particular flavor of nuts?

 

[midwestyankee]

It offends me to see this sort of thing happening. In the history of the world, some of the all time stand out bravest people were hard core pacifists. No one (with any sense) would call Ghandhi a wuss.


Personally, while I disagree with MWY's position overall, I have enormous respect for how he arrived at it (presuming I understand the implied narrative). I consider it eminently more real, if you will, than the person whose life has no intersect with such things but seeks to impose their opinion on the matter on others. That is not to say those people aren't entitled to an opinion, that their opinion is invalid, or even that I'm disinterested. Just that I have more respect for the opinions of someone who has a material intersect, one way or the other.

Oh, and I've had guns pointed at me twice outside the shooting, with one of those times in my proverbial face. Forgot to mention that.

I grew up in a semi-rural area; that is to say that kids who went to school with me lived on land that was legally open for hunting, though I lived in what passed as the "urban" part of the area. So I grew up with guns and as far as I know, all of my siblings' homes contain at least one gun, mostly rifles used for deer and similar hunting. I learned to handle a firearm safely as a Boy Scout and fired a .22 enough to hit a few targets on demand. But I could never quite grok the thinking behind hunting when we had perfectly serviceable grocery stores. That was affirmed when a good friend nearly lost his leg to his own shotgun. And when another good friend lost his mother in a hunting accident - shot by her own husband by mistake.

And I am even further from understanding the obsession with owning arms that resemble military weapon. Oh sure, I know it's not a lot different from the dickwad who drives a Hummer, but Hummers have a fundamental purpose other than to kill people.

So my experiences at the wrong end of guns, which happened in the first years after I moved to Chicago (so, mid 70s) only reinforced a life-long conviction that modern people don't need guns and they're especially dangerous when in the wrong hands.

I don't know the answer to the problem that having so many guns causes our society, but I suspect it's going to have to be multi-pronged and inherently imperfect. We didn't have to outlaw booze to reduce the number of deaths from drunk driving. But some regulations and enforcement went a long way to make progress there.

I get the notion that one ought not to have to jump through hoops to qualify to exercise a constitutional right. We could argue endlessly about the nature of that right, but why bother? It's there and so far the courts have sided mostly with the folks who say that it gives them the right to own just about any weapon they want. So it's not going anywhere any time soon. What I don't get is the obsession with having zero regulation and zero control (or, more accurately, zero more regulation and control than the status quo). This unbending obsession contributes every bit as much to the poor quality of discussion on this issue as does the unthinking demand to destroy all privately owned arms.

 

[Homburg]

None of this really fully addresses the "what do we do when someone who has gone completely off the deep end gets a hold of guns" issue, which I don't think is going away even if we made private ownership completely illegal tomorrow.

No, it won't. As I've said before, short of a magic wand to make them all poof, and then an equally magical impermeable wall around the country to keep them out, it's not going to happen.

Or, to look at it another way, maximum security prisons are wildly locked down, controlled, and monitored a place, yet drug abuse runs rampant, murder, rape, etc. If drugs and weapons get inside prisons, and they do, we're going to keep them out of a country *this* large how?

Prohibition didn't work for alcohol, it isn't working for drugs, and it won't work for guns either.

I hate agreeing with people I can't stand, but laws are only so much a barrier. Why are we SO nuts? This particular flavor of nuts?

I'm not a fan either. I watched the video of Piers Morgan, with whom I disagree quite a bit on this issue, 'interviewing' Alex Jones, and I was positively cheering for Morgan while ranting at Jones. And I despised every picosecond where Alex Jones accidentally said something with a microdot of sense that I happened to agree with. It offended my to my very core.

In the end, I consoled my bruised and battered political and ethical well-being by telling myself that even a blind squirrel finds a but here and there. Just because the crazy is paralleling something I agree with in no way means I agree with his crazy.

And, as to the idea of what to do with someone going off the deep end, I have no damned clue. I cried when I read what happened in Newtown, and cried many more times over the week or three following. I'm a parent. MIS is a teacher. I've been in her school more times than the parents of her kids have. Each one of those babies is a little person, and that made each one of that utter shitbag's victims very much little people, same as the teachers were like her coworkers.

I wish like crazy that I had an idea what to do. Without the magic wand, I don't see a way. And, frankly, even with the magic wand, well, terrorists like McVeigh, the 911 hijackers, random crazy dudes in China, and suicide bombers the world over find ways to cause mass death for their sick purposes. There is NO stopping it.

And that is when the insurance industry guy in my brain steps in. Roughly 100 people a year die in mass murders. Statistically insignificant in a country of 311 million. Heartless to say that, but I can't logically support modification to the lives of 311 million to deal with the unpreventable deaths of 100 people per year.

I don't particularly like that part of my brain, but it's tough for me to argue against.

--

I grew up in a semi-rural area; that is to say that kids who went to school with me lived on land that was legally open for hunting, though I lived in what passed as the "urban" part of the area. So I grew up with guns and as far as I know, all of my siblings' homes contain at least one gun, mostly rifles used for deer and similar hunting. I learned to handle a firearm safely as a Boy Scout and fired a .22 enough to hit a few targets on demand. But I could never quite grok the thinking behind hunting when we had perfectly serviceable grocery stores. That was affirmed when a good friend nearly lost his leg to his own shotgun. And when another good friend lost his mother in a hunting accident - shot by her own husband by mistake.

I never got the impression from you that your disdain for firearms was the usual ivory tower liberal hating from afar because the idea was distasteful. You've struck me as someone whose ideas in this area are firmly grounded in personal life experience.

I flirted with the idea of hunting. Obsessed over setting up the gear I was going to use, where I wanted to go, planned a trip with a family member. Then about six months out realized that I couldn't do it. If I had to kill my own meat, well, I'd probably be a vegetarian.

And I am even further from understanding the obsession with owning arms that resemble military weapon. Oh sure, I know it's not a lot different from the dickwad who drives a Hummer, but Hummers have a fundamental purpose other than to kill people.

So my experiences at the wrong end of guns, which happened in the first years after I moved to Chicago (so, mid 70s) only reinforced a life-long conviction that modern people don't need guns and they're especially dangerous when in the wrong hands.

I don't know the answer to the problem that having so many guns causes our society, but I suspect it's going to have to be multi-pronged and inherently imperfect. We didn't have to outlaw booze to reduce the number of deaths from drunk driving. But some regulations and enforcement went a long way to make progress there.

ALL modern firearms are, or were, military weapons at some point. Bolt action rifles that so many democrats claim to not want to ban (even though that are significantly more likely to kill their target than an AR-15) were the absolute weapon of choice for WWI and WWII (except for us. We went semi-auto in WWII).

Pump shotguns, also something democrats aren't against (and also more likely to kill their target), were trench guns in WWI and are still in use in the military.

Revolvers? Yep, military sidearms from their inception on up to the 70's, and even further in some cases.

Flintlock muskets that so many anti-gun rights folks absurdly claim are all that the 2A is talking about? Pinnacle military technology in the 1700's.

ALL firearms are, or were, military firearms.

And why do people want them? Because they work, plain and simple.

When I was a kid, and the 1911 was the semi-auto of choice, it was touted as tough, reliable, good shooting, and the best handgun ever made. Many people, all of them romanticists, still say that, but in the mid-to-late 80's, the guys at Sig Sauer in Germany, and Gaston Glock in Austria, showed the world what tough, reliable, and good shooting really meant.

See, as a kid, revolvers were the self-defense carry weapon of choice (usually snub-nosed .38's). Why? Because they were 100% reliable. Some people carried 1911's, but "everybody knew" they weren't as reliable. Yet if you had a 1911 that could run, say, two whole boxes (100rds) downrange in one sitting without a malfunction, it was considered reliable. Nowadays? If a pistol has one malfunction in a thousand rounds, many people won't carry it. I've got one particular handgun, a Glock, that (ignoring some truly bad aftermarket magazines) has not one malfunction in 5000+ rounds in the time I've owned it.

The point to this? Military firearms, like the Glock, AR, AK, M1 Garand, etc are all designed to function well in adverse conditions. And as time goes on and tech advances, they function better and better in increasingly worse conditions. And when one of the major reasons many people own firearms includes "self defense"*, that sort of rugged reliability is THE premier characteristic most people look for.

This is why gun owners want military-style weapons, and why they tend to want up-to-date military-style weapons.


* - Purposefully not going to get into the validity of "self defense" as a motivation. Not interested. This is not an argument against what you are saying. It is an attempt to clear your expressed lack of understanding.

I get the notion that one ought not to have to jump through hoops to qualify to exercise a constitutional right. We could argue endlessly about the nature of that right, but why bother? It's there and so far the courts have sided mostly with the folks who say that it gives them the right to own just about any weapon they want. So it's not going anywhere any time soon.

I hope not, but I don't believe it.

What I don't get is the obsession with having zero regulation and zero control (or, more accurately, zero more regulation and control than the status quo). This unbending obsession contributes every bit as much to the poor quality of discussion on this issue as does the unthinking demand to destroy all privately owned arms.

I think both sides of that argument are straw men on behalf of both sides.

Ignoring the extremists on each side, the anti-gun crowd does not want all guns destroyed in reality. By the same token, the pro-gun crowd most assuredly does not have an unbending obsession with the availability of ALL types of firearms. Yep, the outliers do, but the anti-gun outliers want all guns destroyed. It nulls out.

And why do I say that it is patently false that pro-2A wants availability of ALL firearms regardless? Because we don't. Only the crazies want bazookas. Only the crazies want fully automatic weapons to be easily available**. Only the crazies think that background checks are a dreadfully horrible idea.

The gun lobby was firmly in line with NICS, for example. The gun lobby actively sponsored Project Exile. The gun lobby actively and constantly calls for enforcement of existing laws that get thoroughly ignored.

Do I know people that I feel shouldn't own firearms? Yup. Do I feel like they're safe with single-shot break-open duck guns, but shouldn't have an AK? Nope. If they shouldn't have an AK, they shouldn't have any gun.

That said, if they're legally able to purchase, and of sound mind, then I have no problem with them owning an AK, AR, 50bmg sniper rifle or whatever.

Okay, I admit, the 50bmg is scary. It's self-policing overall though, as they're so damned expensive that casual fuckwits can't afford the buy-in. And, yeah, I've fired one. Once. Wow.

Now let's step back to my **. Fully automatic weapons have a special place in gun control history. What is that place? Well, they started gun control.

The violence of the Prohibition era was terrifying, and took the country by storm. When booze was outlawed, it suddenly became big money to bootleg it. Any time big money comes about from illegal enterprises, the people breaking those laws aren't so all-fired worried about breaking a few more, and they are all-fired worried about keeping their big money coming in. So, like today with drugs, that means guns and violence.

The difference then is that you could order a fully automatic Thompson SMG from Sears (random example) with no paperwork and it would be mailed to you. Send them circa $200 dollars and they send you a machine gun. Today's dollars put that figure around $3-5k comparatively, so they weren't cheap, but they were utterly unregulated.)

After prohibition was struck down, the organized crime groups were still around, and violence was an issue, so the National Firearms Act of 1934 happened. It's major point was to make fully automatic weapons, short barreled shotguns, and the like significantly more difficult and expensive to obtain. Not impossible, but difficult.

Aside from the yahoos, modern gun owners agree with this.

Same can be said for NICS, Project Exile, restrictions on felons, restrictions on being judged mentally incompetent, and even laws that demand a higher level of proof of ID for certain weapons. In Virginia, you have to show additional proof of residence and a few other things in order to buy what people think of as assault rifles. And gun owners here don't particularly complain about it (aside from the yahoos).

The history of gun control has been one of the anti-gun crowd hollering at the pro-gun crowd for "not compromising", while the pro-gun crowd eventually gets bully brow-beat into some legislation that is a compromise only in that the anti crowd can't push anything more strenuous through.

But it's not a real compromise. If it were, that would be the end of it, but it never is. While rights and freedoms regularly get restricted, they almost never get expanded. So the compromise that sounds so reasonable to you is just another restriction in a long history of restrictions whittling away at a right.

This is why you see so much resistance. The pro-gun types feel like they're backed against the edge of a cliff, and there's nowhere else to give ground on without falling off the cliff. This may be irrational or not, but it is the position to which that slice of politics has been pushed/lead.

A quick definition of compromise is, "An agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions." Historically, the anti-2A side doesn't make concessions. They don't give ground. They take an untenable (in the eyes of pro-2A) position, and then claim they are making concessions by backing down to simply a restrictive position. A real compromise would mean giving back some of the freedoms that have been restricted in exchange for other restrictions, and that doesn't happen.

(Note - It doesn't happen anywhere in government. Once a freedom has bee lessened or restricted, it's done, generally speaking.)

Again, I'm not trying to argue with you. I am trying to explain how I see things from my side of the ideological divide insofar as the general opinion of this particular demographic is concerned. And I'm doing this because I doubt that you, or anyone seriously on the anti-gun/gun-rights side spends a meaningful amount of time hanging with the average gun owner doing the sort of things (shooting etc) that spawn these sorts of discussion in a non-adversial space. Just as I don't spend lots of time hanging out with anti-gun types talking guns in a non-adversarial manner. So please don't look at this as an argument or refutation of position, and more as a "slice of life" from the recreational gun owner's perspective.

I'd like to think that I'm not a yahoo out on the fringes of the political playing field. Though, these days, the fact that I'm not frothing at the mouth and screaming at some random Briton may well mean that I am an outlier.

Hey, Netz, can I hang out in the "I don't want the crazies agreeing with me" box? It's like why I won't call myself an atheist any more. I don't want to be associated with the assholes in atheism. Well, I am pro-gun-rights, but I don't want to be associated with the Alex Jones' and Wayne Lapierre's of the gun world.

 

[Homburg]

And please see above for the standards that I personally hold gun control legislation to insofar as whether I see it as reasonable or not.

1) Is is equally applied, and does not single out or exclude minorities, the poor, and the disenfranchised? They are often the MOST in need of self defense.

2) Does it not place an undue burden on the law-abiding gun owner? Because if you've committed no crime, you deserve no punishment.

3) It is comparatively easily complied with? Because anything too difficult to comply with will simply turn folks who are lawful now into law-breakers with the stroke of a pen.

In short, if it doesn't impact me, but does impact the bad guys, cool. That's a tough standard though, and a lot of reps proposing gun control laws don't meaningfully give a shit about not punishing gun owners because gun owners aren't voting for them anyway.

 

[Netzach]

The ongoing ethnic-cleansing-by-imprisonment-and-poverty-and-gangs that has gone on and on - believe me we're not talking about 100 people - has never or rarely provoked the same "we must DO SOMETHING" agreement throughout the mainstream.

Why a buyback in Chicago, but no buyback in Newtown?

 

[Keroin]

As a tree-hugging, liberal Canuck, my thoughts on gun control are predictable.

I was just thinking last night, however, that it would be interesting if there was as much zeal in the US about education and literacy as there is about the second amendment.

Yeah, I know.

Anyway, the arguments, pro and con, are fascinating from a distance. I imagine it must be very frustrating at times for both sides when you live in the middle of it. That guy who went all frothy on Piers was scary, though. Reminded me of that article Stella linked to awhile back on men being overly emotional. Plus, the whole angry, loud, belligerent white man thing is getting old and annoying.

MWY, you mentioned earlier about the connection between lead and violent crime. Have you read/seen "Freakonomics"? There's a really cool segment on the link between Roe V Wade and crime rates. Worth reading/watching.

@Homburg your comment on using the title atheist (or not using, as the case may be), was timely. I am reclaiming the title for the non-crazy. In fact I'm about to write a blog post about just that. Ironically, it was a post on Facebook, related to the latest mass shooting that made up my mind for me.

 

[Netzach]

As a tree-hugging, liberal Canuck, my thoughts on gun control are predictable.

I was just thinking last night, however, that it would be interesting if there was as much zeal in the US about education and literacy as there is about the second amendment.

Yeah, I know.

Anyway, the arguments, pro and con, are fascinating from a distance. I imagine it must be very frustrating at times for both sides when you live in the middle of it. That guy who went all frothy on Piers was scary, though. Reminded me of that article Stella linked to awhile back on men being overly emotional. Plus, the whole angry, loud, belligerent white man thing is getting old and annoying.

MWY, you mentioned earlier about the connection between lead and violent crime. Have you read/seen "Freakonomics"? There's a really cool segment on the link between Roe V Wade and crime rates. Worth reading/watching.

@Homburg your comment on using the title atheist (or not using, as the case may be), was timely. I am reclaiming the title for the non-crazy. In fact I'm about to write a blog post about just that. Ironically, it was a post on Facebook, related to the latest mass shooting that made up my mind for me.

Something weird. A hell of a lot of Canadians DO have guns. And yet....

we remain crazy.

Guns plus pressure plus proximity or something?

You can find all that in Toronto, too. It's weird.

While the 2A stuff may seem pretty strange, a lot of us are equally or more insane about 1A which ties into education, expression, literacy.

It's interesting that in the 2A "freedom" community there's such a culture of actually believing their majority myths are under some kind of foreign invasion, that Muslims are the reason you need guns and assorted asshattery. A real consistency problem.

I guess to me, the issue with both dangerous words and dangerous weapons is that there's enough dialogue to balance them and cancel them and mitigate them, ideally.