Aren’t revolvers less prone to having a mechanism jam and can’t they be fired nearly as fast as a semiautomatic? Personally, if I had a handgun and didn’t care about size, I’d probably want a revolver. Simpler technology and all that.
elucidator, I don’t see why handguns are about fear. If you want to talk about it, go ahead. Me, I see them as a challenge to aim, firstly. Secondly, portable and concealable self-defense. Face it, my friend owns a store, he sells to kids, he takes his ten grand to the bank and has to walk there through the city. He’s got a reason to have a gun. He’s not scared, but he is sensible.
For home defense, a pump action shotgun is probably better. Especially for intimidation factor.
But I don’t see why they’re about fear. Now, people who are fearful may by one as a talisman. That’s a problem, and especially one since they’re the ones who treat guns as magic, who don’t get proper training.
Course, Bubba shot Junior… well, you know, could be a baseball bat, could be a gun. Can’t fix stupid.
Sure! Don’t carry it around with me, in case I see a fire. Don’t carry those shock paddle doo-hickeys, though I’ve witnessed more than one heart attack.
As much as I appreciate the sentiment, I’m not quite sure why you thought it necessary. If truth be all, I have reacted to grave threat with commendable courage, I have also totally wimped out. To save my soul, I couldn’t tell you why. But I very much doubt that my personal qualities have any real bearing on this issue.
The dog? I have fists and feet, he only has a mouth. Even if I had a gun (and I do know how to use one), with dog and person whirling around, I don’t think I would use the gun, except as a cudgel. Wouldn’t much improve the situation if I put a bullet hole in a gnawed on leg.
We can always manufacture hypotheticals to make our point, its an empty excercise.
“Tater Salad?” Izzat you?
It’s not " 1) media bias" unless you are are referring to the media’s bias toward dumbfuckedittude.
And it’s not really " 2) disconnection from reality" unless by “reality” you mean “basic intelligence”.
It’s also not " 3) disconnection from techinical and mechanical world unless by that you mean “no curiosity about the world and they way things work and therefore no capacity for relating anything at all like coherent accuracy to the audience.”
Otherwise, you are spot on. The media is made up in a large part by dim-witted flakes. This is not, however, some particular problem with the media. Rather, it is merely a reflection of the fact that the media is made up of human beings. I say this with the caveat that I have worked in the MSM (as the bloggers like to call it) for 16 years. Am I a dim-witted flake too? Sometimes, but I am very curious about how things work and what the facts are in any given situation. Among my colleagues I am thougt of in a sometimes negative way as “that guy who takes too much time worrying about all those unimportant little details.”
Those “unimportant little details” are also known as “facts”. For example, it bugs my my colleagues when we are up against a tight deadline and I insist that they change story copy because it referred to “Marines” as “Soldiers”. Or that the guy who was “electrocuted by power lines and is now in serious but stable condition” wasn’t actually “electrocuted” because if he was, he would be dead.
Mistakes happen, you know. But people actually get pissed when I point these things out and then respond with: “Oh that doesn’t really matter-- ‘soldier’ is just a generic term covering any troops fighting in Iraq”. Or, “if i just said he was ‘shocked’ then it wouldn’t express how serious it was”.
This is part of the problem with the media today. Accuracy is sometimes actually eschewed.
It seems to me there is nothing wrong with that quote. It looks like they are just using “round” in the same way you would say a “round of drinks”.
Which would be wrong…
How so?
Thank goodness those police officers we empowered were able to protect those 32 students and faculty members!
Marc
I interpreted their usage of “round” to refer to a “round of shots” similar to a volley or salvo. That usage would be wrong, since “round” is normally interpreted to mean
in this context.
Slight hijack, here…and that would exclude you from the group that includes the producer I worked with who, when AP flashed Abbie Hoffman’s death, asked who’s she? Keep fighting the good fight. There aren’t enough journalists in the MSM.
Nope. Just some family wisdom. You can try to expect it, but there’s a reason making things idiot proof is a challenge. Smart-proof, no problem. Idiots do all kinds of weird shit.
According to your own quote, they are using “round” to mean something that it does not. Concerning firearms, a “round” means a single cartridge.
Logic and reason are less persuasive than emotional rhetoric. And besides, this is the media, an occupation consisting largely of people that have the collective knowledge of a gnat.
Stranger
If nothing else, at least this unfortunate event has demonstrated the efficacy of 9mm handguns in a post-apocalyptic zombie scenario. If that ever comes to pass, I’ll definitely consider arming up. Meantime I’d prefer to avoid anything more lethal than my own wind after a big bowl of French onion soup.
A few years ago I heard an author on the radio (can’t remember who) describing his own experience purchasing a handgun. He lived in a bad inner city neighborhood and often felt threatened, when he’d walk to the store and back, by the gangs of teenagers that would congregate on the corners. So he bought a pistol and began carrying it in his coat pocket.
He said he immediately began to feel safer, empowered. So safe, in fact, that he began walking the streets he’d previously avoided, but staying to the other side from where the young people were loitering. Then he thought “why should I have to stay on this side of the street? If anybody starts something, now I can defend myself.” So he began walking right through the crowds of teens instead.
It then dawned on him that because of the gun and the feeling of power it gave him, he had very quickly gone from avoiding confrontation with these kids to intentionally placing himself in situations where a confrontation might occur, one which was likely to end in violence. He said he got rid of the handgun and never bought another.
Some may say his scenario and attitude are atypical of gun owners, but I really believe that progression (being armed leading to a personal feeling of power, perhaps leading to more risky behavior or a diminished desire to avoid conflict, if not actively seek it out) is dangerously common— and that’s why, although I don’t support “outlawing” guns or overturning the Second Amendment, I think the fantasy that if everyone were armed we’d all be safer is completely ludicrous.
Well, heck, was hoping that line was original with him. Stands to reason, Texans are widely celebrated for wit, intelligence, and humor.
In a zombie scenario, you would be much better off with a 1911 pattern handgun. After all, you have to remove the head or destroy the brain. You are much more assured of this outcome with the .45.
People seem to believe that quite a bit, and maybe it’s not terribly uncommon amongst first-time gun owners, but I can hereby and herein most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear that the vast majority of gun owners with whom I am acquainted would view that behavior as stupidly macho. I hope I never have to use a gun for defense, I am far more careful about where I go and what I do when I’m carrying than when I’m not, and several of my friends, who also grew up with guns, refuse to get a CCW because they don’t want the responsibilities that come along with it.
In my experience, this is a far more common attitude than “I got a gun, no one gonna mess with me now!” Although I do concede that the later is quite possibly more common in some places, and that I associate primarily with white collar types with several years of college, if not a degree.
“Lazi, you’ve heard me say nine thousand and nineteen times that we do not carry weapons to give us Dutch courage. If a gun makes you feel three meters tall and invulnerable, you had better go unarmed” --Lazurus Long, Time Enough For Love
Those who believe that an armed society is inherently a polite society need to take a look at any random central African nation. That being said, a firearm does give an individual, regardless of size, conditioning, or age, the ability to defend oneself against larger or more numerous aggressors when the lawful authority is not present or available. While other tools can be pressed into service, none have the effectiveness or standoff distance of a firearm. The flip side is that owning, carrying, and using a firearm requires significant responsiblity, attention to one’s environment, and guarding one’s own emotional impulses of fear and anger. Some people can do this–more with training–and some people can’t and shouldn’t. It’s not always clear, however, who can and who can’t handle this. Existing gun controls tend to be ineffective at discerning between the two, or stopping criminally-minded people from obtaining firearms. The vast majority of gun control proposals offer little in the way of improvement, or are inclined to prohibiting the ownership of firearms for vast swaths of people under the theory that if a small minority can’t be trusted, no one gets them, a philosophy that is suited to a first grade classroom, but if applied to other areas of adult life–say, driving, or the consumption of alcohol–would be widely derided as unfair. Furthermore, gun control proposals detract from the core social problems that cause violent crime. If you’re solution to a complex problem can be stated on a bumper sticker, it’s probably not much of a solution.
Anyone who regards a firearm as being “inherently evil” or having “only the purpose to kill” is applying anthropomorphic notions to an inert object, and the idea that simply reducing the overall proportions (predominantly, in the case of gun control laws, in the hands of law abiding citizens) is an application of the Prosecutor’s fallacy. Firearms are potentially hazardous tools if handled improperly, but there is nothing inherently evil or defective about them.
This school shooting is a terrible tragedy that is being compounded by people on both sides of the gun control issue trying to use it to justify their own ends. It seems unlikely that any existing gun control proposals short of complete prohibition (and perhaps not even then) would have prevented it; it also seems unlikely, occuring on a college campus, that there would have been many citizens licensed and trained to carry a firearm prepared to stop the perpetrator. In the end, it’s a lone nutcase who could have just as easily walked into a classroom with a pipe bomb or set a building on fire, and neither contingent can offer any credible argument that would have prevented it.
Stranger