Thanks for making my point. Those outside the diagram are people who already understand. They don’t need to be mugged before realizing their lives are worth protecting.
Umm…no. Your point was that the experience of being mugged should make you want to own a gun. Remember when you said:
The obvious implication being that most people who have been mugged would then want to own a gun. Since this is false, you’re wrong. I suppose you could mean to imply that almost everyone in NYC is seriously screwy. Aside from the comic value of that, you’re pretty clearly wrong in that alternative too.
I’ve been the target of an attempted mugging, and it happened after I owned a handgun. I wasn’t carrying my pistol because I had gone out that night to a bar, and found it a bad idea to carry while drunk.
It’s not a good feeling to wish you had a way to defend yourself and know that you have nothing but your own body. Biting a mugger is an act of desperation. I would’ve rather had my gun.
If you have a conceal carry permit, do the intelligent thing and get a car trunk gun safe. Then you’ll never have to worry about handing your gun off to some toady.
You either quoted the wrong part or intentionally wrote a non sequitur. A “viewpoint” != a “gun”. Quid could not understand people’s “beliefs”, and so I responded about her beliefs.
No, the obvious implication is that those people might not think people who wish to defend themselves have “screwy” beliefs.
Even your strawman is wrong. Just because you make a “wager” and a “bet” doesn’t make something false.
Yeah, I reckon I’d be wrong in every strawman and red herring scenario that you could conceive. You should have left Quid to defend herself. She would have done a much better job.
Wow, you’re good at this game. But please stop being intentionally obtuse. You really didn’t understand that my point was that most people that are mugged don’t then convert to pro-gun? Well, that’s my point. Is that not in contradiction with what you think?
I’ve been mugged. I support the complete outlawing of all firearms (with the possible exception of certain hunting rifles). Why on earth would my beliefs be “seriously screwy”?
Yes, I know, it would be against the 2nd amendment, I support changing that as well. Yes, I know, if guns were illegal only criminals would have guns. But if guns were illegal fewer criminals would have guns. And there would be far fewer accidents with guns.
Don’t get me wrong, I see the opposite argument. Having a gun would make it more likely that you would be able to stop someone from mugging you, and (very arguably) less likely that you would get harmed. But there is another point of view out there from yours, and just because it’s not yours doesn’t make it “seriously screwy”.
That’s all I asked from Quid, that she see the opposing point of view. It was she who called it “screwy”. Check the record.
No, it isn’t. My point was that for some people, there simply is no empathy about another point of view, and that a life-changing experience is sometimes the only way to get them to understand at all. I know this because I are one. I’ve been mugged twice (well, the first was an armed robbery). After the first, I understand why people would want guns to protect themselves. After the second, I bought one.
But from what you wrote, it read like you would expect most people to have the same experience after being mugged. I think that’s a reasonable reading of your text. But I am to understand that you didn’t intend that meaning?
My gun was in my apartment, not ‘handed off to some toady’.
I didn’t, at the time, own a car.
(I just realized that although your post was right after mine, you might not be referring to what I said. If so, disregard this reply.)
My apologies. I missed that phrase in her post on first read through, and it seemed so out of place when you used it in that context.
Yes, you are. 
I’ve always acknowledged that my expository skills suck. But if I may make an observation in my defense, there is often as much reading of my interstices as of the words themselves.
No problem. No harm, no foul.
Disregarded. The post was aimed at Webb.
Not to speak on behalf of Liberal, but the way I read his point is that most people who have been attacked/mugged/whatever come away from that experience with an understandable “fuck-this-shit-I-need-some-form-of-self-protection.”
Different people have different views of what defines self protection. Some buy a can of Mace, others take Karate lessons, some employ bodyguards, some never again venture out at night, some emigrate, some buy a tazer. And then there are those who buy a gun.
Different strokes for different folks. Each method of self protection is as valid as the other. Some methods involve tactics, others weapons. If you choose a weapon, it all depends on which weapon you are comfortable with. Many people are simply afraid of guns, and therefore it will not be their weapon of choice. But a choice of weapon they will make.
It would help a great deal if the anti-gun lobby would acknowledge that the gun choice is a valid choice, just as valid as the Mace choice, and just as valid as emigration choice.
We all have a fundamental right to protect ourselves. Maybe we can all try and respect each others’ choices in how we go about exercising that right?
On preview, damn, I see Lib’s posted a response. Ah what the hell, maybe I have still have a point in there somewhere.
In the interest of discussing the point, even though **Liberal **has disavowed that interpretation, that’s how I read it too. And I’m saying I think it’s empirically false. A very high percentage of NY residents have been mugged at some point in their lives. But a similarly high percentage of these same residents support somewhat strict gun control measures. This suggests to me that mugging doesn’t much affect one’s views on gun control one way or another. Indeed, it seems like getting mugged might just as easily convince someone of the wisdom of gun control.
Now you claim that these people have the a protection reaction, but they just channel it into a change in tactics, or buy mace. Maybe so (and I’m not even really convinced of this), but I that’s entirely different from going out and buying a gun.
… the shit has hit the fan…
I don’t get the connection of having a gun and not being mugged. Unless you are going down the street with your weapon in your hand the mugger has the advantage. He’s not going to wait for you to fish it out of your shoulder holster. “Just a moment–I keep my wallet in my armpit.”
Had he started it anywhere else you wouldn’t be allowed to castigate him.
I too wonder about people who carry guns. I have never carried a gun and don’t see the point in it. In only a miniscule fraction of the possible emergencies I might face would a gun be of any use. In those in which a gun might be of use I am untrained and would be unprepared and chances are I would do the wrong thing.
The bad guy always has the drop on you unless you have your gun out, loaded and the safe off.
Hmmm, I know this is the Pit, but out of genuine curiosity I’m going to ask you anyway, do you have a cite for these percentages?
And to dropzone, what are your personal anti-mugging tactics? (Non-snarky question)