Random thoughts:
What I find most interesting about all of this is that not so long ago, just expressing a dissenting opinion from the party in power got you hauled off to a special place to “exercise your right to protest” when all you had was your voice and maybe a sign expressing your distaste/hatred/fear of Bush et al. Protestors were considered dangerous in this “post 9/11 world”. Ye gods, the national tragedies that were averted due to this “necessary security measure”. :rolleyes:
Now we have armed people with threatening signs and we’re all just supposed to get over it? :dubious: This isn’t a potentially disastrous situation at all! This is the Freedom For Which People Died or some such nonsense, I suppose. Just because he was within his legal rights, doesn’t make him right (or the behavior right).
And for all those here who want to Take Back the Open Carry for the Good of the Nation–I want nothing to do with you. Here’s a little secret I’ll let you in on: it’s awful hard to tell the smoldering, I’m-gonna-take-everyone-out-in-this-video-store gun nut loner from Joe America who “needs” to carry his gun. I can’t tell the difference at 20 yards or 20 feet. I’d rather do my shopping without having to make that judgment call. But I live near Chicago which isn’t part of the real America, I suppose. I find it disingenuous that those who argue for open carry (it’s legal so therefore good!) to say that guns are tools. A hammer doesn’t usually intimidate me . A gun always changes the social equation–and I think you all know this, because it’s one of the reasons you carry them.
At this Obama thing: I don’t care if Skippy was carrying a rifle, an automatic, a pistol or a revolver(and I couldn’t tell you the difference between any of them. I can recognize a water pistol, though). Whatever it was or is–it’s a weapon and a deadly one at that. I don’t want him anywhere near a volatile social situation because humans make stupid snap judgments all the time. Just because he happened not to, doesn’t make it less likely that someone else won’t as well.
I do wish that those who are pro-gun would stop imbuing gun owners with superior decision making skills and emotional control. It’s as bad as those who are anti-gun characterizing pro-guns as drooling penilely challenged hicks. NEITHER is true-gun owners are human and therefore prey to emotional upsets, fear, paranoia, reasoned thinking and forbearance, sometimes-just like anti-gun folk. How about that.
And think on this: you can take as many classes in gun safety as you like, just like you can take as many driving classes as you want–neither one guarantees that you will make the right decision for the situation that faces you in that instant that you have to act or react. So, “the NRA provides classes on gun safety” doesn’t hold much water for me (it’s a start, but only a start–like driver’s ed is only a start).
For every “responsible” gun owner out there, there’s a yahoo who wants to raise hell. Cases in point: My ex-Marine neighbor, he’s won many a shooting contest (no idea of the proper terminology–thank God I’m not a journalist!); keeps his guns in a safe and he makes his own bullets. He is a model gun owner whom I feel comfortable around, but I’ve known him for 20 years.
Compare him to the neighbor 2 doors down: 2 boys who are now in their 20s (one is married with a kid), who spent their teenhoods “impressing” their girlfriends by shooting their rifles (not BB guns) at squirrels on the golf course located across the street. Oh, those pesky kids–but they’re not kids anymore. They’re 20+ and still doing shit like this.
Ex-Marine neighbor didn’t go to NRA classes* (that I know of); the 2 “boys” did. You take what you want to from education–but ultimately, the holder of the gun makes The Decision. I don’t trust any of you to make the right one all of the time. But that’s another thread.
(and no, I am NOT saying that NRA classes encourage irresponsibility–I’m saying that exposure to education is not a guarantee of gun safety).
