Not to speak for Tris, but -
I don’t know anyone that would feel inadequate because they could not win in a fight against a “garden variety thug”. Different value system I guess. I don’t judge myself or others based on their ability to beat someone up. Some people may value that “attribute” in a person, but I sure don’t know anyone that does. Hence, no reason to feel inadequate.
You probably don’t think about fires much either, but I’ll bet your house has smoke dectors and possibly a fire extinguisher.
Well, smoke detectors and fire extinguishers give me a lower insurance rate and have an extremely low chance of being accidently discharged causing sever injury or death. (no cite, just gut feeling)
You only need to be murdered once. I don’t think they suspect everyone else of being a murderer. What gives you that impression? Just that they feel they can protect themselves from virtually any attacker?
Sounds like half the sports nuts I know. I can’t figure out what’s different from known Barry Bonds sporting stats and the stats on a Remington 700.
And don’t you think there’s something wrong with judging a whole rather large group (gun owners, or even those gun owners that are active and enthusiastic about gun ownership) based on the rather limited exposure you seem to be garnering?
Nah, to me it’s brave. I favor using a hired killer.
No, I am saying, or actually did say, that nearly half of us actually are unable to win a fist fight, with pretty much anyone. It isn’t a feeling; it is an accurate assessment of reality. A buff young punk can generally expect to be able to kick my middle aged fat ass. It is a fact. I don’t suffer from a feeling of inadequacy.
I want getting in fights to be abnormal. In fact, I want it to be criminal, no matter what weapons or training are used. If you start a fistfight, you should go to jail. If you cause real harm to someone in a fistfight, you should go to prison.
But, if I have to fight, I will fight to protect myself. If the threat includes the potential of death, I might well shoot the person trying to kill me. If someone tries to hurt me with his fists, I cannot hope to out fight him. But I still want to protect myself. If I am able to do so, I will present him with the possibility that I will kill him to protect myself. To do that, I need a gun. I can reliably shoot to kill; at up to twenty five yards. Beyond that, even I might have a fairly good chance of getting away. 
I have never needed to shoot at anyone. Having the potential ability to do so has never made me desire to do so. I still generally talk better than I shoot. But I shoot better than I box.
Yes! Every Wednesday, at the small arms range. Fifty rounds, standing slow fire. I am still getting better, too!
Tris
I thought this was a rather odd statement as well. In a fight you can win/lose/draw.
I don’t think that Sinical brit takes into consideration that half the population are women and 99% of your garden variety thug is going to be a man.
So, it’s closer to 75% of the population that could not win in a fight with a “garden variety thug”. No offense to women, but in most cases, a man will win in a fight. As to the guys, I’ll give them a 50-50 chance which is generous.
In most cases it will be win or lose. I have never been in a fight. Never intend to. I’m a big guy, 6’4" 205 lbs., but that in no way would guarentee that I would win a fight.
I bet I could kick Sinical brits’ ass though. :eek: 
(Just being silly, and trying to make a point)
Sinical brit, are fights common in Briton? Have you ever been in one? Could you always win a fight against a “garden varity thug”? Would you feel inadquate if you couldn’t?
I don’t think it’s so much a suggestion that you should be able to win every fight, but a general fear of physical confrontation in general. In the movie Friday, there’s a scene where John Witherspoon talks to Ice Cube about how kids today are afraid to take an asskicking. That’s basically the American, overreactive attitude regarding their perceived “need” for guns. They think if they can’t kill somebody instantly that their lives are in danger. They can’t have peace of mind without knowing they can blow somebody’s brains out.
Being afraid of a physical fight doesn’t just mean being afraid you won’t win, it means you think there is something unacceptable about losing. The American ego is such that taking a human life is seen as preferrable to getting a wallet stolen.
Let me expand on this a bit. I’m bigger than about 90% of other people. Size does not always matter. But people that are not used to, and don’t commonly street fight, size and luck are going to determine the outcome.
Self defence classes? Sure, that could make a difference. I really don’t know how much though. Police are taught a number of take down moves and holds that appear to be very effective. But police are rarely attacked by surprise. I think that also makes a big difference.
I don’t live in an area that I feel that I need a CCW. And if I did, I would move. To each his own. Also, I think that my size has helped prevent me from being a target. However, I do own guns. Why? Why not? I enjoy shooting them, and they do provide me with some security at my rural home.
Coward? Hmm. I have my doubts that anyone would break into our house while we are home. If someone did, I have only myself to count on.
Two weekends ago, I roofed the addition on my house I’m building. Sort of a steep roof, 20 feet off the ground. I roped in with my climbing harness and perlon. Some people may call that cowardly, I considered it prudent.
Experience tells me that if I try to defend myself with my hands and feet, someone will get hurt, most likely me. If I use my firearm to defend myself, the most likely outcome is that I will draw it, the criminal person will run, and nobody will get hurt.
I also firmly believe that there is no such thing as an accidental discharge. There are negligent discharges which would not happen had the firearm owner/user not done something wrong.
I’ve heard all your insults of firearms owners a hundred times before, and it’s getting pretty old to be told that I have some kind of desire to kill someone over a few bucks. If that were the case, I would be the mugger.
I have a desire to not be the victim of a crime. If someone attacks me, I don’t know entirely what they’re after. Maybe they want the wallet, maybe they’re going to kidnap me, rape me, kill me or all three. I also don’t think that it’s incumbent upon me to just go along with the criminal to try to find out. My gola isn’t to take someone’s life, it’s to get out of a situation with my own life intact.
Where do you get off saying that because my method of defense isn’t one you’d use that I place so little value on people’s lives?
So… it’s “cowardly” to accept the simple fact that, eventually, you may be faced with an unpleasant and violent person that also has a gun?
I’m sorry that accepting reality is “cowardly”, Mr. Cynic. I would certainly like to hear of an alternative that A: doesn’t require one to invoke fluffy-puffy images of pink bunnies and butterflies, and B: will protect me.
But no, you just plug your ears, Tinkerbell, and think those happy thoughts. Maybe if you think of things just right, you can magically stop those bullets, just like Neo!
Oh c’mon folks.
Unless more of you live in different circumstances than I suspect, then very few of you will be in a street fight, or attacked, or burgled by anyone who wouldn’t much rather just leave with your stuff thank you very much. Last fight I was in was in college when some big fat drunk frat guy called me a kike. He was quite a bit bigger than I and when he picked me up by the scruff of the neck and threw me to the ground I thought I was gonna die, but I did pretty well actually. Like enipla says, luck has a lot to do with it. That and High School wrestling having taught me how to use someone’s weight against them. Last time it came close was when some big idiot tried to tough guy me (never mind the circumstances, just stupid) and I refused to back down, telling him to go ahead and take his best shot. I’d have him arrested and might very well surprise him. He went away. I don’t think a gun would have helped that situation turn out better (although if I had one, it might have gone down in the stats as an example of effective defensive gun use :rolleyes: ). And if I was smarter I could have beat him up verbally much more effectively than having to put my jaw on the line. I should’ve been more mature, but the asshole brought out the playground kid in me. I lived in a high crime neighborhood in med school and I had a plan: I made sure I kept about twenty dollars or so in my wallet and was willing to give it to them. Never needed to implement my plan. I know of someone who did need to though and it worked quite well. Only one wrinkle, they also wanted his backpack and he pleaded for please, please, not the Histo notes! They let him keep his backpack.
SPOOFE, you have almost as much of a chance of dieing from an anaphylactic reaction to some pink fluffy bunny as you do of having your life saved by virtue of your carrying a gun.
A comparison with smoke detectors? Gimmee a break. While one can debate which is bigger, the possible protective effect of gun ownership or the possible harmful effect of gun ownership, (and strong opinions lie on each side, depending on which research you choose to discount) the bottom line remains that smoke detectors have no possiblility of causing harm. And that the effect in either case is very tiny. If someone somehow made the argument that the ready availability of smoke detectors was causing significant harm to society, then giving up the protection that my smoke detector offers would be no big deal to me. If they said, no, keep your smoke detector, but work with us on how to keep smoke detectors away from those who would use them for evil intent, and let’s be sure that everyone knows how to use them responsibly, I wouldn’t say, no, you really just want to take away my smoke detector, and the protection that it gives me is soooo important that I will work to block anything that keeps me from using a smoke detector in every room and hallway of my house and keeping one with me at all times, cause you never know when a fire might sneak up on you.
“Cowardly”? Maybe not. Just disproportionate to the level of risk.
I’m saying if you don’t have the emotional strength to walk down the street or sleep in your house without feeling like you have the instant ability to kill everybody in sight. then maybe you don’t have much in sack department.
I’m saying that shooting somebody is an asinine overresponse to something like a mugging or a physical altercation.
“ooh, but I don’t know what else they might do…” you say as you fearfully nibble your fingers.
Whatever. Just don’t tell me you have any balls.
DSeid -
You would get more responses if you could break that rant into paragraphs. And perhaps, have a point.
You’re in med school?
Fine. Do you know anything about guns? Anything at all?
It’s quite clear that you don’t know anything about guns or the people that own them.
Your silly attempt to attach the need for a gun to a “sack” convinces me that you haven’t any idea what the hell you are talking about.
And I would like to ask DTC.
Is the “sack” department what makes you a man?
Is that how you see it?
Good for you, DSeid, you made different choices than I did and yours happened to work for you.
Mine work for me.
I have been a firearms owner for the last fourteen years, and I have never had a negligent discharge nor even a close call because I follow the safety rules. And as unlikely as you can scream that it is for one of us to ever have need for a firearm in a defensive situation, that is exactly what happened to me four years ago.
I was in my own home minding my own business when some criminal asshole decided to barrel through my locked front door. I am grateful to this day that I don’t know what he would’ve done if I hadn’t used that gun to scare him off.
I am one of the 200,000 to 2 million cases you will never hear about on the TV news. Your choices work for you. Mine work for me.
You sit in your home with a loaded gun close at hand?
Astonishing.
Nah, they’re trying to “Britianize” us – take away guns from everyone but the criminals and then if we defend ourselves against armed criminals they throw us in jail.
hey, the Queen says even robbers, murders and rapists have a right to make a living how they choose!
I hear that the violent crime rates are skyrocketing in Britian, New Zealand and Australia, corresponding with the increasingly prohibitive gun laws there. Just coincidence, I’m sure…
In the U.S., however, more and more states are passing “shall issue” concealed carry laws. men and women are taking to carry concealed pistols with them whereever they go. Interestingly enough, the predictions made by the anti-gun kooks that there would be “shootouts in the streets” fell flat! That’s not all that fell; the violent crime rate fell, too!
So far it’s holding out that arming the law-abiding populace is keeping the violent crime rate in check, and limiting gun ownership by law-abiding citizens (or ‘subjects,’ as in your case) is causing crime to grow.
Maybe you can change your name to ‘arrogant brit.’
Do they censor your news over there, too?