Nut With Gun at Town Hall

[Bridget_Burke]

@eleanorigby

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).

It seems to me that time in the military is better training for gun owners than an NRA class. You seem to think your ex-Marine neighbor knows what he’s doing; the 2 “boys” don’t. As a Texan, I know plenty of people with guns–for hunting, for protection, or just because they collect pretty shotguns. But there’s no way that a few hours at a range could make me good with guns.

The few gun owners here who eagerly assume the old, tired guise of Needle Dick Gun Nuts seem to have something to prove. Why hasn’t Crafter_Man told us about his military career?

[eleanorigby]

I brought up my neighbor’s military service to show that he has had some training. Frankly, I think it comes down to his character: he would no more goof around with a gun than I would rob a convenience store. He respects his weapons (and calls them that–they’re not “tools”) and I trust him completely with them–and I trusted my kids when they were small to be in his home, knowing he had weapons. He’s one person.

Oh, and those boys? I called the cops on them, despite the fact that their dad was then the fire chief of my town. They got a slap on the wrist, but if I see them doing it–I call. He’s no longer fire chief, so maybe now they’d get more. I don’t want to see them in jail or anything like that–I want someone to tell them to grow the fuck up and respect their weapons. :rolleyes:
IMO, there are too many “boys” (and for all I know “girls”) out there who find something very appealing about guns–they make them feel stronger or more powerful etc-they believe strongly in the gun mystique. There are not enough of my ex-Marine neighbor. Or at least there are not enough of Harold (that’s his name) leading the discussion on this issue.

BTW, I really hate guns, but I am sick of the silly nonsense that passes as “debate” in this country. “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands” is no basis for an argument. “All guns are evil” is just as silly.

I’m done. sorry, I tend to get on a soapbox.

[E-Sabbath]

The problem is that there’s just as many loudmouthed fools on the other side of the debate as well. And many of them are in the news organizations. There’s a fine line between ‘too stupid to know better’ and ‘just plain lying’, and it’s hard to see where they are. I recall the Vermont killing spree bringing editorial calls (from reporters) to renew the Assault Weapons Ban. Which wouldn’t really have stopped someone from using pistols to kill people. And so on.
(yadda yadda Michael Moore, yadda yadda Brady people, yadda yadda.)

[BrainGlutton]

As it turns out, all this gun-toting at town halls was carefully staged.

In fact, these guys and most of the dozens of other Americans who’ve been bringing guns to public meetings about healthcare reform are really just responding to a media-wide casting call for crazies that went out after an angry woman accosted Republican Representative Mike Castle at a June 30 town hall in Delaware, demanding to see Barack Obama’s birth certificate. It took a few days for television to grasp the potential political impact of that snippet of Flip camera video, but once they did, it and similar scenes of Americans Gone Wild have become almost daily features on cable.

Clearly, the idea is to suggest that there’s a veritable Whiskey Rebellion brewing out in the heartland, one mightily provoked by Obama’s plan to extend health insurance to every citizen. It doesn’t matter that the Birthers have been dismissed, derided and thoroughly disproved. In fact, much of the opposition to healthcare reform has long since moved on from that obviously hopeless argument–the real point is they’ve united dispirited conservatives and captured television’s attention away from the beautiful Obamas in favor of angry, ill-informed and terrified white people.

Think of it as our nation’s Dirty Harry moment–bringing a gun to a political debate is equivalent to saying, “So do ya, punk?” It’s an intimidating gesture, a warning to politicians that they must heed the vehemence on the right. And it both frightens and dissuades progressives, discouraging their participation in the debate. But you don’t get more votes just because you pull the lever on the machine harder. Like a cowboy shooting off his six-gun in the night, these people want to start a stampede, but so far they’re all hat and no cattle. Politics, like stand-up, is about timing, and after six weeks of escalating (but still relatively tiny) demonstrations by increasingly wacko people, there has in fact been very little violence and no gunplay at all. This thing is fading like the Birthers down to the hard-core, Cheneyesque extreme.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

Of COURSE it was staged. Do you think the Chief of Police would just randomly run into this guy, approve of his actions, and then stand there with him?

Thank you for stating the obvious. All these posts later, I still think I put it best way back in the early stages of this thread: you got trolled.

[Czarcasm]

@Airman_Doors_USAF

Of COURSE it was staged. Do you think the Chief of Police would just randomly run into this guy, approve of his actions, and then stand there with him?

Thank you for stating the obvious. All these posts later, I still think I put it best way back in the early stages of this thread: you got trolled.

So it was a staged show of force with intent to intimidate both politicians and those that would support said politicians.
What is a nine letter word that starts with “t” and ends with and “m”?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Tomato!

[elucidator]

RNATB, you naughty boy, you’ve gnawed through your straps again, haven’t you?

[emcee2k]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Tomato!

Good user name, post combination.

[BrainGlutton]

@Airman_Doors_USAF

Of COURSE it was staged. Do you think the Chief of Police would just randomly run into this guy, approve of his actions, and then stand there with him?

Thank you for stating the obvious. All these posts later, I still think I put it best way back in the early stages of this thread: you got trolled.

America got trolled.

[Crafter_Man]

@Bridget_Burke

Why hasn’t Crafter_Man told us about his military career?

Becasue I, um, never served? :dubious:

[Argent_Towers]

Isn’t he a member of a militia? That’s a kind of military service, albeit irregular and unofficial. I have to say, a lot of militia members I see in photos look like they need a little more PT.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Argent_Towers

Isn’t he a member of a militia? That’s a kind of military service, albeit irregular and unofficial. I have to say, a lot of militia members I see in photos look like they need a little more PT.

Being a militiaman is “a kind of military service” in the same way that operating a fire extinguisher makes you kind of a firefighter.

Militias can come and go as they please, and choose when and where to fight, or not to fight at all, or to fight for the other side, for that matter. Soldiers can’t.