I began the thread, and I don’t operate under that assumption. I started the poll to refute Der Trihs assertion in the thread linked to in the OP that all gun-owners are homophobic & fascist & fundamentalists.
Because I love my wife and want her to be as safe as possible. I believe a woman who owns a handgun and is competent in its use is safer than one who is not.
I’m a 34yo gay white male in the suburbs of Long Island. Socially I’m liberal or libertarian, while economically I have somewhat balkanized views. I don’t personally own a gun, but I know people who do and have to admit that guns are, well, pretty cool in theory and don’t have a problem with there being a right to bear arms. I’m not into it enough as a hobby to invest in a gun, and I don’t feel insecure enough in my neighborhood to warrant one, but if I had a friend who was into it I would probably go shooting with them.
It’s my belief that probably most people are pretty much ok with the status quo on this issue and I don’t understand why it gets so politicized. I think extremism on both sides is mostly strawmanning. Most “anti gun” people I’ve met are just for regulation and most “pro gun” people I’ve met are just against all out bans. Most pro gun people I know wouldn’t advocate that regular citizens have the right to surface to air missiles. They are for regulation too, it’s just a matter of where you draw the line.
I don’t see a problem with registration and licensing or cooling off periods or having a lock on guns where kids will be around. I don’t really see much of a problem with guns anywhere except low poverty inner cities. I do think that’s a serious problem and something should be done, but I don’t think an outright gun ban is the answer.
As for things like Columbine, I think that has a lot to do with fetishism. Like drinking, sex, drugs, etc, I think kids are drawn to use and abuse them mostly because they are taboo and treated as some magical voodoo thing that suddenly becomes available at a certain age without any education on it. These things should all be demystified, and available at a younger age with proper education and socialization. I saw pictures in old copies of my high school yearbook that there used to be a rifle club at my school. I imagine other schools are the same. I think we should bring those back.
25 y/o Southern white male. I own several centerfire handguns and semi-auto rifles, including an AR-15. I have a Concealed Handgun License and carry wherever it is legal. I am an NRA member (they are not perfect, but they are the most effective and most reasonable of the major gun rights organizations).
I own guns for target shooting, and self defense if necessary. I have never used a gun to kill anything except for paper targets, although I’d like to at least try hunting.
I was raised in a conservative Christian church but currently consider myself a Deist. Politically I am a minarchist. I think the government should function to maintain order and for national security, and not interfere in individuals’ lives so long as our actions do not interfere with others’ personal liberty. As such, I support marijuana legalization (I am unsure of the practicality of legalizing harder [ie more addicitive] drugs), the right to marry whomever one chooses, and reproductive choice.
SWM. 41. Never committed a felony. Never committed a misdemeanor. Only one traffic ticket in my life, and that was over 15 years ago.
Pro abortion.
Pro gay marriage.
Agnostic. Believer in evolution.
Have a few hunting rifles, one shotgun, one revolver, all in the back of a closet, buried behind a stack of heavy boxes. Not a single round of ammunition in the house, which sort of defeats the self-defense rationalization. Roommate has a can of pepper spray, which I suspect is more dangerous to me than it would be to an intruder. The only useful weapons in the house are the knives in the kitchen.
I own 1 ea.
Mossberg 500, 12GA. shotgun complete with side saddle, sling, and tactical flashlight.
S&W 9MM model 459 semi auto.
Colt 38 special revolver 4 inch barrel.
Winchester 30-30, 44 Caliber.
At least 100 rounds for each. Some more than others.
Believe in do unto other as you would have them do unto you.
Do not mess about in the affairs of others until the life/death line is crossed. And
I mean anybodys life. Or any fuckers death.
Remember, the life you save might be important. Not nescsicarilly your own.
I wish I had spell check.
And of course, Jesus is my hero.
Oh, I forgot. A Gamo 1000 fps pellet gun for those pesky varmints. (No cats though) 
How degraded I would be to suffer a home invasion and watch my wife raped, and cats, etc. etc. etc.
Violence begets violence.
Unless you have no balls and are weak.
I hope this helps, Skald , if not, it will keep the rest of you crazy mothers away. 
Crap! I totally forgot my wifes Beretta 25 cal. that I got her for Valentines day 6 or 7 years ago. She said you work the guns, I’ll work QVC.
In my experience, gun nuts aren’t excessively Christian. A lot might be from the south, where evangelicalism predominates, and that goes hand in hand with gun culture, but not a terribly strong relationships.
SWM 25. I am a somewhat lapsed Catholic (see you in December, Jesus!). I am a student in a hard science and believe very strongly that Intelligent Design is bullshit. I have some liberal/libertarian beliefs, but I am a political independent. I believe that both major parties need the other to play devil’s advocate, but that the Libertarian party would also make a terrible party and they tend to be full of 9-11 Truth and tax evading nutjobs. I might be voting for Obama although I strongly disagree with his stance on gun control.
I own 12 guns now, 5 rifles, 1 shotgun, 2 revolvers, 4 semiautos. I hold a C&R license which allows me to buy WWII era firearms online and skip the background check and fees in store. No CCW, although it is now legal so I might get around to it, although my main incentive (avoiding NICS fees) no longer exists.
I refuse to believe that a man going by the name thelurkinghorror isn’t completely batshit insane. 
Says the man going by the name of a mythical monster.
I am a 36 year old white male. Socially liberal on just about everything, grew up catholic (did an 8 year stretch in catholic school). Never been arrested for anything.
I have also hunted since I was 8 (though I couldn’t carry a gun until age 12). Also used to trapshoot competitively (local events, not like I was a superstar or anything). I own numerous rifles and shotguns and 3 handguns, including a .357. All are hand-me-downs and some are fairly valuable, though not collector’s items exactly. Most are not stored in my house, they are at my dad’s place where any hunting and shooting usually takes place.
Oddly enough, despite the fact that I am quite comfortable with guns and know how to use and store them safely, I have a problem with CCW though I don’t know exactly what it is*.
I’m just a mess of contradictions, I guess.
*I mean I don’t know what my problem with it is- I know what CCW is.
The problem is that you live in a state where it is not possible to get one.
Married white male, 37, VT, USA.
I guess you’d call me libertarian on most topics, but I don’t think a libertarian federal government would be strong enough, and I believe a vote for a non-democrat is a vote for a republican because of our firmly-entrenched 2-party system. Basically I’m for the government minding it’s own business when it comes to sexual orientation, abortion, recreational drugs, etc. I’m atheist, but tollerant of other’s religious beliefs until they try to push them on others.
I’m ex-Army, and held a C&R license for a few years. I have ~10 bolt action rifles, 2 semi-auto rifles, and 3 handguns. Almost all of my weapons are WWII or earlier. They are simply collectors items that I used to shoot when my life wasn’t so hectic. I haven’t actually fired one in far too long. Almost all are locked in a gun cabinet upstairs, and ammo is out in the shed in ammo cans. I own an SKS, which I keep accessible, with ammo on a stripper clip in easy reach (for me - no one else in the house could reach it without a step ladder.) I keep it accessible because I have animals and live in the woods. I’ve had bear and moose in my driveway, and coyotes, fisher cats etc. are also around. Deer are a concern also, as they tend to jump in front of moving vehicles, and often need to be put down. If I need to defend my animals or put them down if injured, I don’t want to have to try to find the keys to the gun cabinet.
White male here, 23, recently graduated with an engineering degree from a good university. I own a 12-gauge shotgun, a Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine from 1945, an AR-15 (with a scary retractable stock and a bayonet lug* :eek:**), and a couple of handguns. I have a Washington State Concealed Pistol License, and I usually carry when I go out, except in any situation where it would be illegal or irresponsible to bring a weapon; e.g., any situation in which there might be drinking. I’ll also leave it at home if I’m going to do anything that would make carrying a firearm burdensome or inconvenient, like going to a gym.
Safe and responsible handling of firearms is practically a religion for me: whenever I take a gun out of the safe, the first thing I do is open the action to check its condition of readiness. My 1911 is always loaded, but I always check it too, just to be sure. When I’m holding a gun, I am always acutely aware of the direction the muzzle is pointed, and of the mental assertion that, whether I think it’s loaded or not, one pull of the trigger will put a high-velocity hole in whatever it happens to be covering. I’ve so ingrained the habit of indexing my trigger finger that I even do it whenever I pick up a light gun for a video game. 
I don’t hunt; I’ve been a strict vegetarian all my life, and I could never justify killing another living thing just for the sport of it. I fully support the right of others to go off and shoot tasty animals, but that is a pastime of which I will never partake.
For what it’s worth, politically I tend to be left-leaning with a strong libertarian streak – I support gay marriage, legalizing marijuana (though I’d never touch the stuff myself), and in general keeping the government out of the private lives of individuals. That’s one reason I support the right to bear arms: privacy and individual rights are key, and taking rights away from everybody because we’re afraid of the actions of criminals is a stratagem best left to wannabe-totalitarian neoconservative administrations.
I thoroughly agree with this, by the way. While I am an atheist/agnostic myself, I only really feel the need to point it out in response to some people assuming that because I own guns, I’m some kind of ignorant, racist, born-again redneck. There’s nothing about being “liberal” that implies that one has any more common sense or responsibility than anybody else. The problem is with some of the more rabid anti-gunners who like to associate guns, religion, education, social status, and responsibility all into one stereotype.
- Note to self: purchase bayonet.
Do you live in a bad neighborhood? Does she want to learn how to use a gun? My husband is a gun owner. I have absolutely no interest in using one (though I did go shooting with him just to see what the big kazowie was). It would not matter to me what he thought about my safety if I was not interested in operating a firearm. Of course, I don’t live in a place where I fear for my safety on a regular basis. I did live in a rougher neighborhood at one time, and still did not feel the need for a gun. I’m just wondering what her feelings are on the subject.
I’m not a gun owner and given my problems reckoning distance, I don’t think I should be allowed to get a gun, but one of the best mornings of my life was spent in the Military Museum in Madrid (now closed, I think, sigh) with a gun buff and competitive target shooter. I knew what the battles were about, he was able to tell me the model and approximate year of a gun before reading its card and to explain how he’d figured it out. That was bigtime cool.
Actually, they’re kinda irrelevant. If a house is going to have firearms in it, it behooves everyone to make damn sure that every single person in said household knows at the very least basic safety rules for said firearms. Adults should be able to render one “safe” if need be, or use it in extremis. Anything less is gross irresponsibility. My wife is not a “gun” person by any means, but she knows where every loaded firearm in the house is, how to use them, and how to unload them safely.
Well they’re relevant if she doesn’t want anything to do with guns. He can’t MAKE her handle them. If she wants to, that’s fine. And if she doesn’t, it’s her right to say so. The point I’m making is that some people REALLY dislike guns. They don’t want to touch them or have any responsibility whatsoever regarding their storage, loading, state of readiness, or anything else. I personally know people who are afraid to be in a house with a loaded gun, let alone handle one.
I have my wife open the drawer safe with my revolver in it at least every couple of months. Its a four finger keypad type. I know many people here keep thier guns loaded and just in a drawer, or under a couch cushion, but I don’t have that luxury. My niece and nephew spend weekends with us.
She was reticent at first, but I used the children being around as a good reason why she needed to be vigilent in getting the safe open quickly and always getting the speed loaders as well. I would like to keep the 9mm in there but it wears out the springs in a semi-auto magazine to keep them loaded all the time.
She doesn’t like guns but realizes thier ultimate purpose.
A mythical monster COMPOSED OF THE PARTS OF MULTIPLE ANIMALS.
I wrote that I want her to learn, not that I’m forcing her to learn. I’m not the boss of her.
We live in Memphis, Tennessee, which is fairly violent (by American standards, anywhistle). Placing not my faith in princes, I don’t trust the police to keep us safe. I want Kim to live to be a cute old woman.
That’s really sad. Not trying to be a jerk here, but people like that should seek therapy or something. Irrational fears of inanimate objects can’t be healthy.