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Funny, but disturbing, too. How did we get to be so loony in this country? Stylish ways to carry your gun? I can't figure out if these people are hopeless cowards or just obsessed with cowboy fantasies.
I grew up with guns, but we didn't have to carry them everywhere, like a security blanket.
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15 comments:
I used to have a lightsaber. It was a plastic one and must have run on batteries because it would glow with a coloured light.
I thought I was pretty good with it but my two older brothers have told me that I was rubbish so they must have just been humoring the little five year old. Ah, the nostalgia...
You know, I think you're onto something here. It's obviously much more brave, should one happen to find themself in serious trouble, to call for someone with a gun and pray they get there in time.
I wonder what you're so scared of, that you have to carry a gun everywhere, like a security blanket. That just seems like the opposite of bravery to me.
Nah, I just have common sense. As most everyone knows, the police can't be everywhere at once and 911 isn't an instantaneous matter transportation device. Besides, they, the police, are under no legal obligation to provide protection to individual citizens, a principle which has been upheld by several court decisions.
Most notably:
"the fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen." Warren vs DC 1981
Warren vs DC
You believe permit holders are cowardly and/or insecure. I believe you're naive. I believe you and others who are opposed to CCW are projecting your own shortcomings and instabilities onto other members of society.
There, we're even.
A good example of the cowardly and insecure in action in Utah:
ksl newstory
Even? We always were even. You have the right to your opinions, as do I. I doubt if we're ever going to agree about this.
I thought maybe you were going to give this example. Or this one. Or maybe this one.
:) We can play that game all day long. Both of us can cite examples of where CCW permit holders did well and those that did poorly. (Only it seems I'm the one who is willing to acknowledge both the good and the bad.)
The fact remains, as witnessed by the data on the TX Dept of Public Safety website, that CCW permit holders are convicted of crimes at a much, much, MUCH lower rate than that of the general public. It's said that in FL, you're 2x as likely to be attacked by an alligator as you are a CCW permit holder.
The danger posed to public safety by permit holders is greatly exaggerated and always has been. Certainly the potential is there, but as we've seen here in Nebraska over the last five plus years, accidents by permit holders are truly a rare event.
I cannot, and will not, allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good in this case.
No, we're never going to agree on this issue. I'm not not trying to change your mind. It's made up, just as is mine. I simply want your readership to know that there are indeed two sides to this argument.
"A lot of people out there pay good lip service to the idea of personal freedom … right up to the point that someone tries to do something that they don’t personally approve of." -- Neal Boortz
Your statistics are misleading, Tango Juliet. No one is claiming that permit holders are likely to be criminals. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that convicted felons can't get permits, even in Texas - and Texas has a lot of convicted felons.
But so what? Permit holders probably aren't any more likely to get drunk or careless than other people, either. But in such incidents, guns increase the danger. (Forget about that dumb "guns don't kill people, people kill people" slogan. There's a reason why we equip our military with guns.)
We just had a perfect example of this in Florida. An unarmed 17-year-old, minding his own business, would still be alive if George Zimmerman hadn't been carrying a gun. Most likely, Zimmerman wouldn't have accosted the youth at all without his security blanket, and if he had, it would have just resulted in a fist-fight.
Remember fist-fights? That's what we used to have before idiots started carrying guns everywhere. Sure, you can die from a fist-fight, if you're especially unlucky. But there's a reason why we give our soldiers guns.
And note that Zimmerman wasn't even arrested (wasn't even tested for drugs), not until the public outcry - and he might not be convicted now, due to Florida's loony gun laws. Then he wouldn't be in your statistics, would he?
Of course, Trayvon Martin was black. I hear that gun nuts can now buy targets of unarmed black kids carrying Skittles. Well, there seems to be a lot of racism in all this, too. It's a bad combination.
It's not that all permit holders are racist, or even irresponsible. After all, pit bulls got a bad rap because so many men used them as penis extenders. Owning a pit bull or carrying a gun makes an insecure man feel macho.
Of course, that's not the case with all pit bull or gun owners. But there's enough of this - that insecurity, that macho posturing, that racism - that worries rational people.
However, pit bulls aren't more likely to bite someone than other breeds - much less likely than many. But when they do bite, they tend to cause horrific damage.
Well, so do guns. A fight, an accident, intoxication, a moment of rage, racism - any number of things could result in a minor incident unless guns are involved. And the more people who are carrying guns, the greater the need to shoot first, thus the more likely that someone will die unnecessarily.
Like Trayvon Martin.
Your statistics are misleading, Tango Juliet. No one is claiming that permit holders are likely to be criminals. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that convicted felons can't get permits, even in Texas - and Texas has a lot of convicted felons.
What I'm claiming, and what HAS been the experience everywhere is that permit holders are FAR less likely to be involved in crime than the general populace. It's NOT the number of guns that is the problem, it's the number of people who are willing to use them improperly. Again and again, we see evidence, solid evidence, that permit holders are far less likely than their non-permit qualified counterparts to be involved in crime, any crime.
And the more people who are carrying guns, the greater the need to shoot first, thus the more likely that someone will die unnecessarily.
C'mon. Get real. This is pure conjecture on your part. Millions of people carry millions of guns millions of hours every year in the US and those numbers all continue to climb. Yet, US crime rates continue to decline. The numbers simply don't support your contentions.
If the average gun owner in the US was what you believe them to be, the opposite would be true, wouldn't it?
Seems to me that you desperately want to lump all gun owners in the same basket, i.e., engage in some serious stereotyping, rather than examine actual trends.
I covered the first part of that already, Tango Juliet. I hardly see the need to repeat myself.
Still, I might add to my previous points that, when even law-abiding gun enthusiasts swagger around with their macho sticks, that affects our entire culture. Do you really think that the less law-abiding aren't affected by that?
When you teach the young and the gullible that carrying a gun makes you a man, then you're going to have a lot of idiots who want to be manly. This also makes guns cheaper and more easily available for everyone, which increases, not decreases, gun violence.
I've read of research which contradicts your second point, including studies from Florida showing that shootings have increased following their new NRA-approved gun laws.
Convictions, however, decreased, simply because it became so hard to convict anyone. After all, how can you tell that a person didn't shoot because he was afraid? Just carrying a gun seems to indicate that you're easily scared, I'd think.
Again, you can see this in the Trayvon Martin incident. Initially, George Zimmerman wasn't even charged with a crime, let alone convicted. So people like him wouldn't be showing up in those statistics you cite. But innocent people would still be dead.
(Of course, there are many reasons for the decline in the U.S. crime rate, including demographic changes and the vast increase in the number of people we keep in prison. You know that, I'm sure, so don't be disingenuous.)
You REALLY need to get out more. Where's all this "swaggering around" going on? In the last five years here in Nebraska, have you personally seen this "swaggering with macho sticks?"
I haven't.
Who's being "disingenuous"? I merely pointed out that the crime rates continue to go down in the US for the most part. In many places, such as Nebraska, they were going down before the advent of CCW. What I was attempting to point out, is that Nebraska's crime rate continues to decline, despite what you and others predicted and desperately want to believe. Permit holders are NOT causing crime.
Can you please provide me with all the instances of crimes committed here in Nebraska by permit holders in the last five years?
Easily scared? :) Yes, just as driving defensively makes me "easily scared." Just as having two fire extinguishers by my bed makes me "easily scared." Just as having a spare tire in my vehicles makes me "easily scared."
It's called "being prepared."
The majority of permit holders don't carry because they want to use the weapon. They don't carry because they're "easily scared." They don't carry because they're "macho." They don't carry to "feel like a man." This is simple projection on your part and that's all it is. You don't know permit holders at all.
I think you should take a CCW class. Open your mind and look past the awful stereotypes you've created. I realize it's alright in today's society to display hostility and belittle gun owners. No one's going to call you out on it 'cause after all, it's only a bunch of ignorant rednecks who are being attacked, right? Only ignorant rednecks own guns and want to defend themselves and their families, right? It's safe to attack the NRA and their membership. It's perfectly acceptable to believe negative stereotypes as long as we're talking that sub-species of the human race known as "gun owners", (particularly those gun owners who believe we have a right to self-defense and that right extends beyond our front door.)
It's perfectly fine to prejudge as long as it's not on racial or ethnic basis, isn't it?
Yet I'm sure you'd proudly go to great lengths to demonstrate to me how open minded you are.
But we both know that's not true, is it?
Tango Juliet, I realize that this must be your favorite hobbyhorse - judging by your comments here, maybe your only hobbyhorse - which you'll happily ride all day long.
Hey, I understand that. I even sympathize. I've got hobbyhorses of my own. But this isn't one of them. If you've got something new to say, fine. But you haven't had anything new to say your last few comments, so this is getting old.
Also, you seem to be deliberately misstating my position, that I'm somehow stereotyping "gun owners." You know from my previous comments that that's not true. So why do it?
Of course, I've seen this all my life. The NRA tries to scare the gullible into thinking the government is coming for their guns. Or into thinking that they don't already have the right to self-defense!
Well, such tactics, sleazy as they are, have worked for them. But they won't work here.
OK, I will admit to being a bit over-the-top in my rhetoric, occasionally (often?). I guess I use that to try to shake people out of their rut. I know people who think that a gun really makes them look macho, so I like to show them that it just makes them look timid, to me.
(It's like homophobes who can't seem to stop talking about gay people. I have to think there's something else going on there. Is it really brave to be that scared about crime?)
Anyway, I'm happy to have your comments here, but why don't you find something else to comment about. If you're just going to ride your hobbyhorse, ride it elsewhere. This is going nowhere.
Oh, and I don't give a crap about being "open minded" about the NRA. Are you "open minded" about the Ku Klux Klan? Are you "open minded" about the Westboro Baptist Church? Heck, are you "open minded" about the Girl Scouts?
We already have some familiarity with all of those organizations. We could be wrong about them, just like we could be wrong about anything. But "open minded"? Where did that come from?
All too often, that phrase seems to encourage us to be so "open minded" our brains fall out.
:) Comparing the NRA to the Klan?
That's sad but not surprising.
Yes, your rhetoric is over the top but I've come to expect that. The great debate over CCW was when I learned that the opposition had little more to offer than insult and ridicule. I stopped by here in an honest effort to see if anything had changed.
It hasn't.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120222/NEWS01/302220033/-1/FAMOUSIOWANS/Update-Man-acquitted-shooting-happy-free-now-homeless
Heh, heh. Tango Juliet, I compared the NRA to the Girl Scouts, too!
I thought my point was obvious, that we all have some familiarity with existing organizations. In fact, I said exactly that. If you'd actually read my reply, you wouldn't have made this mistake.
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