going there

[kaigou]

Rather than get into this on anyone else's journal -- especially anyone patently against my position -- I'll say it here. I made no attempts to be civil, because I'm pissed. Do not think for even a heartbeat that this means I feel no remorse for the dead: I am not heartless, I am furious. I am angry that those children were fish in a barrel, and thus, with all due caveats of this being my opinion...

The argument that outlawing guns will prevent murder is absolutely moronic.

I got a newsflash for you. Murder is illegal regardless of means, and it don't make even a speck of difference how it's done. I can kill you with a knife, and if we're in a district that's outlawed any knife whose blade is over 11", then I put away my chef's knife and I could murder you with a paring knife, if I get you in the right spot. I could slide a screwdriver between your ribs in just the right angle and skewer your heart. I could beat you over the head with a broken chair leg. I could drown you, I could suffocate you, I could throw you out a window. Or, I could go cheaper by the dozen, and still not need a gun.

Timothy McVeigh didn't use a gun. He used fertilizer.

It's still murder.

In fact, it's a fuckload easier for me to get ahold of a paring knife, a screwdriver, or even fertilizer, than it is to get a gun. And I don't just mean the background check or the three-day waiting period, I mean also that guns are damn well expensive. But I don't see anyone outlawing fertilizer, or paring knives, or screwdrivers, or even windows more than ten feet off the ground that don't have bars to prevent a body being thrown through them. No, I don't think that's a ridiculous response. Frankly, I think it's a good analogy because it reveals just how ridiculous it is to say that outlawing guns will cut down on murders. Bullshit. You know the old adage about the better mousetrap? It works for human vice, too: it doesn't matter what you allow or outlaw.

People determined to kill, will find a way.

Okay, so you take away our right to private gun ownership. Do you realize what this means? How much empirical evidence do you need? Look at Chicago, New York City, Washington DC: they have the highest murder rates of any cities in this country... and, curiously, they're also the cities in which private gun ownership is outlawed. The second amendment does not exist in those precincts; private citizens have no means nor right to defend themselves and their homes. And of course the criminals still have guns: if they gave a shit about the law, they wouldn't fucking be criminals.

If open-carry (let alone concealed-carry) weren't illegal on a college campus, then I assure you that at least one person in that VT classroom would've been carrying. It's Blacksburg; it's rural Virginia. Gun ownership and pride in the second amendment, in that region, is alive and strong. And, were concealed carry legal on university campuses, and were I present when that boy peeked into the classroom, paused, and then raised his gun and took aim --

I would have shot him first.

What do you want? You want thirty-two people dead? You want one person with a gun to be able to rampage freely through a defenseless citizenship, sitting ducks cornered in a one-door classroom, easy pickings? Because if you outlaw guns, if you push harder to strip our second amendment -- as we know it now and as we most commonly practice it now, as a private right -- then why don't you go over there and celebrate with the criminals, the crazies, the homicidal. They're the only ones who will benefit from your laws.

They're the ones who don't give a flying fuck about whether it's right to disarm the populace. They're pleased you're disarming the populace, they want the populace helpless and defenseless. What are we going to do when those criminals stick a gun in our face and demand we turn over our jewelry, our cash, our daughters? Hit them with a broken chair leg? Or are you gonna tell them to hold on the ten minutes or more it'll take the cops to rush to your place -- assuming you can even manage to dial 9-1-1 in your panic?

Me, I'm gonna be meeting them at the front door with a double-barrel shotgun, lock and load and get the fuck off my property and away from my daughters.

It's absolute bullshit, it's exploitative panic-mongering, to insist that 'letting' people have guns will lead to more crime, more murder. (I love that; next, will you 'let' me have the right to rant like this?) All the overwrought post-event hand-wringing of "if only we didn't let people like 'that' have guns!" is one big waste of energy and serves only the interests of criminals. I know a lot of people who own guns, who hunt or who go to the range, who know gun safety and management. I do not know a single murderer. I do, however, know people who have pulled out a concealed gun -- to the surprise of a potential mugger or rapist -- and stymied the crime. You can't, no one can, pinpoint ahead of time who'll only use their gun for range practice and the hopefully-distant threat of self-protection, or who will turn it on themselves, their spouse, their community. If only we could, but we can't -- and the empirical evidence is clear that disarming the populace only leaves the honest folk helpless.

Face it. People will commit murder. One way or another. Nothing you can do will change this.

All you can do is make sure that everyone else has the means, and the skill, to stop the crime -- and possibly save lives.

I agree the second amendment has been read many ways as our society changes over the past two hundred plus years. It seems logical -- to me -- that it's a private right, by context: all the rest of the Rights are also private, and the Founders were nothing if not logical writers/thinkers. Having a 'public' right sitting smack in the middle of 'private' rights seems illogical to the overall flow; that said, I have read an argument that the second amendment is private, yet also communal. Not in the sense of "the community (read: local government) creates and controls the militia" but in a sense more familiar to the Founders, based on firsthand experience: that gun ownership, use, and training, is a civil responsibility. That is, private citizens could have privately owned, maintained, and operated firearms, but in doing so, any privileges attached are secondary to the responsibility of community defense.

Now that, I can see -- and I can get behind.

Think about it. It is your civil responsibility to help make your community safe. Who isn't familiar with neighborhood watch, with Take Back The Night? Before we had suburbs and tax-paid full-time police forces, we had local militia, people who had the means and ability to stand up and defend their communities with force, if that's what it came to. Is it really that far of a stretch to say: if I learn gun safety, if I train myself in how to use this weapon, if I practice with it so I understand what it will and won't do, if I know this weapon, that it then becomes my civil responsibility to defend myself, my family, and my fellow citizens if in doing so I may save lives?

Sure there are gray areas. Do you pull the gun and frighten the small-time criminal who then fires in a panic and kills the same 7-11 clerk you were trying to defend? Do you assume the person holding the gun is always the criminal -- what if it's another citizen, holding the criminal at bay until the police arrive? Good, thorough, handgun training raises these questions. I would never, ever argue that gun ownership should occur without training. I do believe, strongly, that it's much like driving a car: that you should, in some way, demonstrate that you're not some ignorant yokel who thinks just waving the gun around will prevent burglary or rape. It won't, not unless you know the business end, and what to do with it.

Tangent on ignorance versus knowledge: it's commonly said (especially in college campus 'sexual assualt awareness' speeches, curiously) that it's not a good idea for women to carry guns, because oh noes, the rapist will probably take it away from you and use it on you, and that's so much worse than 'just' being raped. What the fuck, over.

What that oft-repeated chorus doesn't include is the next verse: if you raise your gun in your own defense and you know exactly how to use it, this will show. No rapist is going to be stupid enough to take a gun away from someone with a steady grip and solid aim. Any rapist stupid enough to try just might get his damn fool hand (or dick!) blown off; I say good fucking riddance and he undoubtedly won't try that stunt again -- attempted rape or attempted gun-grab. But that self-defense confidence and skill requires classes, it requires time, it requires practice, it requires willingness to take on your personal safety as your personal responsibility. It requires that you stand up and realize, honestly and pragmatically, that there will not always be someone else there to protect you: that there may come a time when you must Do It Yourself.

Why is it so much easier to just tell women, "don't carry a gun, it'll be taken away from you and used on you" -- and never add, "unless you take classes and learn..."? Why does this make me feel like the speaker(s) want me helpless, wants me to suffer the rapist or mugger and cling to the hope that someone overhears me screaming and calls the cops on my behalf? Why only warn me that being ignorant will work against me -- big fat fucking DUH there -- and why never give me the chance to become powerful? It's fucking insulting, is what it is: "don't carry a gun in self-defense, you're not smart enough or good enough or strong enough to use it." What's really being said is: "you can't really defend yourself, so scream loud, and hope you survive long enough to enjoy the humiliation of a rape kit exam." So much for empowerment.

[As CP just quoted: "why do people think that a woman brutally raped and strangled with her own panties is somehow morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet?"]

But back on topic: I fail to see even the remotest shred of 'gray area' when it comes to one armed person unloading on a classroom of college students. I'd call that a damn well textbook case of an excellent time to practice your marksmanship.

You just might save lives. Thirty-two of them, maybe.

...Unless, of course, you're unarmed, by dint of the bleeding hearts who insist that, somehow, guns are automatically -- and nothing ever more than -- murder weapons waiting to happen, and that those of us who own them, practice on them, use them, take pride in that skill, are just unconciously holding on to the distant day when we go SNAP and decide to take out a busload of nameless bystanders. Or worse, you really did swallow that line, you agreed with and believed the passionate insistence that no-guns-for-citizens means less crime, that a disarmed populace makes for safer streets.

First, I hope you don't ever decide to test that theory by walking in Chicago after dark.

Second, I hope you make peace with whatever god you choose, because when that kid at the classroom door raises his gun, takes aim, and starts firing... ain't nothing your defenseless ass is gonna be able to do about it.

Don't you feel safe now?

Gee. I sure do.

Comments

[sans-pertinence.livejournal.com]

You've covered all points. There's nothing else I can add.


Me, I'm gonna be meeting them at the front door with a double-barrel shotgun, lock and load and get the fuck off my property and away from my daughters.


Amen.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I just couldn't take any more of the random -- if well-meaning -- comments on my flist about "people like that shouldn't have guns" and the seemingly-automatic conclusion that therefore "people shouldn't have guns" as though it would follow that "things like this wouldn't happen."

[sans-pertinence.livejournal.com]

I hear you. I can't say I enjoy owning two weapons and keeping my training current, but I find it necessary. People just don't stop and think before they pull out the anti-firearms propaganda and prey on public hysteria.

Sheep. They're all sheep. Baaaaaaa...

[alycen.livejournal.com]

Why is it so much easier to just tell women, "don't carry a gun, it'll be taken away from you and used on you" -- and never add, "unless you take classes and learn..."?

Word. To all of this.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Y'know, babe, every local NRA range offers classes just for women, starting with basic gun management (cleaning, dismantling, parts, safety) and then moving up to range practice and self-defense. CP took the advanced-level self-defense class (the all-gender version!) and said it was amazing, the things he learned.

CP has several gun magazine subscriptions. I used to take a load of donation stuff every month to the local women's shelter's thrift store. The manager told me, "we can't take anything gun-related... but my husband and I shoot, so I'll take those myself, if you want to keep bringing them."

I was absolutely gobsmacked. A shelter for battered women and they refused to educate or encourage women in every option for self-defense. It was seriously a what-the-fuck-over moment.

[jourdanlane.livejournal.com]

I could not agree more.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Like I told Raven (above), I just couldn't take any more of the handwringing about the shooter having a gun -- while ignoring that if anyone else had had one, too, they could've defended those kids. Both that attitude -- and the horrendous and stoppable tragedy -- really, really burn me.

[miyabiarashi.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing this.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I wasn't sure if I should -- I don't want to alienate those friends who are strongly anti-gun, after all. We don't agree and might never. But then I realized: I do need to say something. I can't just let it go on by, not this time.

[miyabiarashi.livejournal.com]

I think gun control might help, but not completely. There's just something about how critics are pointing the finger at us Americans and saying how if we didn't have guns this wouldn't have happened that's setting my teeth on edge. A lot of it is because I find it cold-hearted to say such things when the grieving haven't even buried their dead yet, but also because they seem to be talking about like "oh, take away the guns, problem solved."

It's not that easy, for reasons you've stated above. Between this and the whole racism thing beginning to crop up, this case has me perturbed as well as extremely distraught.

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

Yep.

Or, as was recently written in a letter to the Post re the DC gun laws, "Call the cops and order a pizza and see which one gets there first." Exactly.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's about time DC repealed its stupid gun laws, which were created in a discriminatory mindset in the first place: after the King riots, when 90% of the populace was black... and pissed-off. Easier to subdue the populace by disarming them; fast-forward thirty years and I'm living in DC when it's the Murder Capital of the World.

Hell, in DC, the news crews have been known to show up before the ambulances -- if the ambulance ever bloody well shows up, at all.

If guns are only good for killing people, then all of mine must be defective.

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

One more point, btw:

Couple years ago, there was another attempted college rampage in Virginia. Only that time there were no regs banning legal ownership or possession of guns on campus. When the shooter began, two students ran to their vehicles, got their own weapons, and put a stop to the murderer. End of story.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I need to find the news articles about that, see if any are cached online. Maybe I'll use those links as my sole response, to the next handwringing post I see on my flist.

[driftingdoll.livejournal.com]

I think we should outlaw frying pans. Because, you know, I could hit you with one.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Heh. My ex wanted to ban all marble rolling pins. (It was halfway a joke between us.) He'd go all wide-eyed and insist, "I know people say that it's a useful thing and that rolling pins don't beat people, people beat people, but you can't fool me. It's really a husband-beating weapon!"

I guess that means -- to misquote CP -- that my rolling pins must be defective!

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Now see, I believe in the right to keep and bear arms... but I'm of the opinion that mandatory training and psych tests should be required before you get a license, and you should be required to have proof of license before anyone will sell you a gun. Yeah, it would take time before you could buy your gun, but if the stuff we've been hearing about the VT killer is true, he'd have flunked that psych test so fast it would have made his head spin.

That said, I can't see anything you said that I disagree with.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

The problem is that the other rights -- free speech, religion, etc -- don't require any kind of "prove you're [whatever] enough to use/maintain this right".

I especially dig in my heels when people mention psych tests; it's too much of an open door for exploitation of whatever current psych-fad we're going through. Should bipolar folks be denied their second amendment rights on the off-chance that when manic, they'll decide to pepper the courthouse door with bullet holes? Should people with ADD be denied the right on the grounds that their mental processes flit from point to point and thus might become distracted and shoot the wrong person?

You can see I'm ambivalent in some ways. I don't want a gun in the hands of a person clearly out-of-touch (but I don't want them behind a wheel, either, which is actually far more likely).

I think perhaps the best (and possibly only) way to deal with it is to encourage education. Instead of exploiting people's fear of Things That Make Loud Noises, we should treat it much like we do learning to drive: that Driver's Ed is a good thing, that X hours behind the wheel with an instructor guiding is a good thing. To create, and maintain, a cultural mindset in which gun ownership is not only a right but a privilege with its attendant responsibilities, to the community as a whole. Maybe, then, if people thought of gun training, ownership, and practice as something they're doing that -- in some hopefully-never future -- might benefit their communities... then, perhaps, people would see it as a Civil Duty instead of something to hem in on all sides until only the wealthiest, or the most immoral, have guns.

Sigh. Psych tests... It's impossible to identify, really -- let alone fairly -- who will, or will not, be mature about using/owning guns. I don't think I like the notion -- at all! -- of the government being the one to measure/decide that. An analogy: it's also impossible to identify who will, or will not, get behind the wheel of a car after one too many drinks. It's not the government's job to say, "you can't have a driver's license because you seem like the kind of person who'd drink and drive." And the analogy of gun ownership holds, in that worse-case scenario: if I see you stumbling to your car, slurring your words and reeking of tequila, it is my civil responsibility to dissuade you, offer to drive you, take away your keys, call the cops if necessary. That, too, may save someone's life.

And I still believe that the NRA's excellent and long-running Gun Training for Women should be offered as a for-credit class on college campuses. I wonder how big a drop we'd see in the rape statistics once the rapists found out they might get their balls shot off.

[aulus-poliutos.livejournal.com]

German weapon laws are among the strictest in the world. I know because I'm going through the proceedings to be allowed and have a gun at home. A major in law is a dance compared to the tests I have to learn for. ;)

And we still had Erfurt and other school shootings. If you want to get a gun, there is a black market.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

There's always a black market. Name the country, no matter how anti-gun, and there's a black market; I know in Japan, the # of gun licenses issued in the past year is a totally ridiculously low number compared to the overall population -- like only 100 new licenses a year. Yet, the Yakuza are armed to the teeth. (Although Japan's a bit of a bizarre case since the cops, too, are often unarmed!)

Whenever this topic comes up, I can't help but recall the comments of a Japanese officer, speaking of the considered, and ditched, idea of invading California during WWII. He basically reported that the Japanese leaders had decided against it, on the grounds that the soldiers would be taking on fire from not just any locally-stationed military, any police forces, but possibly every private citizen. The cost of subduing a population becomes far too high, when the entire population is able, and willing, to fight back.

Sometimes I think we'd be well to remember that attitude when it comes to expecting our police forces to do all the work. Criminals -- or mass-homicide shooters -- couldn't run nearly as rampant if we all did our part to keep the civil peace.

[dayglow-pirate.livejournal.com]

A gunman killed the mayor of Nagasaki on Tuesday. But it got overshadowed by the shooting at VT http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070419/ap_on_re_as/japan_mayor_shooting;_ylt=Am5UvXO3dZrhWOvS6WCyn2cBxg8F

[medize.livejournal.com]

I disagree with you about most of this except The argument that outlawing guns will prevent murder is absolutely moronic: well, yeah. I totally agree. All it will do is help prevent murder by speeding bullet, which I think is pretty awesome, but in the end, people really will kill each other with anything.

And I might be mistaken on this, since - shock! I really don't know anything about bombs - but I was under the impression that bombs are very easy to make without doing anything illegal. Hence why, barely ten years after McVeigh lit some shit on fire, Oklahoma could still have another bombing incident. Whereas with guns, of course you have people who purchase them because they enjoy markmanship, but for the most part they're really only used for pretty much one purpose, right?

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I suppose technically you could say, "a gun exists to put holes in things." (So does a bow & arrow, for that matter.) You can hunt with a gun, you can enjoy target shooting (it's a noisier and more exciting target practice than darts!), you can carry it as a self-defense mechanism. I'm sure you've seen movies or shows where someone's casually holding a shotgun, nose pointed at the ground: simply the presence of a gun can prevent a crime, just as police may pull their guns and aim, but not need to fire.

Sometimes I wonder if the school-shooter-types would be so quick to open fire on student populations if it were common knowledge -- even expected -- that a good percentage of that population might fire back. All those homicidal rampages -- from Columbine to the murders on the Rez to the most recent example -- take place in a location in which the shooters know their victims are unarmed. The shooters want that sick thrill of picking off their targets and knowing the victims' only option is to beg for mercy. There's a reason we don't see shooters walking into police precincts and taking aim at armed officers.

So guns can put holes in things, but they can also stop others from putting holes in things, too. And if only we saw training, and practice, as a civil responsibility -- "learn this, know this, because being ready to defend, and keep, the peace is your duty as a citizen."

Now, if only I could recall who it was who observed, "an armed society is a polite society" ...

[chibidrunksanzo.livejournal.com]

*quick Google search* Robert A. Heinlein

[medize.livejournal.com]

Yes, guns can prevent deaths, too - so it's always seemed to me that, aside from people who hunt, aside from people who like target practice, the purpose of guns is fear and intimidation. I'm sure I'd like it if a cop took control of a bad situation, but I'm not sure I would like his gun.

I mean, sure, a society where everyone is armed would probably be quite well-behaved! I just don't like to think that the only way we can defend ourselves is this, "Well, you can put a hole in me, but I'm going to put a hole in you right back." Surely there are other ways we can prevent this crap than carrying pistols in our purses.

But since I don't think we're going to agree on this, the right to bear arms is a personal freedom and I'm fine with that. I wish hope we'll get to a point where that's no longer necessary.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I just don't like to think that the only way we can defend ourselves is this, "Well, you can put a hole in me, but I'm going to put a hole in you right back."

Defend is the key word. I'd say probably 99.9% of the people I currently know wouldn't even dream of shooting me, or anyone. So there's no reason to say, "if you do X, I will do X back at you." There's no question X will never happen. There's no need for defense -- in the vast majority of instances, because it's really "we're all law-abiding here."

But -- against those who would shoot/hurt/kill us, I will not give up any and all means at my disposal to defend my life and liberty. I don't see why I should have to.

Yes, of course I would prefer for other ways to 'prevent' any situation from becoming violent. I'd much rather the school shooters be noticed as not entirely there, get whatever help might've headed them off at the pass. But when the guy's standing in front of you ready and willing to kill you, it's too late for prevention, and there's only one cure: he kills you, or you kill him. And I kind of have this thing against dying anytime in the next fifty years, let alone in any circumstance that will prompt the leaving of stupid-ass pastel-colored plushies at some kind of "shrine" with candlelight vigils. Just contemplating that gives me hives.

Anyway. For those school shooters, predators, and rapists -- the cowardly kind of asshole who gets his jollies humiliating, brutalizing, and killing those less powerful -- I suspect the best kind of prevention is the threat of the cure: that their victims might shoot back.

For those who are law-abiding, I guess I always take it for granted that when I'm, say, in line at the grocery store behind a cop with a gun... that his gun will never be pointed at me, so I need have no fear, of him, or the gun.

[medize.livejournal.com]

I guess I always take it for granted that when I'm, say, in line at the grocery store behind a cop with a gun... that his gun will never be pointed at me, so I need have no fear, of him, or the gun

I am afraid of taking that for granted! What if I step on his heel and he had a really bad night the night before and his wife is leaving him and his daughter is pregnant and I just happen to be the ONE PERSON who sends him over the edge. ;)

Just contemplating that gives me hives.

I think it would anyone. Believe me, I don't get my jollies off on contemplating the thought that I could have been one of those students, defenseless and helpless against someone with more power, or that it even happens in the first place, but we just arrive at different points for how it can be prevented or what can be done when it happens - so in the end I guess I'll have to trot out the tired old 'agree to disagree.'

[chibidrunksanzo.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. All of it. I had been thinking the same things about the shooting, too. Why did nobody in that classroom have a gun? Why was their method of self defense taken away? I mean, a couple of guys with freaking box cutters instigated one of the greatest losses of life this country has ever seen! Yes, old adage aside, guns kill people. But you know what? They protect a whole freaking lot more than they kill. Not to mention, if I am going to be murdered, I sure as hell would rather it be with a gun. Odds are in my favor it will be quick.

Myself, I'm torn on whether or not I'll actually own a gun. I'm definitely taking lessons, there's not a question there, but for gun ownership... I desperately feel the need to keep one for defense. So in a situation like the shooting, or if somebody tries to mug me or rape me, or in any of a hundred other scenarios I can protect myself and those around me. On the other hand, I get suicidally depressed, which really says it all. It's a matter of will I notice myself crashing in time, and will I be brave enough to give my gun to somebody else for safekeeping.

...And as a final note, I suddenly realized the amusement of my default icon in relation to this rant.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I get suicidally depressed, which really says it all. It's a matter of will I notice myself crashing in time, and will I be brave enough to give my gun to somebody else for safekeeping.

And right there is the maturity I'd expect in someone who owns a gun, just as much as I'd expect someone with the tendency to drink too much to realize this as part of owning a car. "If I sometimes don't track my intake, I must be mature enough to take a cab home, or ask someone to drive me, or sit there on the sidewalk for four hours until I sober up."

It's the people who never think about the risks that bother me -- almost as much as the people who only think about the risks, and refuse to see the benefits.

Icon right back atcha, babe. ;-)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Meant to add: CP says, "get a tazer." Still excellent for self-defense, but you can't do yourself in with it, though you could taze yourself into a world of hurt...

[okaasan59.livejournal.com]

And this guy only had two semiautomatic handguns that he had to reload. It could have been fairly easy to take him down in Norris Hall.

[elanivalae.livejournal.com]

Well-written rant. It made me think. I still disagree with you on most counts, but I thought about it a bit longer than usual.

Although, do people who walk around Chicago at night really expect to get shot? o_O That comment seemed really strange to me.

[tanuki02.livejournal.com]

I think that nutcase, if denied guns, would have found some other way of committing mass murder.
I don't have any answers, or any cogent arguments either for or against gun control. All I can say is that, from my POV, most gun owners are morons.
I've met plenty of gun owners. You are the third I've known to discuss things like classes and practice. You know about safety locks and gun cases.
I know people who insist that under the driver's seat or in the nightstand is a perfectly good place to keep a loaded pistol. I've seen my neighbor leave his pistol out on the table, in the easy reach of young children. I have kids bring me bullets and shells regularly, and more than once had kids under 12 tell me how they were allowed to join the men in firing guns from the apartment balconies for New Year's. I had not been two weeeks in my job before a first grader pulled up his shirt to show me his bullet scars.
I have had a teenager offer to bring me a gun from the flea market, and I have been confronted by an angry parent with a gun in his jacket.
Would better gun control change all that? Probably not much. I don't have any solutions. Just a lot of...undirected anger, I suppose. Do I own a gun? No. Taking classes, keeping in practice, that isn't cheap. But mostly I don't because when the kids ask me why not, I can tell them that, sure, I get scared walking around sometimes. But I won't carry a gun, because "to a hammer, every problem is a nail". Because I want them to think that there might be different answers to a threat. Maybe I'll get shot yet. Maybe I'd be a better role model as an educated gun owner. Maybe. You tell me, because I sure can't figure this mess out.

[tanuki02.livejournal.com]

And now that I've returned to sanity....
Sorry: I don't usually froth like that.
We're all being stupid. Gun control isn't the real issue here. What we ought to be all worked up about is our failure to do much of anything about an attitude toward mental health issues that could be pretty much summarized by "It ain't my problem if I keep my eyes shut."
I called the shooter a nutcase. That was wrong. He was a guy who needed help, and didn't get it.
My apologies, everyone.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I know enough about safety locks to say I think they're a stupid-ass concept dreamed up by politicians trying to broker compromises between the "get rid of all guns" and the "we need armor-piercing bullets" extremes.

I know people who insist that under the driver's seat or in the nightstand is a perfectly good place to keep a loaded pistol. I've seen my neighbor leave his pistol out on the table, in the easy reach of young children.

That could be stupidity. It could also be culture. My grandfather had two shotguns -- loaded -- always sitting in the corner right behind the back door. I never once even *thought* about touching them, as a kid. It was simply made clear, like my Dad's power tools or my mom's special "only for fabric" scissors, that Those Things Are Not For Kids. There were no lectures, no major "don't!" that might have made me curious as to what made it so special; it was simply For Adults.

Given we've had guns for 250+ years in the US (and they've been a huge part of our history, more than many countries, I expect), I find it baffling that only in the past twenty, thirty years, are we 'suddenly' finding kids with access to guns causing injury/death oh noes! Part of me thinks, are parents getting lazier? is it b/c the mass media is always romanticizing guns? (well, no, b/c the Old West stories sure did that, too, and have been since the 1860s!, so that's not really new.) Is it something else, that has these most recent generations so unbelievably ignorant -- or just plain hostile/aggressive/uncaring despite parental warnings?

Don't know. Just seems... strange, to me.

But I won't carry a gun, because "to a hammer, every problem is a nail". Because I want them to think that there might be different answers to a threat.

I understand your point completely, which is why I do say that what matters is taking responsibility for your personal safety -- be that by carrying a cattle prod, taking self-defense classes, carrying a gun, etc. (I don't recommend a knife. There is nothing more brutal and more likely to get you killed -- slowly and painfully -- than a knife fight.) So the means is entirely up to each person, but the key is to set aside the wish for 'a better world', check back in with reality, and accept that this means being able to defend ourselves.

That said, I recall the observation by a martial arts instructor, that the most dangerous belts are the whites -- who don't know anything -- and the browns -- who think they know everything. Without exception, the black belts I've met are all people who are far more likely to walk away from a fight than to engage, if they can. Rather than see every problem as a hammer, when you know your hammer is powerful enough -- be it 45 caliber or a devious joint-lock -- then the last thing you want is to see a nail.

I'm all for kids being taught proper gun handling and use by adults, so they learn to respect the hammer... but I am so NOT crazy about people who shoot into the air, for any reason. Do these morons not realize that what goes up, must come down?

[siriusjazz.livejournal.com]

See, my biggest issue with guns is...if used with murderous intent, I think they're cowardly. If you're going to try to kill me, at least have the decency to come at me instead of hiding behind a gun. The idea that I could die from a bullet that I don't even know is flying towards me scares the shit out of me. That's why I think if most of the population were able to pack heat, I'd become even more paranoid than I already am. I dunno, I take a blissfully ignorant comfort in the assumption that the people within my personal radius probably aren't armed. I suppose I just have the mindset that guns/weapons are wholly unnecessary unless you're the police or in the military. Then again, I have been called a hippie for my "why can't everyone just get along" attitude, lol.

I'm all for being able to defend oneself and one's property. But even if given the chance, I would choose not to arm myself. I've held guns before, and their weights in my hands were not a comfort. But if you want to kill or rape me, you'd better believe I wouldn't go down without a fight, even if it meant slinging and chucking everything in sight, even rushing the person and turning the gun on its aimer, even if things got messy.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

*coughs*

Ahem. Babe, you're living in Virginia. Concealed carry is possible -- okay, there's a lot of paperwork and they even ask if you've ever, in your entire life, smoked dope, along with any medical history of certain categories, blah blah blah -- but it's still possible.

I think you just might be amazed how many people around you are carrying concealed, when you're out at the mall or stopping at the gas station or running out to the grocery store. The entire point of concealed, after all, is that it's concealed. (Open carry is supposedly legit everything, but each district/county restricts it severely, to prevent causing panicmongering by pinheads who go into hysterics at the sight of one man carrying a shotgun-duffel to his car when heading for the range.)

Anyway. Point is, you may assume they're not armed, and you could be right. You could be wrong. Someone calmly carrying concealed, going about their business, is -- in my opinion -- someone operating under the same civil responsibilities as I outlined in my post above.

But the bottom line is: I don't think people should be defenseless, especially women. Be it tazer, or cattle prod, or a lot of hand-to-hand combat classes, or a gun -- each of these are ways of 'arming' yourself, preparing yourself.

I used to be married to a hippie. I get the "why can't everyone get along" attitude. I guess my take on it is thanks to a few years in the worse parts of town -- so I prefer to say, "we're all going to get along, or I'm going to kick your ass, and don't think I can't."

;)