I will never, ever understand my fellow man.

The BBQ Pit
241

Assumption: I know nothing else about you other than you are a firearm owner, maybe an owner of multiple firearms.

I would regard you with suspicion, because you think differently than I do. Without knowing anything about you, I start out as guardedly neutral towards you. Now, the one thing I know moves you further away, and gives me a reason to keep you, at a minimum, at arms length. I have no desire to like or be liked by everyone, or even a majority of the people I meet. There’s no reason for me to try to overcome my first impression.

Now, had I met you at cheering for the Yankees at the stadium, and it turned out your daughter goes to the same school as mine and is also on the volleyball team, and you’re a big fan of 70s/80s progressive rock, I’ve started forming a positive opinion. Positive first impressions. I still don’t trust you, because I really don’t know you at this point, but I’m pretty cynical that way. Now, I find out you’re a gun hobbyist. I disagree with you strongly, but we have similarities to build on. If down the line, I was put in a position to trust you’ll make the right decision in a pressure situation, I probably wouldn’t - but that’s because we have a fundamental difference of opinion and as evidenced in this thread, problem solving*. I don’t know if that (theoretical) swagger in your step is because you are a cocky, arrogant SOB like me, or is there because of the gun.

If your question about trustworthiness is about whether I think that you, as a gun owner, are inclined to rob banks, steal cable, and torture kittens - no, that’s not the case.

*Let me cut off the inevitable question about how I would have solved the problem in these school shootings. I have absolutely no idea what I would have done. I’ve never been in a situation remotely similar, and I hope to never be in one. The only thing I can say with any surety is that I’d rather not get in-between a shoot-out between two armed people, and I don’t think that it is necessarily the best solution, or even a good solution.

242
  1. Dodgers Forever. Yankees suck.
  2. I teach, and volleyball cost me my left ACL.
  3. I love ProgRock of that era.
  4. I own a bunch of guns.

Damn. We ain’t never gonna be friends. :smiley:

243

Fascinating. Do you suffer from hoplophobia?

244

Forgive my end-of-long-day coginition, but is this not an example of cum hoc ergo propter hoc?

You seem to be implying that because there have been no school shootings since the Dunblane gun ban, then the ban must have worked in preventing shootings.

I mean, if we acknowledge that Dunblane was so shocking due in part to the lack of UK school shootings, why is the lack of school shootings between Dunblane and now so surprising, ban or no ban? Seems counter-intuitive to me.

Am I missing something? Besides rest-of-thread context, possible sarcasm and sleep, that is.

245

Depends on which order I learn them. If I learn 4 first, yeah. If I learn 1 first - hell, one of my favorite pasttimes is inviting non-Yankee fans to the stadium to watch their beloved team be smacked around. :cool: I’ve also been on friendly terms with gun owners, but not likely if that is the first thing I learn about them. The more loudly “pro-gun” (for lack of a better term) you are, the less likely I’d want to hang with you. On the other hand, if you want to spend more time arguing which is the best Yes lineup (Anderson/Bruford/Wakemen/Howe/Squire, of course) or how to motivate pre- and young teen volleyball players, and gun ownership never or rarely comes up, we got no beef.

Symptoms of hoplophobia:

Nope, just really, really dislike them; I feel very uneasy around them. Fired my 50 rounds in basic training, no problem. Pass armed police officers daily - often, I encounter the heavily-armed ones. I can talk with them, no problem. And while I trust the majority of police officers to make the right decision concerning weapons discharge most of the time, I don’t necessarily trust the one right next to me to make the right decision at any time. I don’t like the finality of any potential error in judgment.

246

It is irrational and unhealthy to feel “uneasy” around firearms. Want to know what the best cure is? Shooting guns. Seriously. I have taught a number how people how to shoot. Before I took them to the range, most were fearful of guns. Their fears disappeared after spending an afternoon on the range. You really should consider asking a gun-owning friend to take you to the range sometime.

247

Ah, yes, you’re right.
I’ll fish up a bunch of general gun debates. These tend to be long and run the whole gamut of arguments, so anything we say here is probably rehashing them.

Often, these will have their own interesting little sub-debate for the first page or two, and then devolve into a very generic gun control argument which goes through all subjects.

Anyway, I can’t remember which thread is which (in my memory), and I don’t want to read them halfway just to find out, so I’ll just link to a few that probably cover the whole spectrum of debate, but I’m not sure.

There are plenty more where that came from if you’re interested. Just search GD for various gun control related terms.

248

While it may be somewhat irrational, it isn’t unhealthy. I don’t cross the street to avoid armed law officers. When I was in AZ, I was conscious of the number of people brazening displaying their firearms, but I didn’t have any heart palpitations, nor did I hole myself up in my hotel any more than I normally would on a business trip.

I’ve been on the range, approx. 2 decades ago, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Shooting holds absolutely no fascination for me. I’ve done it and have no desire to do it again - sorta like eating brussel sprouts. I’ve little enough free time to engage in the things that do fascinate me, and it’s been awhile (since I returned to NYC back in 93) since I’ve spent considerable time with anyone who is an avid outdoorsman. Those closest to me tend to share my bias (some stronger, some not as strong) against firearms. Hopefully that isn’t too surprising; people in general tend to congregate with those who share their own ideas and principals.

249

I wish I had your magic powers and knew exactly what I would do in an unprecedented and extremely frightening situation. Ill grant you that theres no reason to worry about how many guns he has, if the number is greater than zero and includes at least one of killing caliber.

I know, I know…the hell you send him to will seem like heaven after what you put him through. yawn

Lets also say that hes Lord Voldemort, while were discussing dumb hypotheticals. What idiot criminal would LET me leave the house to call the cops? Hed either kill me on the spot, or tie us all up, or take some other course of action that doesnt involve me calling the police. Lets stick with better hypotheticals, like a hostage situation.

{QUOTE] Would you say to yourself, “Gosh, if I try to stop him, I might not succeed. So I had better leave.” 99% of parents wouldn’t think twice about attacking the guy. Perhaps you’re part of the 1% who would leave.
[/QUOTE]

Of course not. I just understand that obeying my natural instincts here will result in my pointless death, and probably endanger more children even more as the gunman will now have much more incentive to eliminate witnesses. Police are trained to deal with these situations, we are not.

Probably they will. I see the feelings of the children of these adults are not terribly significant for you…maybe you`d be happier if they got to grow up fatherless, knowing that their daddy is dead because he jumped into a gunfight without even a knife?

250

If it didnt make him angry, you didnt bite him hard enough.

Seriously, though, do you feel you could have gotten the gun out and successfully shot him without getting to see what your spleen looks like?

251

This is a much better point. However, an assembly that turns into a riot is comparatively easy to stop assuming the rioters are unarmed. Besides which, who needs training to NOT riot at an assembly? Not accidentally shooting someone does require at least a little training, plus some impulse control. I don`t think this is a perfect analogy

Certainly. Though I dont have much respect for certain of your opinions, youve made some good contributions.

Felons lose the right to vote in many states (I think?) and certainly lose many other rights accorded naturally to non-criminals during their incarceration. Why not the right to gun ownership, especially since theyve already proven they cant be trusted to obey the law?

252

Certainly wish I could edit my posts, as I certainly abused the hell out of a certain word in that last post. Oh well. :smack:

253

Homeschooling is really starting to look like a really good Idea

254

Not really. They are designed for killing, they make loud scary noises, and many people don`t have the opportunity to become familiar with them.

Though the poster this was originally aimed at apparently has a great deal of experience with them, this is overall an excellent piece of advice. I gave up hunting some time ago, but I still enjoy the occasional target-shooting session when Im back in America. (Im pathetically bad with a handgun, but my riflemanship used to be excellent and was still passing fair the last time I checked.) Guns don`t bite, honest injun.

255

I have no particular beef with CCW permits, either. I admit to not liking them on principle, but it`s very difficult to argue with the results.

256

That bit’s wrong isn’t it? Unarguably. Who can argue there are no secure free states out there, which don’t have w-r-m’s? Not a soul, that’s who.

So why do people put such stock in the word of the bozos who came up with that one?

I’m seeing a whole lot of creationist thinking here. Axioms.

257

Necessary to the security of a free state next door to hostile Indians, sure. Necessary to the security of a free state that doesn`t get along well with vastly more powerful nations overseas, yeah.

Necessary to modern-day America? No. Even if it becomes necessary to have an armed insurrection, handguns won`t help against SWAT teams and army battalions.

258

I bit until blood came out of his neck and he toook off in the other direction.

Yes. I did have time to bite him without getting stabbed, didn’t I?

259

Sorry, that won’t fly. It says “necessary to the security of a free state.” i.e. you can’t have a, meaning any, free state without w-r-militias.

Nobody can rationally argue that the proposition is true. What were the bozos up to that evening?

I’ll say a little prayer here that there won’t be a need to link to a definition of the indefinite article.

260

My comment there was intended as a bit of black humor, which apparently wasn`t actually funny. Sorry.

Can you get a gun out and pointed in the proper direction as quickly as you can turn around and bite?