“Exposure therapy” :rolleyes:
When and where, then? If you’re going to advocate for more exposure in public places as a form of “therapy”, where would be a better place?
“Intimidation”, “trolling”, thuggery", “endangering the public” come to mind.
If that “legal activity” is carrying a gun, then yes it should. Because that person can easily kill you if they get angry or are a criminal or out of sheer incompetence. And because openly carrying a gun is the mark of a bully and a thug.
Speaking for myself only, it’s not the guns that make me nervous. I’ve been hunting for the past 23 years and am very familiar with the weapons I use. Firearms are (usually) designed to be extremely safe in and of themselves. It’s the people behind the firearms that worry me.
People in general are stupid creatures. I’m sure we call all agree on that. I wouldn’t trust a lot of people with a broken rock much less a firearm. The annuls of history of full of examples of well trained people who should know better doing stupid things, whether it’s a police officer shooting himself in the foot during firearms training or a police officer leaving a gun where a toddler can find it. Point is, I don’t trust people. It’s not that I don’t trust guns.
And there is some notion that irrational love of guns comes from insecurity and faulty risk assessment ability.
Although to be perfectly honest, I think that for a lot of these guys (not all, but a lot) it’s not really about preventing mass murders or other crime. They realize how unlikely that is.
What it’s about is a power trip, and the stuff about “we’re protecting you” or “we’re protecting our family” is just for public consumption. It’s to justify themselves to the public (and probably to themselves). It may be that they are the ones who need therapy, not the general public, and they’re just projecting.
And while we’re on the subject, how clueless are they? Do they really think that the public appreciates being told they need “exposure therapy” and they’re going to force that therapy whether the public wants it or not?
I do. Guns are lethal weapons, and easily the most lethal weapon we might encounter in civilian life. They can kill on a second’s notice, they can kill at substantial distance, they can rip big-ass holes in people even when they don’t kill, and they can do all this on the gun owner’s passing whim, or by a careless mistake.
Guns are inherently dangerous objects. If someone’s walking down the street with a gun, I should be able to call the police so that they will get this person to take his death stick back to his own house, place of business, shooting club, etc. or be relieved of it.
If people feel the need for guns to defend their homes or businesses, I’m not gonna argue with that. But I don’t want people carrying in public, unless they’re law enforcement, or have been issued a concealed-carry permit due to a substantial threat specific to that person, e.g. someone’s stalking them.
Both the drivers and the cars zipping by at 45 mph are required to be licensed and insured. Will you accept similar regulations on people carrying guns in public?
The gun lobby’s complete resistance to any kind of registration or other regulation on gun ownership contributes to society’s reluctance to see open carry as a “normal” thing.
So what?
The concern is that someone carrying a gun will go mad and start shooting people.
At the shooting range, we have lots of people that are all carrying guns, and actively shooting them. Why at a shooting range would I not fear that someone will be seized with madness and start shooting – yet I do fear that from the guy at McDonald’s?
I don’t agree. I think it’s arrogant to think that people in general are stupid. To then try and use the force of law to control the behavior of people because in whole or in part because of that belief is even more arrogant.
Maybe because the people at a shooting range are there for an obvious purpose: to practice their skill in shooting. And anyone who is careless about handling their gun in that environment is likely to get kicked out, amirite? There are strict rules at a place like that, that go well beyond the law. At a shooting range, everyone realizes their hobby involves death sticks, and the culture and rules of such places ensures that the members or clientele of a shooting range handle them with appropriate caution.
But if a bunch of gun nuts walk into the local McDonalds with guns, they are doing this for no reason but to show off their death sticks. They are not legally required to act with appropriate caution, nor are there any other restraints to replace those in place at your shooting range. And while they probably don’t have serious criminal records or psychiatric history, I wouldn’t count on them being what I’d call stable or responsible.
They are not making the local McDonalds any safer by their presence. If they are not there, the chance of someone getting killed there on a given evening is probably much more minuscule than lightning-strike odds. If they are there, the chance that one of these idiots will set off their gun, either by accident or in a moment of anger, is something all the other customers have to reckon with.
And the other customers really didn’t bargain for that. At your shooting range, you’re choosing to be around a bunch of other people with guns, and that is fine. Your right to choose to be in a place with a lot of people with guns is one I have no desire to question. I want that to continue to be a choice. I don’t think the general public should be deprived of that choice. But when people carry weapons in public just for the sake of carrying them, that is exactly what happens.
I’m not that concerned with shooting sprees, because they’re very rare events. Day to day gun-handling accidents aren’t, and the more people handle guns the more accidents there will be. My concern in your restaurant scenario is that someone with a gun will go absent-minded and shoot one person.
I’m not too concerned I see a cop in the restaurant, because I know (s)he’s had and continues to get reasonable training (although it still happens, as Sinaptics pointed out above). But how much training has Jimmy from down the street had?
That you have become complacent with the off-the-chart gun death rate is unfortunate, and that you cannot distinguish between proper gun use at a supervised range and a group of armed bullies in a restaurant is rather telling.
Jimmy down the street could get a lot more training and practice if you would just let him and his good buddies shoot while lunching at restaurants. Why do you hate firearms safety?
People like this remind me of women who assume that all men are rapists. That California shooting is bringing them out of the woodwork.
You sure it was the California shooting? Which California shooting are you referring to, by the way?
You make the choice to go to a shooting range, where that possibility exists. You choose to expose yourself to the threat of deadly force. A person going to a McDonald’s isn’t making that same choice (well, other than the food :p).
You say arrogant, I say realistic. We control peoples behavior all the time, both for their own, and others protection. I don’t see why this would be any different.
This. I’ve said a hundred times that guns are not the problem. It’s the intersection of guns and people that is the problem. (Gun nuts can’t hear that statement. They like to see themselves as masters of the feared object.)
Also this, although I am concerned about shooting sprees as well. They’re not as rare as you might think. In fact, where mass shooting is defined as four or more people shot (including the shooter), they happen almost daily. (We've Had So Many Mass Shootings In The U.S., We've Had To Redefine The Term | HuffPost Latest News)
The average person has an IQ of 100. Think about that for a second. That means that the majority of people have an IQ of 100 or below.
And that’s just IQ. Think about how people fluctuate (within themselves over time) along dimensions like anger or irritability, attention, concentration and memory, fear or anxiety, dysphoric mood. People do things they wouldn’t otherwise do when they are upset, or sad, or tired, or intoxicated. Fortunately, most of the time when people (speaking at a population level) have those kinds of experiences, they are not armed. Many times they are and nothing happens. Sometimes they are and there is a road rage shooting, or a fearful homeowner shoots someone turning around in their driveway, or a father absentmindedly shoots the child he’s buckling in the car seat, or someone drops a gun that injures themselves, or someone else in a Walmart or someone else in a church, or so on and so forth.
The more that you increase the overlap between firearms and people, the more instances you will have of people experiencing those states while also being armed.
You think you’re right.
I think I’m right.
What a good thing the law is on my side. I don’t have to give the slightest weight to your paranoia, because it doesn’t constrain my actions in the least.
I have never seen anyone openly carry in my state who was not a uniformed LEO. I might have missed someone. If I ever see anyone openly carrying around here, I will immediately call the police. I will not allow it to become a commonplace occurrence, or blend into the static where I live. I do not care if this offends you, or the person who I call the police about.
Well, it looks like the folks in your state – if your state is Rhode Island – generally agree with you. Open carry is not legal there, unless you have a permit from the Rhode Island Attorney General or from a local police chief.
In Virginia, where I live, if you call 911 to report a person with a holstered gun, the 911 operator will generally advise you that there’s no law being broken.
The operator will probably not call you a Nervous Nellie out loud.