I understand the second amendment says “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”, etc, etc. What I don’t understand is why owning and using guns seems to be an obsession for so many people. The unabashedly liberal Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten (you may remember him as the author of Pearls Before Breakfast, or as the former Czar of the Style Invitational) called it an addiction.
What is it about guns? Why are people so enamored with them?
There really should be a separate gun forum.
Couldn’t you say this about any other hobby/collection people have that you don’t personally enjoy? I don’t get ATVs. I think many people use them irresponsibly. It bothers me when people allow their small children to operate them. People die riding/driving ATVs. A friend of mine since middle school did a few years ago. I’ve never been on one but that’s because I know I wouldn’t enjoy it.
I recognize that many, many people do though and I don’t sit and question why because, really, what is anybody going to tell me? “Because it’s fun.” And who am I to argue that just because I don’t think so?
So that’s my answer: because it’s fun.
I could if it weren’t for the sheer number of people involved with them.
Driving on the highway at 100 m.p.h. is fun too; people don’t act like they are being martyred because that has been made illegal in order to save lives.
There is no constitutional right to drive 100 m.p.h., and there is a constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
Of course thats not mentioned in the Bill of Rights.
I assume it is in part due to our cultural attitude of obtaining/maintaining independence from colonial rule, the anti-statism that is in the US, etc. But that is just a guess.
What I don’t get is why guns are so important. If insurgencies have shown anything, small arms are not that big a deal. Handguns and single shot rifles are not going to stop an invading army. Armies are stopped by booby traps, explosives and military grade arms which slowly bleed the official military dry until they pull out. I don’t see the second amendment people being concerned about those things.
A gun in your own hand (at your side, etc.) feels like something you can depend on at a very basic level, like little else in a complicated world.
Silver Fire nailed it. It is an enjoyable hobby, whether you collect, restore, make, compete, or hunt with them. There are an unlimited number of conversation topics gun enthusiasts can debate. As an example, in a pistol, what is better, a large diameter, heavy and slow bullet, or a small diameter, fast and light bullet? Glock vs Sig? Remington or Mossberg pump shotgun? Mauser 98k versus Mosin-Nagant 91/30?
You should see the debates (arguments) over calibers.
For the collectors, the history or provenance of some firearms can be first and foremost.
So, yeah, guns are a lot of fun.
But lots of people feel strongly about owning guns without pursuing it as a hobby, or even really liking it. I know people who see target shooting a few times a year as kind of a chore, but something they have to do.
People are afraid. Guns may make them feel a bit safer.
Is the OP asking why some people like owning and using guns, or why some people vehemently oppose restrictions on guns? Two kinda’ different subjects.
“To ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth. This was the ancient law of youth. Old times are past. Old days are done. But the law runs true, o little son.”
— an old Ruger ad.
A large, but shrinking, segment of our society is deeply afraid of the outside world.
It’s not an obsession. I like guns, they’re fun, and I don’t think they should be outlawed. I would argue just as strenuously to defend any of my other hobbies, etc. - it’s just that gun ownership/shooting is the only one that’s remotely controversial.
Separately, I react strongly to most demands for gun control because the push for control is somewhat symbolic of a number of trends in modern society that I find troubling.
The ceding of personal responsibility to the state. Rather than allow someone to be responsible for their own defense, we hear “Why do you need a gun, just call the police.” “Don’t worry about those crazy people worried about societal collapse, who needs to “be prepared” anyway, the US government will always be around to protect you, for ever and ever.”
The mistrust of citizens by the government. Gun control is essentially the government saying to its citizens “We do not believe you can be trusted with a weapon and nothing you do or say will change our mind.” That attitude disturbs me.
The ever-increasing partisanship and inability of both parties to look at the good of the country and arrive at rational, intelligent solutions. Rather than a genuine motivation to improve safety, I see a desire to simply score a victory over the team behind much recently proposed legislation. And rather than spend the time to craft carefully considered, thoughtful legislation on how to improve safety, they rushed through the same tired old crap people have been pushing for years because they didn’t want to waste the tragedy.
The misguided belief that it is possible, or desirable, to improve safety by limiting people’s freedom. Or the idea that limitations on people’s freedom are acceptable because they are “necessary” to achieve some other goal.
And furthermore, the lack of conviction behind actually respecting people’s freedom, from both parties. I think people should be free to do what they want as long as they are not hurting others. Own whatever guns you want, marry whoever you want, do whatever drugs you want, and pay for your healthcare however you want. Both parties are really equally reprehensible in this regard; where they differ is simply in what areas they want the government to play a bigger role in your life.
People are more and more willing to give up their freedom in order for the government to “solve” whatever the problem of the moment is. Everyone has shit they want, and everyone thinks the government is the way to get it, on both sides of the aisle.
Do you all remember that Benjamin Franklin quote that circulated widely after 9/11? “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
So, in summary, it’s not guns themselves that I’m obsessed with. It’s the values and attitudes that guns represent, and conversely, what an attack on guns and gun ownership represents.
Well, they’re closely related; they’re probably similar sets of people.
Absolute, thanks for an excellently worded response.
I’m not afraid, I have no guns that I can even get to. I keep a 9 iron by the front door, that’s it.
I don’t shoot guns, or haven’t in many years. I don’t hunt, I don’t target shoot, I don’t carry, I don’t rely on them for home protection.
Guns don’t make me feel safer, or less safe.
I have guns that have been in my family for generations and have never been fired in my half century plus life. None of my guns have ever been used on another person.
To me, they are just possessions. They just exist, but I am not enamored with them. I don’t obsess over them. I don’t seek out more guns, or ammo, or anything. My meager gun collection is just static, and has been for a long time, and will continue to be. They are just objects.
But it still scares the bejezzus out of a shitload of people that I own even a single gun, and that’s strange to me.
It’s the unknown potential that somehow, sometime, for some unknown reason, I might actually operate one of these objects that freaks people out.
Plenty of shit freaks me out, but I don’t start thread after thread after thread over it. There’s probably a half dozen anti-gun threads in GD and the Pit each, with the same hand wringing, teeth gnashing posters postulating in them. We get it: Guns bad, gun owners bad. But I’m not bad, nobody in my recent family tree that owned guns was bad, none of them or me has committed gun violence in over a century of gun ownership. We just owned the things you despise.
Better start a few more threads is all the advice I can give.
And that is the other side of it. I only addressed the hobby side of gun ownership, but what you wrote is even more important, especially the parts I bolded. We are very fortunate to have the freedom to own such capable weapons as firearms.
The op wanted to know why, there it is.