# Guns and Beards **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 3, 2013, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540 "2013-07-03T13:40:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/21 "2013-07-03T16:32:33Z")
Not a very large sample yet, but it is curious that men with daughters apparently don’t own guns. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/22 "2013-07-03T16:32:47Z")
I don’t have a beard, and I can’t really tell if my dad was a gun owner or a guy that owned guns that don’t count or what. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/23 "2013-07-03T16:46:36Z")
Bearded. Daddy had .22 rifle and pistol for varmits. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/24 "2013-07-03T16:53:03Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I consider all of them gun owners, since they owned guns. Some people think too much. ☹ if a father owning guns at some time in his life qualifies as a gun owner for the purpose of this poll then does nonshaving at some point in the past qualify as bearded? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/25 "2013-07-03T16:59:28Z")
What ever you self-identify with. ---
**Author:** ![MostlyClueless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@MostlyClueless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MostlyClueless)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/26 "2013-07-03T17:02:11Z")
Dad has no guns and a moustache, I have no facial hair whatsoever. I’m from the Netherlands, where gun ownership is pretty damn restricted anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/27 "2013-07-03T17:20:12Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > if a father owning guns at some time in his life qualifies as a gun owner for the purpose of this poll then does nonshaving at some point in the past qualify as bearded? If father currently owns gun, but isn’t counted as a gun owner, why count whiskers? ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/28 "2013-07-03T17:50:57Z")
Interesting I haven’t looked at the link, but everyone here recognizes that this an extremely poorly thought out statement scientifically, yes? …yes?😃 god, I hope everyone recognizes this is crappy science ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/29 "2013-07-03T18:22:48Z")
> [@colander](#): > > I don’t think this question is so strange. There are many style and grooming preferences that happen to correlate with certain social views and personality traits, some of which may influence those of your children. Certainly it currently looks from the poll results that there might be something going on here, although of course to definitively establish a link, a more stringent survey methodology would be necessary. > > Also, the link is probably stronger between guys who own guns and whose fathers had beards. FYI, you got the relationship backwards. The proposition is that bearded men were raised in houses with guns. It doesn’t suppose anything about the guys themselves. This way lies madness. Style and grooming preferences are a wide spectrum and vary over the course of people’s lives. Social views and personality traits are a wide spectrum and vary over the course of people’s lives. The manner in which children are influenced by parental behaviors is a wide spectrum which varies over the child and parents’ lifetimes. Tying some subset of them to a binary factor such as gun ownership yes/no serves only to create a low-confidence indicator which may become a heuristic for people too lazy to do their own thinking. It’s how stereotypes are born and it fuels “us versus them” mindsets, where “them” is some poorly defined group. Ultimately it almost certainly causes more harm by polarizing people and reinforcing the lazy way we think than the good it does by giving people a useful tool to understand those around them. For a comedian, who wants to be able to create humor by juxtaposing various aspects of society, this kind of heuristic is useful. It will bring to mind a certain stereotype in his audience and he can use that to his advantage in setting up jokes. For the rest of us, this is just one more “factoid” which we have to be careful not to use to judge the world around us because it’s both irrelevant and inaccurate. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/30 "2013-07-03T18:37:07Z")
Is this ‘beard’ referring to actual facial hair or a relationship with a woman for the purpose of covering up his homosexuality? What if he had neither, what if he had both? What if the ‘beard’ owned guns? Do mustaches count? This poll is limited and confusing! ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/31 "2013-07-03T18:42:32Z")
> [@Sigene](#): > > Interesting > > I haven’t looked at the link, but everyone here recognizes that this an extremely poorly thought out statement scientifically, yes? > > …yes?😃 > > god, I hope everyone recognizes this is crappy science You should look at the link. Sedaris was not claiming to be making scientifically sound statement. It was an offhand comment and part of the reason it is funny is that a) it’s a random observation and b) it’s kind of strange that Sedaris was able to have that detailed of a conversation with people at a book signing that he learned such an odd fact about so many of his fans. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/32 "2013-07-03T18:46:58Z")
> [@Sigene](#): > > god, I hope everyone recognizes this is crappy science It isn’t crappy science. Mainly because, it isn’t any kind of science. Had you clicked the link, you might have deduced that David Sedaris is a humorist, and was being funny in the context of the interview. And this is a self-selected poll, so anyone who is hung up on on the scientific validity of such polls should just back away slowly; we know you are smarter than we are, but it isn’t polite to continually point it out. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/33 "2013-07-03T18:53:46Z")
Beard, Dad (deceased 2001) was a gun owner. Four Civil War-era weapons and a Luger he collected during WWII. None were ever fired during my lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/34 "2013-07-03T18:55:08Z")
I have a beard. I assume my father had guns, since he lived in Alaska. My stepfather had guns. My brother has an armory. My sister has a gun. I have guns. None of my children own guns, even though all the boys have beards. ---
**Author:** ![Clawdio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d07c76/32.png) [@Clawdio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clawdio)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/35 "2013-07-03T19:00:20Z")
I like to grow my beard. My Dad technically owns a gun (a .22) but as far as I know it hasn’t been fired in decades, or possibly ever, by him. I have never owned or fired a gun. But I’ve recently been knocking around the idea of doing a lot more camping and in potentially more remote areas, so I find myself actually considering purchasing a gun for protection for the first time in my life. I’m 32. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/36 "2013-07-03T19:04:25Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I consider all of them gun owners, since they owned guns. Some people think too much. ☹ I wouldn’t consider him an active gun user. He’s also got a wreck of a Dodge Caravan rusting away on his land, I wouldn’t refer to him as a Dodge owner. I may have a few flakes of weed tucked away in a crevice of an old radio, I wouldn’t say I’m a marijuana user. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/37 "2013-07-03T19:09:56Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I wouldn’t consider him an active gun user. Suit yourself. I’ll remember that when I write a poll about gun users. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/38 "2013-07-03T19:13:53Z")
I have a beard. My father never owned a gun after marrying my mother. I, however, own several guns, and my son has a beard. He also owns several guns (in fact he owns a collection of rare firearms), and his eldest wore a beard prior to his tragic death. How large was the sample size of this study? Also, just for clarification, I live in the woods and I have long hair. If I didn’t wear a beard, the natives around here would label me as a woman. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/39 "2013-07-03T19:20:02Z")
Clean-shaven, dad has an arsenal of firearms. He’s clean-shaven too. ---
**Author:** ![colander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@colander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colander)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540/40 "2013-07-03T19:32:06Z")
> [@Mtgman](#): > > This way lies madness. Of course, this way also lies comedy, ideas for future directions in sociocultural investigations and, potentially, interesting insights into the nature of American ideals of masculinity, both past and present. But, sure, “madness”. Okay. > [@](#): > > Style and grooming preferences are a wide spectrum and vary over the course of people’s lives. Social views and personality traits are a wide spectrum and vary over the course of people’s lives. The manner in which children are influenced by parental behaviors is a wide spectrum which varies over the child and parents’ lifetimes. Tying some subset of them to a binary factor such as gun ownership yes/no serves only to create a low-confidence indicator which may become a heuristic for people too lazy to do their own thinking. It’s how stereotypes are born and it fuels “us versus them” mindsets, where “them” is some poorly defined group. Ultimately it almost certainly causes more harm by polarizing people and reinforcing the lazy way we think than the good it does by giving people a useful tool to understand those around them. I will perhaps worry a little more about this when it can be demonstrated that the dissemination of ideas regarding a possible correlative relationship between dad guns and beard ownership is actually likely to cause significant problems for anyone, anywhere, ever. > [@](#): > > For a comedian, who wants to be able to create humor by juxtaposing various aspects of society, this kind of heuristic is useful. It will bring to mind a certain stereotype in his audience and he can use that to his advantage in setting up jokes. For the rest of us, this is just one more “factoid” which we have to be careful not to use to judge the world around us because it’s both irrelevant and inaccurate. It hasn’t so far been demonstrated to be inaccurate, and we can see from this thread that there are many people other than yourself who do, in fact, find it a topic relevant to their interests. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-and-beards/662540.md?page=3)