What's With The Guns?

The BBQ Pit
21

I’ve shot living creatures, and not for food. But not for fun, either. We have a pond in the back yard, and there were ducks and visiting waterfowl that used to like to visit it. We enjoyed this, but we would find dead ducks every so often, and suchlike, because the area had rats, as well. So, considering we couldn’t put poison down, and the area wasn’t conducive to trapping, being all marshy, I shot the rats. For weeks. Till they were all dead.

I’m going to point out that you get coyotes in New York City, you get black bears wandering down main street in White Plains (settled 1683), you get bears going house to house in Jersey.

Sometimes, you get rabid raccoons, too.

As a matter of family tradition, we also shoot, always have, since we came here in (muttermutter). It’s good clean fun, not too hard, requires good eye-hand coordination. If done right, it’s very zen, very calming. That’s why my personal preference is for a good rifle, not a good pistol.

In the now deceased thread, though, I went for guns that I’d never get my hands on, but… well, it’s like a Ferrari. Wouldn’t you like to drive one, just once? (I’ve driven a Viper. It’s interesting. You actually sit slightly cockeyed, because the transmission is so huge, it displaces the gas pedal.)
The P90 is a gun that I’d like to own. It’s practical, has some very nice technical details, and is seriously structurally different from your traditional rifle. It’s like an Subaru WRX. Interesting. Different. Useful, like a scalpel.

The Barret .50 sniper rifle is two kinds of interesting. First, of course, a sniper rifle is meant to fire maybe, what, a mile away? Humidity matters. Winds matter. It’s a new skill set. Also, it’s a biiiiig bullet, and I wanna see what kinda holes I can punch in things. Engine block, the long way? This is a Ferrari. It’s a highly specialized machine for doing a very technical task.

The AR-15 is a M-16. The .499 variant is, well, it’s something I would have said was impossible. Half-inch bullets with a full-auto spray? That’s the equivalent of a Dodge Viper. Fast. Ugly. Loud. I can’t imagine the recoil, but I got to try it.

The Calico .22 is a .22 pistol with a 100 round magazine. It’s like something french. It’s just straaaange. I could have fun driving it around, but wouldn’t want to keep it. Like the hydraulic suspension on a Renault.

Most of these guns, I’d never be able to legally own, either. But I’d love to try 'em.

Personally, high-powered air rifle, old .22, and there’s an old .45 somewhere, but it really needs to be cleaned and oiled and looked at. The air rifle gets the most action, these days.
(I’m seperating my collection from my father’s.)

22

My husband and I both own guns. He enjoys hunting and target shooting. I used to hunt but haven’t for several years. Why does he hunt deer and pheasants? To me, it’s the same reason we go fishing. It’s great to have that extra food in our freezer. I also like the act of fishing. It’s partly the thrill of the catch … being out in the boat, hanging out with friends and family. Hunters also enjoy the thrill of the hunt, being in the outdoors, and again, being with friends and family.

No, I haven’t had to use one of my guns for personal protection. But if someone tries to break into my house and hurt me or my husband, I guarantee you that person will regret it. I do feel safer with a gun in the house. It’s been something I’ve been aware of my whole life. My dad used to sleep with a gun under the bed in order to protect his family if needed. An unarmed man doesn’t have much against an armed robber/rapist/killer … whatever, does he?

23

Uvula,

I put that in the OP because I wanted to make clear that I am coming from a personal culture where guns are not celebrated, and the arguments I hear are almost always against gun ownership. I have not been exposed to any pro-gun rhetoric, and I suspect this is a part of why I don’t “get” the fascination with guns. I’m not sure how my admitting a deficiency in my understanding negates my original question? I was simply trying to make clear my TOTAL lack of understanding, and get some other viewpoints.

24

I used to live in L.A. Remember the riots? Ever been to South Central? Lots of violent crime there. Still, I have never felt threatened when I have been in South Central, Compton, Inglewood, etc. I’ve been there in the daytime, and I’ve been there at night. Perhaps I was foolish. Perhaps other people are foolish to think they need to be armed when they go there. America does have some ‘rough neighbourhoods’, and there are documented cases of people protecting themselves with firearms – even if ‘protecting themselves’ is only scaring the Bad Guy away without a shot being fired. Now that I live in rural Washington, I can get a Concealed Carry Permit if I want to. (Virtually impossible to do in L.A.) But I don’t want to . I didn’t want to in L.A., either. The U.S. is generally safe.

Why do people golf? It seems utterly pointless to me. (Kids in the Hall: ‘I hate golf. I hate people who play it even more.’) But I understand that some people enjoy it and have the means to pursue it. (i.e., ‘It’s fun, and I can.’) Shooting (I haven’t been shooting in a long time, and I don’t hunt at all – so I’m posting about ‘taget shooting’) is basically the same as golf. In golf, you launch a projectile in order to hit a target. With shooting, you launch a projectile in order to hit a target. Same with archery. Some people like to fish. At least when I shoot, nothing gets killed.

Why do people like to punch holes in paper or knock over tin cans? For the same reason people like to see who can run faster, jump higher, knock over the most pins with a ball… Why do people do anything? I love the Olympics. But at the heart, what’s the point? People just enjoy competition. When I shoot, I’m competing against myself. Was that shot closer to centre than the last one? Why did I miss that can? Slow down. Relax. Take a breath. Let it out. See? Shooting is the same as golf or any other sport.

Personally, I don’t buy the ‘We have to protect our freedoms!’ arguement. That is, I don’t believe that anyone is going to rise up against a tyrannical government. But reversing part of the Bill of Rights would set a bad precident. And I don’t believe that most gun owners have to fear home invaders. There were gangs in my old neighbourhood, and my apartment was never robbed. On the other hand, there are people on these boards who have been raped and who would not have been raped if they had had a handgun. So I can only really answer for myself.

Why do I shoot (at least when I did shoot)? Because I find it enjoyable, and because I can.

25

Bricker,

Thank you for talking my question seriously. Actually, your response illuminates the issue for me quite a bit.

BTW, I am NOT advocating in any way that responsible gun owners, such as Bricker, should have their guns taken away… just curious as to why they wanted them, is all…

26

I’ve deliberatly stayed out of posting in the pro-gun threads because I have nothing to offer.

That being said, I am “anti-gun” largely because of societal conditioning, I suppose, and genuinly curious about gun culture…

Who do you suggest I write a letter to to lobby a response to that question? I think SDMB is a good enough place to have this one issue addressed.

27

OK, if you are just looking to have your question answered, then yes, SDMB is a great place for this.

I just meant, if it really bothered you, there are other, better actions to take.

28

Within my child’s lifetime, I suspect.

It’s the brilliant flash before the filament explodes.

A reasonable man might likely have said the same thing about Republicans fifteen years ago. The pendulum will swing back the other way. And when it does, Republicans will have thrown out so much bathwater (rights) with the baby (freedom), that by the time their turn comes back around, Democrats will have made certain that the faucet has been ripped from the tub.

29

Because they do. Why do you care?

I don’t smoke cigarettes. I don’t understand why those who do smoke them do so. I also, however, don’t go around asking random smokers “Hey, what’s your justification for smoking?”. I don’t do this because: 1) if they do it, they must have one, even if it’s only “I like to do it”, 2) it’s legal, and 3) it only affects them and I really don’t have any legal OR moral business caring about it in the first place.

It’s bad form to ask people to justify things they like just because you don’t agree. If you have an argument as to why they should not like them (and there’s no shortage of arguments to that effect, especially regarding guns), then present it, and a worthwhile discussion can ensue. If you simply don’t like guns, then even the most well-reasoned and eloquent response in this thread isn’t going to convince you otherwise, because at the end of the day, the issue remains subjective…and every answer you get will, in the essence of its meaning, be nothing more than an exponentially-expanded variant of “because I do”.

30

If I may attempt an answer here:

In today’s society, guns are necessary. The police can’t be everywhere and the courts turn criminals back out onto the streets faster than the cops can take them off. Private citizens have the right (and an argument can be made for using the word duty) to defend themselves when attacked. Since the bad guy is usually going to have a gun, it makes perfect sense for the citizenry to be armed.

http://home.pacbell.net/dragon13/lott_ordu.html

In addition, shooting a handgun is fun. It is a tremendous challenge to one’s eye-hand coordination, balance and focus, and continual firearms training improves those skills. There is also immediate feedback; you can tell if you hit the target or not and you can see improvement in your shooting skills as you practice.

And yes, there are folks who hunt to eat. I’m not one of them, but I work with one guy who hunts regularly and keeps his family supplied with meat that costs a helluva lot less than if he bought it in the supermarket. And it’s good, too.

31

I’m also a Canadian, located in the biggest metropolitan area in the country and I am a gun enthusiast. I don’t own any firearms as yet but I intend to. I have no interest in hunting except when it may become necessary for meat. I am a target shooter, both rifle and pistol. I do it for the challenge, the enforced mental clarity, and for the social interaction. To soothe Rebekah’s fears, everyone I know who owns a firearm is a 100% responsible owner. In this country you must be if you want to legally own a firearm.

The target shooting I do are recognized olympic sports and I shoot with some of the best in the country. (Team members will often go and compete nationally).

Pistol and rifle shooting is not like what you see in the movies where Joe Shmuck who has never picked up a gun in his life can pick up a pistol and blow Jim Blargh away at fifty yards shooting from the hip. You have an oddly shaped chunk of metal in your hands which moves unnaturally as it functions. You must move one finger independently of all the others (which is an unnatural thing to do), while maintaning a sight alignment (which requires that your hand does not move more than about a 3rd of a degree while the trigger finger is pressing the trigger) in order for the bullet to hit a reasonable score on a 20yd target.

With a rifle we are trying to hit something the size of a pin prick at twenty yds away, to do so consistantly means that you must control your breathing, learn to achieve the exact same body position every time you shoot, and you must again exert excellent trigger control. The best shooters control their heartrate and shoot between heartbeats. For me it is a form of meditation under pressure – if you think about anything else but the shot you are taking, you will not have a good score.

In order to improve my shooting scores I also do archery (which has the odd side benefit of letting me shoot pistol acurately with my off hand).

You’ll note that I’ve not said one word about home or self defense. That is a very rarely permitted use for firearms in Canada. If you shoot someone, even in self defense, you will go to jail here. You cannot hunt with pistols here. The only approved use for handguns in Canada is target shooting. The licencing procedures for restricted firearms (mostly handguns) are more rigorous than for long arms, and handguns have been required to be registered since the 1930’s. Anyone who legitimately owns a handgun is likely not someone you need to be afraid of.

And Rebekah, if you are in the Toronto area, drop me a line and I’ll be more than happy to take you down to the range to show you what we’re about. You never know, you may find you enjoy it. You may find you don’t. I shoot at the university range and we have many people who are interested or curious stop by and try shooting. In many cases they may find they don’t personally enjoy shooting but they do come away with a respect for those who do and generally little fear of guns or shooters.

32

Liberal touched on it. In the early days of colonisation, and in the early days of the Republic, people needed guns. Most guns were used for hunting. When the Revolution came, in many cases people brought their own guns to the fight. After the war, people still needed to hunt – not only those who lived in less-settled areas of the East, but the people moving West. Of course, when you invade someone’s country, there will be resistance. The Pioneers had to fight off the aboriginal people. And people are not always nice to each other. In a land without laws, or where laws could not be enforced, people had to defend themselves against robbers and murderers. When law enforcement needed assistance, they formed a posse. Posse members often brought their own guns.

All of this lead to a culture that tended toward self-reliance. One might say that the more freedom one has, the more responsibility he must take for his own livelihood and protection.

It’s not The Gun that makes America – in some places – violent. It’s 400 or 500 years of history of having to depend on one’s own resources. But what about Canada? Did not Canada supress the aborignal peoples? Did not Canadians have to hunt and trap and protect themselves from wild animals and Bad Men? Of course. But it occurs to me – and this is a totally uninformed guess – that Canadians have always been better at obeying The Law than Americans have been. Many British subjects did not want to participate in the American Revolution. They wanted to obey the law, so they moved north. The fact is that Americans violated the law by revolting. (And we should admit that many of our grievances with England were a little unreasonable. England subsidised the Colonies rather heavily, and expected them to pay their fair share. Not to say that some of their policies were reasonable – forbidding the manufacture of metal shovels, for instance – but I think the situation might have been resolved without a revolution.)

In short, we’re violent because of the way our history has run. We still have people who are unwilling to give up some of their self-reliance. Most gun owners are reasonably non-violent. Working some number is the 1980s, I figured that 99.987% of the guns in the U.S. were not used illegally. (Source: an article in Time magazine.)

But many people do not have the opportunities that people in other countries have. Our health care system sucks. Our educational system leaves too many people behind. People without jobs become desperate – especiall if they have not received a proper education, or if they cannot receive proper health care. Some people are just greedy, or they do not understand that crime is bad. But it’s too difficult to fix the societal problems. It’s much easier to blame an inert chunk of steel so that the politicians can appear to be ‘doing something about crime’ so they can keep their lucrative jobs.

It’s not the guns; it’s the society.

33

Wanna buy a 1967 Winchester 94 Canadian Centennial Commemorative? Never fired, original box, original tag, and the lever is tied down with a zip-tie so that the action may never have been worked. :smiley:

[sub]Actually, I don’t know if it is permitted to sell it to you since you’re in Canada.[/sub]

34

I own guns because I find them to be fascinating machines.

I don’t know if it’s ingrained into the mind of man or not, but there seems to be an underlying desire to be able to strike an object at a distance. I suppose this was originally to hunt, but now we have things like golf, darts, archery and other aim-related pastimes to try to accomplish these feats of accuracy.

I enjoy target shooting. I kill nothing more than a piece of paper, but it gives a measure of my ability to fulfill a primal desire to hit a target at a distance. If I am accurate, I get a good score, much like golf. But I use an “evil gun” to test my skill.

Now the same needs could be filled by flipping cards into a hat, shooting spitballs with a straw, or shooting a rubberband off my finger. But I like the mechanical precision and industrial beauty of guns.

Now we have a culture brewing that says simply guns=bad. I don’t do any bad with my guns, yet I have the potential to wreak havok should I so desire. Oh, I wasn’t talking about running my car into a bus stop when I said wreak havok. Nor was I talking about using guns to wreak havok. Nope, not my golf clubs, either. Don’t need a gun to wreak havok.

I have hunted for food, mainly birds with a shotgun. Not only are birds tasty to eat, but they are legal to hunt. The gun I hunt them with is legal to own. And skill is required to accomplish this task. To me this is no different from shooting a legal round of golf with a legal set of clubs at a legal golf course and then having dinner. Except that I use an “evil gun”. Gun=Bad

My guns are not where I can easily get to them, mainly to protect them from burglars when I’m not home. My home defence weapon of choice?? A 9 iron, I shit you not.

35

Johnny L.A.: Aside from the customs hassle, I’ll have to wait for my PAL application to clear, and then get a decent paying jobs as I’m a recently ex-starving graduate student. If you want to see where my prefs lie, take a look at the recently closed Airman Doors gun thread in MPSIMS. :cool:

-DF

36

As long as they have an FAC, it’s just a rifle. Unless you have some local law preventing foreign weapon sales I don’t see why not…

… What do you want for it? :smiley:

37

The US will not allow export unless it is guaranteed that Canada will allow import, see the CFC website for details. In this case, a non restricted firearm, there should be no problem. The firearm also has to be verified and registered before it can be sold.

-DF

38

I own them solely because I want to.

DSL, cable television, answering machines, caller ID and microwave ovens are also ‘completely unecessary’ but people own those too.

Registration has, historically, lead to confiscation. Germany, Chicago, California and Washington D.C. all had registration prior to banning. As for the tests, I see so much room for abuse by those who would deliberately rig the test so that nobody could pass it, that I don’t trust that idea. Insurance? Well, I only need to insure my car to drive it on public streets, not on my own property, so I wouldn’t need gun insurance if I were only using it on my property. I also see the potential for politicians like Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer and Charles Schumer to attempt to make the insurance so expensive that ordinary citizens can’t afford it.

How about this one: I don’t have any need to justify my ownership of firearms any more than you need to justify your ownership of a computer.

I have.

But seriously? Fire extinguishers? Are that many homes really burning down?

Far less than you think. Less than drowned, or died from falling off of bicycles. And a lot of those accidents have happened to kids who found an illegally owned gun, such as the kindergartener whose mother left him in a crack house, where he found a gun under the mattress and then shot a classmate.

The last time I looked at the statistics, it was less than 1500 accidental firearms deaths per year for all age groups.

The police also have no affirmative duty to protect any individual citizen from crime. Which is why the LAPD told shop owners in South Central during the Rodney King riots that they were on their own.

39

I haven’t a clue. I’ll have to find my receipt book to find out how much I paid for it.

AFAIK, there are no export restrictions. I would assume that a foreign buyer would have to go to a local gun dealer to arrange for the transaction, and I would have to find a gun dealer who would send it. Customs would have to be handled by one or the other dealer, or both.

I like shooting, but since I haven’t done it in a while my guns are just so many pieces of pretty metal, wood, and plastic. A friend of mine wants my SAR-8 (unfired). It’s a pretty rifle. I could use it in a film. Now that someone actually wants to buy it, I’m getting seller’s remorse. Or pre-seller’s remorse. But if I sell it, I’ll be that much closer to a new camera. (I’m currently coveting an Aaton XTR. My friend said that if I sold my entire collection, I’d have enough to get a used one.)

40

Ah, I didn’t address this…

In Canada, you are required to pass a written and practical (safety) test which not only examines your competence in handling the firearms in a safe manner but also the candidate’s familiarity with the legal and social responsibilities of firearm ownership.

As part of the course we take prior to the test we are shown statistics related to firearms deaths within the country. 5% are accidents (people who didn’t follow drilled in safety procedures), 14% are homicides (And I’ll editorialize here, that the lion’s share of those are with illegal/unregistered firearms by people unlicenced to own them), and 81% are suicides. We are exhorted to take notice of when we or other owners of firearms are in situations which are emotionally charged and responsible owners will ensure that firearms are removed from said situations (I have personally known of such occurances). (Source for statistics are the Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course Student Handbook).

-DF