Carrying a gun is not an inherently threatning or hostile action. She did not attempt to harm anyone or put anyone in harm’s way. It is also an action that, as far as I can see, has no connection to her murder.
Spell it out for me. How does this qualify as irony?
Let’s be honest - what’s really going on here is that people are relishing in the suffering of those who have political disagreements with them, under the flimsy guise of it being “ironic” when really it doesn’t logically hold up.
If it’s funny and satisfying to you that someone who has a difference stance on an issue got murdered by her husband while her children watched, chances are you’re a dick.
Okay, how about this: woman who becomes a national cause célèbre for her insistence on conducting her entire daily life from the inside of her car as a “statement” on driver’s rights is then struck and killed by a car driven by her husband. Does that help ironize it a little?
Openly carrying a gun around a field full of six-year-olds apparently is an inherently threatening and/or hostile action, as evidenced by the reactions of the other parents.
If you go back to the first page you’ll note that I clearly stated I don’t see anything funny about this; it’s a tragedy. However, it is ironic.
We’d be better off if people weren’t such collosal pussies that they reacted to the presence of a gun as if it were an indicator of hostility or ill intent. The act of a law abiding person carrying around a gun should not be reacted to with hysteria, which is, IMO, a good reason that if practical people should start openly carrying everywhere. It’s only because there’s a stigma attached to it that it’s so rare - if people are in the habit of carrying guns wherever they go, then it takes extra effort to not carry somewhere specific.
It’s quite common for people to carry guns everywhere, and you’ve almost certainly come across people in your daily life recently who were carrying a gun. But because people become hysterical at the sight of a weapon, it’s done concealed.
If someone - a licensed, safe individual always carries a concealed handgun with them as part of their normal attire, and hence they would take it to their kids’ soccer game, is that something that makes them deserve to be murdered? If not, why does openly carrying it cause that reaction?
See my comment about threat assessment. She carried because of her fear of attack from people at soccer games, people at grocery stores, people talking to her in her yard. It is highly likely that these people NEVER posed a threat to her. The person who killed her was probably the only person with whom she let her guard down.
That’s just a guess though. Maybe she didn’t even trust him. Maybe she was armed 24/7. What a sad way to live.
But she wasn’t just going about her life. She was making a statement. Her statement was “I have a right to carry this gun everywhere, no matter how silly.”
No. It’s a poor analogy. Let’s say we stop with the analogies and you just tell me step by step why this is ironic.
I am in no way suffering from cognitive dissonance. In what way is my position inconsistent?
It’s pissing me off because you’re all idiots who are getting off on the suffering of others who disagree with you under the guise of them deserving it because somehow they brought it upon themselves - and yet no one here has demonstrated how that is the case.
It’s evidence of the hysteria with which carrying guns is treated in our society - something that should be fixed by having more guns carried around, rather than less. If it weren’t such an unusual sight, it wouldn’t seem threatning - because it isn’t. Are people somehow more likely to go nuts and kill people when surrounded by 6 year olds? Are the 6 year olds going to snatch a gun out of a retention holster, take the safety off a weapon, aim it, and fire before an adult regains control of the situation?
Please explain.
I’ve carried openly before. Do I deserve to get murdered? If I were murdered, would you start threads laughing at how ironic it was? Why or why not?
I can think of plenty of “principled stands” one could take on the first amendment that would draw insults. If, instead of wearing a gun to a soccer game, someone wore, say, a t-shirt with a swastika on it, and then went to court over their right to wear that shirt, that would be a principled stand on the first amendment. It’s not going to stop other people from calling that person an asshole, though. Even people who agree with the principle you’re fighting for.
Mind, I’m not suggesting a moral equivalency between wearing a handgun, and wearing a swastika. Just that both are things likely to provoke controversy, and as a result, likely to make people who disagree with that action less sympathetic if something bad happens to that person.
All that being said, I really don’t see how this story is funny. Not in an, “How dare you laugh at this tragic murder!” way, but in a genuine, “Where’s the comedic element?” way. What’s the humor, here? She owns a gun, and she got shot? That’s a pretty low bar for irony.
I refuse to assume every single person I meet is law abiding, especially if they feel the need to walk around with a gun. I barely trust most people to operate their motor vehicles safely.
Define “common.” I doubt you can support your assertion.
If I was at my kid’s soccer game, and someone was hanging out at the game with a sword in a scabbard hanging at his side, would I really be a pussy if I thought that maybe there was something wrong with that person or thought that they may be a little unstable?
Woman becomes gun rights darling, is then killed by her own husband’s gun. Don’t see how much further down it can be dumbed for you, Beef.
A lot of things can be argued about it— was she in the right initially, did “gun fetishism” aggravate their family’s problems or was it just bad timing, is there anything darkly humorous in the situation or is it a plain tragedy— but to pretend there’s nothing ironic is absurd. You don’t strike me as stupid, so I presume you’re “failing to see it” to make a point.
Would the people who intended to harm people with their guns or otherwise commit crime typically carry them openly?
Millions of CCW permitholders across the country. I’m having trouble finding national numbers, but if you want I can give you a whole bunch of state numbers in the hundreds of thousands.
Not all of them carry on a daily basis, but many of them do. The point is that you have no idea. If there were some sort of “national open carry day” where everyone who typically carried concealed carried openly for one day there would be massive panic as you reacted hysterically to the people you’re surrounded by on a daily basis anyway but remain unaware. And yet nothing would be different - the same people would have guns.
It would be unusual, as swords are not commonly carried for self defense, nor are they the best tool for it.
Open carrying of handguns is only unusual because of the social culture which makes it taboo. And the only way to cure that is more open carry - if people see on a daily basis that, just like with police, there’s nothing inherently dangerous about otherwise law abiding people carrying weapons then it will become less of a taboo and generate less of a hysterical reaction when people see someone with a gun. For that reason, I think carrying a gun anywhere that it’s legal openly is a valid political statement - if millions of other people did it, we’d get over the shock and it would become expected.
The lady may have been a bitch who walked around threatning people and trying to provoke fights or something. I don’t know. If that’s the case, then she’s obviously not doing some great service for gun rights. But the assumption that carrying a gun openly is inherently a threatning action is emotionally immature.
Yeah, I don’t find this funny or ironic either. Just sad for those poor kids. And like Guin, I too wonder if there’d been domestic violence in the home and that was part of what made her feel compelled to carry openly in public.
People are justifiably more worried about people going nuts and killing people when surrounded by 6 year olds. That’s not hysteria; that’s instinctive.
That doesn’t make any sense. If she was being beaten/abused at home, she’d carry a gun at home. Why would her husband come find her in the supermarket when he can knock her around more conveniently at home?
Because she carried a gun to protect her from imaginary danger in ostensibly safe places, yet the gun failed to protect her from actual danger, which was her husband turning a gun on her and then himself, leaving their children as orphans.
I could draw a diagram, if you’re still confused.
Apparently you’re confused by the difference between “ironic” and “deserved.” I know it’s hard to tell, what with them having a whole letter in common and all.
Mea culpa. Go ahead and remove the word “armed” from what I said. Is that better?
Sure did help prevent this woman from getting shot, didn’t it! Oh wait…
That’s not ironic at all. Dipshit. You seem to have listened to too much Alanis Morisette. To help you understand why your analogy fails horribly, I highly recommend *The Compass of Irony *by D.C. Muecke, if you can manage to get your hands on a copy. (It’s out of print–try the library.)
FWIW, I have nothing against gun ownership per se. I just hate what I see as U.S. gun culture, which seems designed to enforce irresponsible, fetishized ownership. I’d be much happier if we had something closer to Switzerland.
And assuming regular citizens receive the same training and scrutiny that police do is naive.
You also half-dodged my point. Yes, carrying a sword would be unusual, but how is that any different than carrying around a gun (aside from how effective it is in self defense situations)? Both tend to be frowned upon in social situations.
Also, why do you believe social condemnation of those openly carrying guns is a problem that needs a cure? Do you have the same problem with social condemnation of smokers? Is it so strange that people don’t want to have to deal with behaviors that make them uncomfortable?
That’s too vague a question. Evaluating if any group if safer than another for no particular definition of safe is a tricky problem in itself. It also lumps tens of millions of people with a variety of circumstances into the same group.
Sure - if you’re competant in handling a weapon and have the appropriate training and equipment, why wouldn’t it be?
I don’t know enough about the situation to say. Does it matter that she had previously open carried a gun? What if she didn’t like guns at all, but her husband still owned one? Does that change the situation?
Her husband owning a gun and using it on her has no necesary logical connection with her carrying a gun openly on a previous occasion. If, in a moment of rage, he had taken her own gun out of her holster and shot her with it, there might be something there.
By all means.
Why is that inappropriate? I assume she was there for her own children, right? It seems to me that being armed when you are directly responsible for the safety of your own children is appropriate.
Otherwise, why is it inappropriate? Is she going to go “HOLY SHIT I’M SURROUNDED BY 6 YEAR OLDS, I HAVE TO SHOOT MY WAY OUT!”? Is one of the 6 year olds going to take the gun from her and start shooting?
Are guns magical talismans that cause cancer if children come within 20 yards of them?
Yes, that’s not irony any more than a person who choose to own a car and drive gets hit by a car. In what way did her open carry of firearms lead to her husband murdering her?
No. I can see why people are making this conclusion. “Haha, gun nut died from a gun! HAHAHAHA IRONY!” but when you actually break it down, it’s not logical, unless you think that every time a gun owner is killed with a gun it’s also ironic. Her choice to open carry here is not relevant to this story at all.
I’m a gun owner. If someone killed me with a gun tomorrow, are you going to post a pit thread laughing it up about how ironic it is?
