I have two friends-- a married couple-- who will never again be invited to stay at my apartment because they brought their guns in without telling me.
They had visited family and had gone shooting up in the Pacific Northwest, then driven down to LA to see us. They did not mention their guns at all until they were carting them into our apartment. The alternative was leaving them inside their rental car under the California sun.
I support others’ right to own guns, but I felt it was incredibly rude of them to bring their weapons into my home without telling me. The reasons were simple: I do not want guns in my home, I cannot personally vouch for their competence with weapons, and it’s not something I want to be responsible for.
To give me the choice between allowing weapons in my home or directing them to the nearest motel is not something friends do to one another.
Let me applaud you on your amazing powers of perception! You’re absolutely wrong, but nice try anyway.
I have no problem with concealed carry permits. If carrying a hogleg makes you feel safe and more in control, and the state says you’re cleared to carry it, that’s fine with me. Just don’t bring the fucker around my home or my family and we’ll get along just peachy.
Rest assured, however, that if I see the aforementioned hogleg on you, I AM going to think that you are most likely a criminal or involved with some branch of law enforcement. Apologies to people who don’t feel safe without a gun on 'em, but I’m the product of an earlier time; when concealed carry permits were pretty much unheard of, and if you saw somebody who was not a cop carrying a handgun it was a safe bet he was off to settle a score or to rob a gas station.
I also have no problem with lawful gun ownership. I was raised around guns (I AM originally from Texas…), and most of my family hunts, as do all of my in-laws. That being said, I don’t think gun ownership is for everyone, and I don’t think that an armed society is a great, or even a good, solution to combating crime.
Most (all?) states have details in the law on how to mark your property as to legally ban concealed guns from the premises. Typically a sign at the entrances.
Because it’s a weapon, the purpose of which is to shoot at people. The fact that you could also kill your host and family with the flatware or a pocketknife is irrelevant. You’re bringing in a device the sole purpose of which is to kill or incapacitate someone. You’re bringing said device into my home, at my invitation, in a social situation in which there is zero probability of it being necessary for your self-defense. Furthermore you have brought said device, which can cause grievous harm to my children, into my home without my knowledge.
I guess I just don’t understand the mind-set it which it wouldn’t be considered rude. The only justifications I’m seeing are “it’s my right” and “the state trusts me, you should too”.
Zero probability? How the fuck did you come up with that figure? Is your house located inside of an underground vault?
Something being “rude” is defined by other peoples’ reaction to it. Rudeness does not exist in a vacuum. You can’t be rude in a room all alone. The act of doing something “rude” requires that other people witness it. If you have a small pistol in a concealed holster hidden under your sport jacket, nobody is going to see it, nobody is going to know it’s there, and nobody is going to think it’s rude.
This thread contains SO much pussification. Fear of inanimate objects. It makes me sick to think of the kind of mindset you would have to be in to be so needlessly afraid of a gun. If you TRUST the people you let into your house, you should trust them with a gun. And if you don’t trust them, you shouldn’t let them into your house. It’s that simple.
<sigh> I came up with zero because I didn’t want to find a cite for dinner-party fatalities that could have been prevented by a gun and divide it by the number of dinner parties hosted… but I’m willing to bet it’s damn close to zero.
This is just not true. You can do something rude without a witness. If I pick my nose at the dinner table I’m being rude even if nobody catches me. In the segments of the social world I’m familiar with (mainly WASP suburbia and rural Bible-belt-onia) it would be considered rude to carry a gun into someone’s house if you barely knew them (and actually pretty damn rude even if you did know them well).
Calling someone you don’t know a pussy is a bit rude…
Fear has nothing to do with it. It’s the combination of “potentially-risable political statement” (to the WASP world) and “I so distrust you and your house that I must protect myself with a weapon” (in the rural world).
And the list of people I trust in my house that I wouldn’t trust with a gun is veeeeery long (and would include my brother, my mom, my elderly grandmother, my 3-month old nephew…).
Argent, Una, ignoring the people who are a bit strange about guns, how do you respond to my points? Zephyurs and Jaz09 seem to think I’m on to something.
As far as trusting people, Argent, that’s a step further than I want to go. If it’s you, and you’re my buddy, I know if you’re a gun owner, probably. I mean, you trust me, I trust you.
But sometimes people you don’t know come to your house. Your boss for dinner. The guys after bowling. A pickup group of dungeons and dragons. Someone who wanted that couch you had from craigslist. The maid from the service. The pool cleaner. The yard service. Your friend’s buddy from out of town. The tupperware party. The Red Hat club of your grandmother’s.
These people should darn well tell me if they’re carrying.
pkbites: On business property? If it’s just a store, it’s a public area. Expect anything legal. You don’t want guns? Put a sign up. Same as no shirt, no shoes, no service.
Interesting thread. I have seen a concealed weapon in my home once (off duty cop father of the girlfriend of my roommate). My reaction? “Hey - is that the Walther PPK .380 you have in your ankle holster? I love that pistol!” His daughter was slightly embarrassed, but knew I would not care since I, lets see, don’t have an irrational fear of firearms.
I truly don’t care if someone with a permit carries into my house, unless we start drinking. If someone wants to store their firearms in my house, they are welcome to do it when travelling. I have kept firearms in my bag when on road trips, and not told the people I was visiting. I knew that it would take years to explain the safety mechanisms I use, the fact that anyone getting to my bags has a better chance of hurting someone with my Zippo and my wife’s hairspray than they do of getting access to my firearms and ammo.
For those of you who live in such fear, it would be appreciated if you could make a sign for all of the things you don’t allow in your home regardless of legality. This might be porn on computers or in physical form, religious materials, firearms, meat, peanuts, knives, fruitcakes, copies of the Constitution, air horns, saxaphones, or whatever else you consider the mere possession of on your property to be a violation of your household feng shui.
Unethical - hell no. Now, it might be considered rude to carry into the home of avowed anti-gunner (I don’t ever do that to my knowledge). But I put this in the same category as discussing religion, politics or wife swapping with the wrong crowd.
And you’re absolutely wrong when you express that you are so…whatever…of seeing a gun on someone that you cannot assume anything other than the two-states of criminal/cop.
If those people intended to do you harm with a concealed weapon, *they wouldn’t bother telling you.
*
This makes exactly as much sense as the idea of a school or any other place being a “gun free zone.” That is, no sense whatsoever. If someone wants to shoot people in a “gun free zone,” by Christ he is going to bring a gun into that “gun free zone” and shoot people.
If your fear is of a gun-related accident, rather than malicious harm, you’re better off worrying about dying on the road in a car crash or getting cancer.
Is that really the grounds you want to wage this crusade on?
Suppose I’m a scientist who works in a laboratory that deals with deadly chemical or biological agents; I have the legal authority to purchase, own, and transport them. While I’m moving a vial of the junk from one facility to another, I decide to stop by at a friend’s house, since it’s on the way. Is it appropriate for me to bring it inside, even if he never knows?
The obvious answer is no. But since guns have this cult-fetish about them, somehow it suddenly becomes appropriate to bring them to a dinner party with friends. And having an issue with it is “pussyfication.”
You are a scientist with the legal right to have a vial of super-duper-kill-us-all on you? Sure - bring it in. There is a place by the piano for your cooler / box / etc. if you don’t want to hold it all night.
It’s a fact that CCW holders are a more law-abiding group of the population due to the amount of background checks, requirements, and the self-selection aspect.
It’s a fact that people with past criminal records and hard drug use are more likely to be involved in crime than the average citizen.
Given that the goal is to protect your self, family, and home, what makes more sense - asking everyone who enters your home if they’re carrying a gun, or asking them if they’re a hard drug user or a criminal?
If your answer is “no, I don’t want to violate the privacy of people who might be hard drug users and criminals”, then why do you feel it’s OK to violate the privacy of a lawful, licensed CCW holder?
Safety is about many things, but one aspect of it is proper quantification of the risk factors. Explain to me what the logical reason is for singling out a subset of the population who are more likely to be law-abiding than many others?
No, not all. Wisconsin has no CCW for civillians, therefore theres no sign law.
I carry off duty, but off duty I have no more right to bring a weapon into a private business than anyone else.
If I walk into a store do ethics dictate that I need to tell the owner/manager and ask if it’s ok that I’m armed?
Is this a strawman? You might as well say “what if I’m allowed to carry a suitcase nuke.” But the answer is actually “yes”. I have to assume that if you’re legally allowed to carry such items in public that there is a good reason to extend trust and courtesy to you.
Ah, I’m surprised it took two pages for the words “fetish” to appear in a gun thread.
Una, you’re missing the point. I’m sure if you did a study of the number of people who got killed at yuppie dinner parties due to a concealed firearm going off, that would be zero.
That doesn’t change the fact that it’s rude to bring in, just in the implications bringing a gun to someone else’s home is.
It’s perfectly legal to chew your toenails and eat them. It has even less risk than a gun accidentally firing off. But you just don’t go a friend’s house and start chowing down, do you?
Wait, wasn’t this thread about ethics, not social rudeness? In any event no, I don’t think it’s “rude” unless I know in advance that they have an objection to such.
I’m sitting on a line here - please consider the difference - it’s important to understanding my position. I’m differentiating between pre-emptively declaring in the absence of a known preference of the home owner, versus being respectful of the known wishes of said homeowner.
Well, once people start throwing accusations of people being pussies, I think all rules are off.
There are certain things that are just plain rude to do. Bringing an instrument of violence into another person’s home, regardless of how many certifications of your sanity you have from the State, is one of those things. Send it in to Emily Post if you’re actually interested in whether it’s uncouth or not, outside of the very peculiar cult that thinks that the slightest restriction on guns is just a sign of the pussification of society.
Can I wear my Sgian Dubh? It is worn openly, tucked into my garters. My family culture has a long history of wearing one openly after all. How about if I am coming back from Scout trip? Need I lock my knife in the glove compartment? Is it OK if my hatchet is in my backpack?
Like I said earlier - please be sure to let all of your visitors know your peculiar rules of order for your home so that they do not accidentaly offend. Of course, if you take offense and challenge, the cultural rules state that they get to choose weapons - and based on this discussion I do not think that will go well…
