What is it about guns that drives this unreasoning hatred ?

[RSillsbee]

I have noticed since joining this forum that guns (not gun laws, or gun policy but just the guns themselves) is one of the most divisive topics on DU. So, I want to ask a simple question; “What is it about guns that drives this unreasoning hatred?”

A firearm of any type is an inanimate, mechanical object that is no more than a paper weight until a human gets involved. I am looking at a one of my guns as I type this; it has been loaded, more or less, continuously since I bought it and it has yet to discharge on its own I imagine I could leave it sitting in my gun safe for 100 years and it still wouldn’t fire.
So, what is it that drives the hate ?

Typo

[laconicsax]

1. Hold on...let me get ready.

:popcorn:

Ok, please continue.

[Cant trust em]

2. Fun times with rhetorical questions. nt

[DeadEyeDyck]

3. Got me a front row seat.

No, I am not going to duck down so you can see. I got here early and have every right to sit up here.

[Hoyt]

4. What hate? Personally, I just disagree with folks who think it is proper to pack guns in public.

[proteus_lives]

6. I don't have any problem with disagreement.

I have a problem with people who want to take my choices and rights.

I'd never force someone to carry/own a firearm or not. I simply wish for the same consideration.

[spin]

34. Do you base your disagreement on any facts that show such people are dangerous?

Or is it simply a dislike based on emotion?

Either Or is O.K. by me because you have every right to your opinion. I'm just curious.

[jazzhound]

61. I've been told it's not "proper" to wear white shoes after

Easter. Fuck "proper". I'll exercise my rights while obeying the law, thank you.

[Euromutt]

108. No, it's *before* Easter and after Labor Day

You philistine, you. :P

[jazzhound]

110. Not surprised I didn't remember the "rule"..........

..............given how little I care about such rules.

But thanks for clearing it up for me! I'll make a point of wearing my high-top Reeboks every day during the forbidden period. :)

[Hoopla Phil]

112. This kind of hate.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x348045#348048

[RSillsbee]

113. Interestingly he has avoided this thread like the plague NT

[Katya Mullethov]

116. What hate ?

I don't see any hate .

[bluestateguy]

5. DU has a lot of gun toting liberals

and I am one of them too.

[proteus_lives]

7. As am I.

[Bonhomme Richard]

22. And me. n/t

[spin]

35. Count me in.

[oneshooter]

45. I am not a "gun toter", I am licensed by the State of Texas

to carry a handgun concealed upon my person.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[TheWraith]

83. I guess I can't say I "tote" a gun...

I don't have a concealed weapons permit. For that matter, I don't even own a pistol. Can't afford one right now, though I'd love to find some old thing I can buy dirt cheap on my curios and relics license. But I personally am fond of describing myself as a heavily armed liberal. Which the shotgun on my bedroom wall and the .308 rifle downstairs will speak to. :D

[RamboLiberal]

94. And me

[jazzhound]

95. Include me in.......though I don't "tote" being a

resident of California and lack the political connections or celebrity status of those who do.

[DesertFlower]

8. mine is sitting in my nightstand.

hasn't been fired since i went to the shooting range about 10 years ago.

[RSillsbee]

9. Hopefully it's been cleaned and lubed in that time EOM

[DesertFlower]

10. it has.

[RSillsbee]

58. Since you don't use it all that often

You might want to lube it W/ white lithium grease instead of oil. Just a thought

[DesertFlower]

63. thanks for the info. i'll tell my husband.

he owns several guns.

[TheWraith]

84. You really should practice at least once a year.

Better yet, any time you change batteries in your smoke detector and check your fire extinguisher's pressure, buy 100 rounds of ammo and put in a little range time. File it all under "just in case measures."

[Callisto32]

96. Range time is always good.

Firearms skills aren't like riding a bike. A lot of actions are fine motor skills, and you lose those over time if not practiced.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Flame bait.

[RSillsbee]

19. No, actually it isn't

I have noted that some of the people that post in this sub forum seem to absolutely hate guns and (IMO) blame the trouble caused by criminals w/ guns on the guns themselves. I don't understand how they arrive at that point. It seems to me that one might just as well blame alcohol for drunken driving accidents.

I posted this thread to try to get the story from their POV.

But thanks for purporting to be able to read my mind

[AtheistCrusader]

53. The very fact you are hoping to 'get their point of view' puts the lie to your claim

it isn't flame bait.

Since when do you start an honest discussion by asking someone about their 'unreasoning hatred', as you see it? I can only assume it's intentionally inflammatory, even though it's clearly not aimed at me.

Perhaps try again in a more discussion-friendly fashion?

[RSillsbee]

57. This thread still wasn't intended to be flame bait

But I can see your point about using the word "unreasoning". Then again I never see the people that hate guns giving a reasonfor not liking guns beyond "Guns are bad."

Maybe the question should have been "If you hate guns what drives your hatred?"

[jazzhound]

12. I think that the psychology of gun hate is really quite

interesting -- and I've thought about starting a thread like this one for some time. I have a dear friend who has a terminal case of gun-aversive dyslexia........his hate runs so deep he can't begin to think straight on the subject of gun "control". His brain cells become so agitated that they literally cannot process incoming data -- and this is a scientist I'm talking about.

I believe that there are many progressives/liberals who are unable to distinguish military firearms from civilian firearms. Since they have a strong distaste (if not hate) for war, all guns become associated with war. War is evil, ergo guns are evil -- and since it is no sin to hate evil they are able to rationalize their hate. Gun owners are held in contempt (or hated) by extension. Don Kates refers to this phenomenon as "respectable bigotry".

Even those lib/progs who do distinguish between military and civilian firearms end up equating guns with violence because that is all they've been exposed to via "news" reports and TV programming. The "reporting" has been completely one-sided.........purposefully misleading the public into believing (for example) that "assault weapons" are all automatic rifles, that plastic guns and cop-killer bullets were actual threats, and neglecting to inform w/regard to the high number of defensive gun uses that take place annually in the U.S. (Of course the list of lies and intentional omissions of fact would be too long to get into here.)

Sadly, it seems as though disdain for guns and gun owners is actually a badge of honor for many progressives who are oblivious as to the nature and extent of their hypocrisy. As a result they will never develop the honesty necessary to examine their beliefs and listen to fellow liberals -- including liberal criminologists -- who honestly point out the damage that "respectable bigotry" does to the Democratic Party.

[Katya Mullethov]

24. Kind of a hobby

Dope haters ,gun haters ,race haters, gay haters . Generally ,and as a rule, they are quite daft and varying shades of mad . And almost ALWAYS angry .They are completely secure in the assumption that they can act like that when it comes to "those people" .

I beg to differ

[jazzhound]

82. + 1,000 NT

[jazzhound]

81. Footnote: Don Kates on the subject of respectable bigotry:

4. Respectable Bigotry


We are so inured to the vituperative terms in which the gun debate is carried on that it may be useful to consider the issue in a wholly different context. Recently a psychiatrist publicized the terrifying story of her repeated vain attempts to control, or have incarcerated, a malicious bi-sexual patient who continues to have promiscuous, unsafe sex with people who don't know that he has the AIDS virus.{20} Doubtless other examples could be cited of people who spread AIDS irresponsibly or even deliberately. But enlightened, liberal people would not jump from the few such examples to vilifying bi-sexuals or gays or gay rights activists, in general. Enlightened, liberal people rightly see it as bigotry to blame the wrong-doing of an irresponsible, aberrant few on a whole group of innocent, responsible people.

Returning to gun control, studies trying to link gun ownership to violence rates find either no relationship or a negative, i.e., cities and counties with high gun ownership suffer less violence than demographically comparable areas with lower gun ownership.{21} Summarizing these and other studies, a recent National Institute of Justice analysis finds: It is clear that only a very small fraction of privately owned firearms are ever involved in crime or violence, the vast bulk of them being owned and used more or less exclusively for sport and recreational purposes, or for self-protection.{22} Concommitantly, it has been estimated that 98.32% of owners do not use a gun in an unlawful homicide (over a 50 year adult life span).{23}

In sum, murderers comprise only a small, highly aberrant (and malignant and irresponsible) subset of all gun owners. Why, then, is it enlightened and liberal: to vilify the 50% of American householders who have guns as barbaric and/or deranged ("Gun Lunatics Silence Sounds of Civilization"{24}), "gun nuts", "gun fetishists", "anti-citizens" and "traitors, enemies of their own patriae"{25}, as sexually warped{26} "bulletbrains"{27} who engage in "simply beastly behavior"{28} and represent "the worst instincts in the human character"{29}; or to traduce pro-gun groups as the "pusher's best friend"{30} and their entire membership as "psychotics", "hunters who drink beer, don't vote and lie to their wives about where they were all weekend"{31}; to characterize the murder of children as "another slaughter co-sponsored by the National Rifle Association"{32} and assert that "The assassination of John Lennon has been brought to you by the National Rifle Association"{33}; and to cartoon gun owners as thugs and/or vigilantes, intellectually retarded, educationally backward and morally obtuse, or as Klansmen?{34}

The NIJ Evaluation accurately describes how the anti-gun advocates sees gun owners: as "demented and blood-thirsty psychopaths whose concept of fun is to rain death upon innocent creatures both human and otherwise." It is really quite remarkable for such calumnies to issue from people who, rightly, regard it as egregious bigotry when other bigots: seek to blame AIDS deaths on gays whom they revile as sexually warped, moral degenerates who engage in simply bestial behavior; or blame gay rights activists for AIDS because they lobby against ordinances that would close bath houses; describe abortion rights activists as murderers, "baby butchers" and abortion clinics as "merchants of death"; dismiss all homeless people and welfare recipients as slackers, drug addicted, alcoholic or retarded; or traduce the ACLU as the "best friend" of criminals and drug pushers.

The fact that anti-gun crusaders are commendably eager to oppose racism, gay bashing and other evils they recognize as bigotry does not excuse their inability to recognize their own bigotry. On the contrary, it compounds that bigotry with myopia, if not hypocrisy.

Don Kates from "Gun Control: A Realistic Assessment" (reprinted with permission)

[The Green Manalishi]

97. In addition

I think it is very much a city versus rural thing.
Trying to put myself in a mindset to understand the point of gun controllers, so I imagine:

I live in San Francisco/Chicago/New York, I live in an apartment or condo.
Very near many other such dwellings. Anywhere I point a firearm the bullet will likely pass through several walls and the property of several other people. Even if I shoot a home invasion robber or rapist the bullet can easily continue on through into the next apartment. There is no convenient place to practice, any shooting range costs $15-20 and hour, minimum. If I ever did need a firearm I surely do NOT need something chambered for lethality at 500 meters with multiple magazines of 20 or 30 rounds. the only people I have *ever* seen with guns are cops and criminals. My condo or apartment has been broken into several times already, any gun I had would have been stolen; the landlord is not OK with me installing a safe. I have never had a family member or friend teach me anything about guns.

Given the above, I can honestly understand why a person might well ask 'Why the heck do you want a gun, and why the hell do you even think ANYONE needs a Mini 14, to say nothing of some big black thing that looks exactly like what they carry int the army- and if you DO put a 7.62 round though a bad guy, where do you think that round is going, my kid is in the next room.

Legitimate concerns; we trivialize them at our risk. And they are much more common concerns amongst those who, by dint of living in urban areas, make up much of the base of the Democratic party.

My response, of course, is that all the damage, all the risk, all the harm that could ever come from the exercise of any right could NEVER equal the benefit to our country as a whole by protecting those rights. Whether it is the woman who prevents herself from rape by producing a handgun, or the person who ends the 'career' of a carjacking thug, or just the granny who sleeps a bit better knowing she has more protection than a baseball bat or kitchen knife. I'll fight to the death anyone who would take away ANY right; far better to have everyone use and many abuse than to ever have even the most benign restriction for the best of reasons, but then I am the sort who will look around if I hear someone yell "fire" in a crowded theater; better to have a hundred thousand people year "fire" unnecessarily than to have one book banned.

[SteveM]

100. "(Some) cities vs. a rural thing..."

The Democratic Party can frequently rely on Houston, New Orleans, Miami, Tampa, El Paso, San Antonio and other cities for candidate support, yet these cities would never be accused of being restrictive of gun ownership (Chief Compass' orders to confiscate not withstanding). And there walls are at least as thin. I think there is something else at work, and you may have touched upon it:

"I have never had a family member or friend teach me anything about guns."

[The Green Manalishi]

103. True.

Not claiming to be comprehensive, and those are interesting exceptions. Being a native of San Francisco I can understand why someone may wonder why I want a ra-15 and a dozen 30 round magazines (because I hate taking the time to load them at the range, not bacause I'm going to light up a deer or a co-worker with 300 rounds, fer cryin' out loud).

[Taitertots]

13. People can kill other people by using guns

A lot of people think that by implementing various gun control laws they can minimize this risk. A lot of people think that gun control would not minimize this risk.

What drives the emotion about it? People tend to get emotional when facing what they believe to be an existential threat.

[Pavulon]

54. Bud light kills people too. There was much drama around it years ago

that emotion proved to be, like most emotional energy replacing fact, incredibly misguided and bad for the country.

[Katya Mullethov]

65. WRONG ---- Prohibition works

Hillary said so . It's those damn gun shows !

[krispos42]

88. The Budweiser frogs... oh, how many innocents were sent to early graves...

...because of the influence of the Budweiser frogs?



"If we ban the Bud frogs, Bud-beer-related fatalities will diminish! Victory!"

[RC]

14. The main and originally purpose of guns is to kill things.

They were originally invented as weapons of war.
The purpose of hand guns is to kill people. Rifles, on the other hand, can be said to be used for hunting, as for food.
And you wonder why it is such a divisive subject on a Liberal web site, where we supposedly have empathy for others?

"A firearm of any type is an inanimate, mechanical object that is no more than a paper weight until a human gets involved."
In other words it is a killing machine. That is it's purpose.

[RSillsbee]

23. Empathy for others

I was the intended victim of an attempted mugging several years ago. The mugger ran off as soon as I cleared leather. I had absolutely no empathy for him what so ever and would have shot him had he taken one more step.

The whole incident took less time than it took you to read this far

[oneshooter]

25. And THAT is why......

I keep my weapons in locked metal boxes. Not to protect them from theft, but to assure that they do not go postal and just kill everybody in the county!
Just think of the HORROR! 200 weapons let loose on the world, they would slaughter everybody in sight!

BLOOD ON THE STREET! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas





Do I need the sarcasm thingy?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

36. 2 points...

The point of firearms is to fire projectiles. It's a mechanical tool with legitimate uses.
Rifles are no different than handguns. You can hunt with pistols and you can hunt with rifles.
You can target shoot with pistols and you can target shoot with rifles.
Pistols work well for home defense, rifles work well for home defense, and so do shotguns.
Armies carry pistols and they carry rifles. A firearm is a firearm... they fire projectiles.
The type of firearm does not matter. The intent of the person controlling it is what matters.

Which brings me to my second point...
There have been items altruistically designed that turned out to be bringers of death and destruction.
There have been things designed to cause mass destruction which has ended saving many lives.
There have been many accidental discoveries which have aided or harmed mankind...
the designers intent does not matters.

[spin]

39. Handguns are often used for hunting ...

Deer Hunting Handguns to Consider

Deer hunting with a handgun offers a new way to pursue deer for many who have never given it a try. Here are five handguns that are great for deer hunting whether you are new to handgun hunting or have been doing it for
years.

Before looking at the guns perhaps a brief look at deer hunting cartridges should be in order. While a number of cartridges exist for deer hunting with handguns, the traditional .357, .41, and .44 Magnum are good choices due to wide availability of proven ammunition and reloading components at a reasonable cost. Before making any purchase, check out your state's regulations for handgun cartridge minimums and other restrictions (barrel length, etc.). Also, whenever possible shoot a few handguns to get the feel of them before investing hundreds of dollars or even more.

***snip***

Handgun hunting for deer is a great way to add a new experience to your deer hunting.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2324040/5_great_deer_hunting_handguns_pg2.html?cat=11

"Handgunning For Bears"
Taking on Big Bruins with a Handgun

Peterson's Hunting Magazine, November 2006


The author prefers a conventional big-bore revolver with visible sights for black bear hunting. Favorites include, from top, an S&W in .44 Mag, a Dan Wesson in .445 SuperMag and a single-action Ruger chambered in .41 Magnum. The author prefers a conventional big-bore revolver with visible sights for black bear hunting. Favorites include, from top, an S&W in .44 Mag, a Dan Wesson in .445 SuperMag and a single-action Ruger chambered in .41 Magnum.

After several seasons of hunting with Foggy Mountain, I've concluded that a heavy-caliber, big-bore handgun is actually a better choice for dense-woods bear hunting than a long gun, particularly if there is any chance you might have to work on the ground. The main reason is that a handgun is quicker and more maneuverable in a heated encounter in thick underbrush. And in spite of my love for the T/C Contender or Encore for many types of hunting, I strongly recommend a revolver over a single-shot pistol for bear hunting. Of course, I can already hear my friends in the T/C Contender Association saying, "One shot is all you should need, Dick." No argument. It's just that hunting anything that has teeth sharper than my own makes me very cautious.

So for black bear hunting I'll opt for a revolver with fiber-optic-enhanced open sights that are highly visible for instantaneous alignment in dim light on dark backgrounds. I've seen many handgunners in my years at Foggy Mountain using scopes and electronic dot-type units. Many have been successful. My own experience is that optical sights are not helpful in dim light at close quarters. When they are aimed down from a treestand toward dark, shadowed ground, the reflection of the brighter overhead sky in the eyepiece lens completely blocks any visibility of the target.

As for cartridges, you can use anything from .41 Magnum up to the .500 S&W. One of the most experienced hunters I've met says that any big-bore cartridge that throws a solid bullet weighing 200 grains or more at 1,000 fps or more is a thorough ticket-puncher for any black bear. By that standard, a heavy .44 Special or .45 Colt handload in the right gun would serve admirably.

***snip***

The specific choice is yours, but if you use a minimum .40 caliber, a minimum 200-grain solid deformable bullet and a minimum of 1,000 fps velocity from your chosen gun, you'll have a handgun load that will take any bear that shows itself. If you can stop shaking long enough to shoot.
http://www.foggymountain.com/handgun-bear-hunting.shtml

[X_Digger]

49. Please, chime in here..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x292384

[jazzhound]

86. For the controllers, ego trumps empathy *every time*.

And you wonder why it is such a divisive subject on a Liberal web site, where we supposedly have empathy for others?

Extremely fitting that you inserted the word supposedly into this sentence, since the progressive "empathy" to which you refer is a faux empathy in that it applies only in one direction. Where is the empathy for the innocent victims of assault who choose to defend themselves with the most effective means at their disposal? The fact that defensive gun use outnumbers offensive gun uses is now indisputable, given the fact that numerous national studies have proven so ---- including the NSPOF designed by two pro-"control" supporters:

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf

The fact that the pro-"control" supporters display no intellectual curiosity whatsoever w/regard to the proven high numbers of defensive gun uses demolishes the notion of the "empathetic liberal" as far as the guns/violence issue is concerned. Further, you would think that the empathetic liberal would be greatly impressed by the fact that in over 90% of these defensive gun uses the firearm isn't even discharged!

Then there is the issue of the indifference to dramatic drops in gun-related accidents that coincide with large increases in the gun stock:

C. Fraudulent Suppression of the Steep Decline in Fatal Gun Accidents

The health advocate shibboleth posits a simple, simplistic, patterned relationship between guns and social harms: More guns equal more homicide, suicide and fatal gun accidents--and stricter gun control equal fewer such tragedies. But this shibboleth is diametrically contradicted by the decline in accidental gun fatalities since the late 1960s. An unparalleled increase in handgun ownership coincided not just with no increase in fatal firearms accidents, but with a steep decline. The thirteen years from 1967 to 1980 saw the addition of more new handguns to the American gunstock than had been bought in the preceding sixty-seven years of the twentieth century; and the seven years from 1980 to 1986 saw the addition of half as many more new handguns as were bought in the century's first sixty-seven years.<176> Yet those same twenty years saw fatal gun (p.557)accidents steadily decline from 2,896 in 1967 to 1,452 in 1967, even as population substantially increased.<177>

In sum, over those twenty years the per capita fatal gun accident rate decreased by two thirds, though the handgunstock grew 173%, from 27.8 million to 63.9 million. In the years since 1986 fatal gun accidents have remained stable at approximately 1400-60, despite continued large increases in both the handgunstock and the population.<178> Later in this article we note the correlation of this steady twenty-year decline with the steady displacement over that period of the long gun by the much safer handgun as the weapon kept loaded for defense in American homes and businesses. But for now we focus not on the cause of the decline, but on health advocacy's lack of interest in that cause or in the decline itself. For now we treat the cause as unknown (though not unknowable) so as to explore what the health advocates' uninterest reveals about their claim of studying gun issues out of a single-minded concern to preserve human life.

Were health advocates rationally concerned about preserving human life, a two-thirds decline in fatal gun accidents should have been of great interest to them. Even in the absence of such concern, any honest scholarly proponent of the health advocacy shibboleth would be deeply interested in a phenomenon that diametrically contradicts that shibboleth. The interest should have been particularly intense and urgent for scholars motivated not by academic curiosity alone, but also by concern to preserve human life. After all, there must be some explanation for a two-thirds reduction in accidental gun deaths, and particularly for it's coinciding with a 173% increase in handguns. If that mysterious explanation could be determined, it might suggest strategies to reduce gun suicide or gun murders as well.<179> This potential should especially have attracted health (p.558)advocates; for, as we shall see, they have a penchant for combining statistics of gun fatality by suicide, homicide and accident into one homogeneous group, as if the three were related or homogeneous phenomena.

Of course, upon investigation it might turn out that no ready explanation can be found for the decline in gun accidents. Or, if an explanation is determinable, it might not be helpful in curbing gun murders and/or suicides. But the possibility that investigation could be fruitless does not explain, much less justify, the health advocates' total lack of interest in pursuing such an investigation--the fact that the decline itself has gone virtually unmentioned and that there has been no focus at all on its implications in the health advocacy literature against guns.<180>(p.559)

This total disinterest has an interesting implication of its own. Without denying that health advocates do care about reducing gun death, their disinterest in the twenty-year decline in accidental death implies that their concern is severely compromised by their hatred of guns. Though avowing a deep and single-minded concern to save lives, they seem interested only in ways of doing so which involve reducing access to guns. At least we can think of no other reason for their total lack of interest in finding out how and why accidental gun death could decline by two thirds over a period when the handgunstock was increasing by 173%.

The main and originally purpose of guns is to kill things

Among cheap and lazy red herrings, this ranks as among the very cheapest and laziest. It matters little what the "original" purpose of guns is since defensive gun uses outnumber offensive gun uses. The best empirical evidence now demonstrates that defensive gun uses in all probability save more lives than offensive gun uses claim. Why not demonstrate the courage of your convictions and take X_Digger up on his offer and join in on the conversation he linked to? Here's Steve M's eloquent smackdown of the "guns are designed to kill" canard:

And we come to "the purpose of guns is to kill" flippant, used as moral condemnation of the object, and by inference, the user/possessor. This is the chief dynamic of prohibition politics, and isn't the core of this discussion, but its use as a moral bludgeon assumes there is unexplained moral content in the "argument." Clearly, those using this argument have a real responsibility to explain it, but I see little of that. So I propose to take on the responsibility. To put it crudely, what is so "good" or "bad" about an object whose purpose, when used at its full capability, is to kill?

I believe nearly all instances of killing humans is regrettable. This is not to say that in a given situation the killing was not "justified," only to say that I can relate to the deceased human and experience regret. Some people see ANY "killing" as sufficient to condemn the object and user. Thus, a factory-built pump shotgun, designed for general bird and small game hunting, is designed for killing; ergo, it falls into the same category as a fixed-sight "service" revolver for LEOs. Thus the range of moral condemnation is expanded, even if the "designed" killing was of animals. For those who use the "purpose is to kill" argument, but recognize a more reasonable order of life-value, the response is: This humble shotgun CAN be used to kill people. Certainly it can, but at that juncture the automobile metaphor raises its turret top: the car was not designed to kill people, but it surely does. Now, this more "reasonable" person with the more "reasonable" position must either embrace the more extreme "ALL killing of ALL living things is bad," or concede that most shotguns are not designed to kill people, but are subject to misuse.

I believe those who wield the argument "guns are designed to kill" innately recognize the capacity -- even the desire -- to kill in everyone, including themselves, and point to an object that is relatively "unquestioned" in its purpose and seek to ban the thing as it reminds or spurs on man's capacity to kill or think about killing. This is compounded by a "vulgar passive-ism" which seems to be a refusal to engage in self-defense, lest one give in to the impulse to kill. Gandhi recognized this impulse, and decried those who would stood idly by and not defend, either by non-violent action or by violence, his/her life, loved ones, religion and property.

To return to prohibition, this ruinous "public policy" probably has its roots in the strictures of religion, even if this country has long since passed into a secular society. Those who seek prohibition probably have lost faith in government as a resolver of societal needs and problems (at least as much as many of the conservatives they condemn), and fall back on arguments which proscribe a condition which prohibition will bring about. This won't happen, of course, but then the societal conditions sought are secondary for these folks: The chief purpose of prohibition is moral validation of a "better life," or merely a set of unrealized values, by an authority "bigger" than oneself... government and the coercive force which comes with it. (This reliance on government force as weapon-of-choice is a peculiarly conservative notion, but that is lost on many.) In short, the feeling of vindication and satisfaction is in forcing those whom you condemn to stop doing this or possessing that with the threat of punishment, ubermensch.

The unexplained argument "The purpose of guns is to kill" is a marker used in a game whose objective is to declare: "My morals are more moral than your morals." It has no real place in social policy or governance except to write-large one's own feelings of outrage. Fundamentally, I am not concerned that I possess an object (gun) that "is designed to kill."

[Euromutt]

90. It's hard to know where to begin pointing out how wrong you are

They were originally invented as weapons of war.

True. But then again, so was the magnetron. The cavity magnetron has been the key component of military radar systems, for which it was developed, since the start of the second world war. Nevertheless, radar systems have since been adapted to civilian purposes (civil aviation, weather radar, traffic control, etc.), and the magnetron itself has found a new role as the key component in microwave ovens. Just because a technology was originally developed for warlike purposes doesn't mean its applications are restricted to that purpose.

The purpose of hand guns is to kill people. Rifles, on the other hand, can be said to be used for hunting, as for food.

Jeez, I could write a treatise on infantry firepower doctrine since the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), but suffice to say that the standard issue weapon of the infantryman for over 300 years has been the long gun, not the handgun. For the past century, armed forces have typically issued handguns as defensive weapons, to be used as a backup in the event the individual's primary weapon (i.e. his rifle) fails, or to personnel who normally aren't expected to engage the enemy, such as staff officers and medics. For most personnel who are issued a handgun, if they ever need to use it, it means something has gone horribly wrong, and the weapon's purpose is to send enough lead in the enemy's direction to make him take cover, and while he's doing so, you run. Specifically, you run to where there's some guys on your own side who have rifles and at least one machine gun, and they can try to put the enemy hors de combat.

[SteveM]

101. Several problems, here...

"And you wonder why it is such a divisive subject on a Liberal web site, where we supposedly have empathy for others?"

The chief reason this issue is "divisive" here is that this is the ONLY liberal web site which allows for regular debate on the subject. There are a number of liberal pro-gun sites where the Second Amendment is not seen as divisive.

Your comment implies that liberals at this site are anti-2A, or want more gun control, or own few guns. There is at least some evidence that at least half the members of DU do in fact own gun(s). You say "...where we supposedly have empathy for others." Well, are you sure of that or not? I have empathy for others, though I don't see the relevancy of this to the discussion at hand.

Finally, even after the concession about hunting, just what is the significance of "killing machine?" What is so problematic about your characterization? Please explain why this concerns you.

[whyverne]

15. Because assholes with guns often use them to take away freedom.

Can you definitively make the case that guns have given more freedom than they take away?

[shadowrider]

16. Because assholes with guns often use them to take away freedom.

That works only because the people with guns took away all of the guns from those that could fight back, before they took away their freedom.

See the pic in my sig line? That strategy worked well for them.

[RSillsbee]

20. Can you definitively make a case that they haven't?

I have read at least one post here about a woman who met a (potential)rapist at her back door and drove him away w/ out firing a shot because she was armed. I personally believe that the main reason this administration has taken a hands off approach WRT to firearms legislation is directly related to the fact that they watched the gun shops get swamped on November 4th 2008 and stay that way for close to a year

On Edit there were about three hundred Jews at the Sobibor death camp that would tell you that guns bought freedom instead of slavery. Harriet Tubman carried a gun as well

[PavePusher]

32. Study. History.

Be proud, you're in the running for winner of the top blatently ignorant (or possibly merely disingenuous?) question of the week.

[east texas lib]

38. You're freely posting your opinion in this country, aren't you?

Try doing that in China or North Korea. Case made.

[spin]

41. The Revolutionary War makes a good case for firearms ...

Without firearms no one would have ever had the guts to write the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence has been described as the most important document in human history. Here, in the memorable language of the famous preamble, a hundred and ten words fatally undermined the political basis of the old order and proclaimed a new era in which free peoples would henceforth govern themselves:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundations on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to Them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

[one-eyed fat man]

68. Are you speaking German?

Do you know the words to "Die Fahne Hoch?"

Are you waiting your turn in the oven because you are Jewish, a Gypsy, Jehovah's Witness, an enemy of the State, mentally ill, blind, crippled, homosexual, or otherwise considered to defective to add to the gene pool?

Did a bunch of guys with guns in 1945 arrange it so that didn't happen?

[RSillsbee]

70. Don't forget Deaf

Deafs feel that the holocuast was just as much a part of their history as it was that of the Jews

[TheWraith]

85. Also black people, socialists/liberals, and Poles. nt

[Euromutt]

107. Well, we could look at history prior to the existence of man-portable firearms

I think you'll find that medieval Europe had very few democratically elected governments. Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate prohibited firearms because they allowed a commoner with a modicum of training to kill a highly trained and expensively equipped samurai (though the shogun did keep a small stock on hand to deal with any uppity daimyos). The Aztecs imposed an atrociously bloodthirsty rule over their neighbors using weapons made of wood and stone, like the macahuitl (a slashing sword composed of an oaken "blade" inset with sharp pieces of obsidian).

Now, while it would be a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy on my part to assert that the invention, proliferation and use of the man-portable firearm were directly responsible for the spread of democracy and the acceptance of the notion of civil and political rights and liberties, history certainly does illustrate that assholes don't necessarily need guns to take away freedom; swords, spears, clubs, even personal force have proved perfectly effective for repressing one's fellow humans over the millennia.

The fact is that political and civil rights and liberties have become far more widespread during the period that guns have existed than they ever were in places and times where guns did not exist; ergo, guns have at least not taken away more freedom than they have given.

[lib_wit_it]

17. Gun=Paperweight. Mmm-hmmm. Now there's some stunning reasoning for ya.

[shadowrider]

18. Unless and until someone picks it up and uses it, it IS a paperweight

See, it isn't the gun, but the person using it. Strange concept that, but it's the way it is.

[lib_wit_it]

47. Oh, OK. So, Guns: unlimited posession. Picking Guns Up and Using Them: Forbidden. To ensure that

they are nothing more than pointlessly large, stupidly-shaped, unwieldy paperweights, Putting Bullets in Guns: also forbidden.

Except for the absurd existence of overpriced, stupid-looking paperweights--problem solved.

You're welcome.




Edited for typos.

[shadowrider]

87. I never said "unlimited posSession" (2 s's), as for the rest of your post

HUH???????????

[RSillsbee]

21. How is a gun intrinsically different from a paper weight

Minus a human being?

[cleanhippie]

28. Logical questions like that usually get no response.

[lib_wit_it]

46. There are multiple differences. I'm sure you could think of them youself it you weren't t

so busy trying to pretend you have a point. Go on, see if you can think of some. Here, I'll even start you off:

1. a gun accommodates a bullet.

[PavePusher]

48. Which still means nothing if it's sitting on the table.

I know how to kill with a paper-weight. There are many ways. I'm sure you could think of them youself it you weren't so busy trying to pretend you have a point.....

[lib_wit_it]

50. Yeah, sure. I could easily murder an entire family in under a minute with any old paperweight.

LMFAO!

Oh wait. No I'm not. Because it really isn't all that amusing.

[shadowrider]

52. You have obiously never met someone trained in the art of killing

ANYTHING is a weapon and can be used quickly, efficiently and quietly.

[Pavulon]

55. Or that car you have, leave the liddle kiddies in it drive into a lake

into a transfer truck or place it on front of a train. Or you can get drunk and use it as a very efficient murder weapon. The dead people will be just as dead.

[one-eyed fat man]

73. .....amusing, like in Happy Land?

One jealous boyfriend, a buck's worth of gasoline and two matches. 87 burned to death.

As a killer, he was one hell of a lot more "efficient" than any bastard with a gun. No shooter has come close.

[spin]

79. Or this gasoline killer ...

Community finally rises from ashes of tragedy
St. Petersburg Times, published October 29, 2000

The supermarket in Palm River Plaza has been closed for more than 16 years, but people in Clair Mel still know it by name.

The Billy Ferry Winn-Dixie.

Billy Ferry was the neighborhood crazy man. The Winn-Dixie was the neighborhood market.

As evening fell on Saturday, July 3, 1984, some voice in his head told Ferry to hurl a bucket of gasoline across the checkout lines crowded with shoppers buying picnic stuff for the Fourth of July.

The shoppers, the checkout clerks and the bag boys had no chance.

Ferry struck a match. Five people died, 13 others were horribly burned. And this little subdivision east of Tampa was scarred for what seemed forever. The mall soon was all but abandoned.
http://www.sptimes.com/News/102900/TampaBay/Community_finally_ris.shtml

[SteveM]

102. Franklin and Eleanor both had guns; in fact, Eleanor packed.

I imagine they had proper paperweights as well.

[spin]

106. Here's a picture of Eleanor shooting ...

Eleanor Roosevelt shoots pistol at Chazy Lake, New York (1934).

and her concealed weapons permit...



She was one great lady.

http://www.firearmstrainingbyelrod.com/Ladies_Only_Classes.html

[MicaelS]

26. I think it is transference....

Blaming an inanimate object is easy. Inanimate objects cannot write or speak and thus use those abilities to defend themselves.

The real blame or fault for misdeeds occurring lies with the acts of human beings, not the acts of objects. The extension of this concept is that evil deeds are thus committed by people who are evil. Not simply misguided or misunderstood. People who commit evil acts are evil.

Having to accept the fact that some humans are evil is simply impossible for people with the worldview that humans are inherently good. It cannot be the fault of humans being bad. Thus it must be the fault of guns, or alcohol, or drugs. If these things did not exist, the evil acts would not occur, as the inanimate object would not drive people to commit evil acts.

Thus instead of expressing anger and hatred for the certain humans, people transfer that anger and hatred to the inanimate object. In this case, the gun.

[PavePusher]

33. And often to the totally innocent owner.

But hat tip for awesome comment of the day!

[cleanhippie]

27. Considering the noticable lack of response from our usual suspects, I think that your "unreasoning"

point is exactly the answer you are looking for. It IS unreasonable to think that guns are the problem.

One here will tell you repeatedly, that is is the "access to guns and ammo that embolden criminals", as if there were no guns, there would be no crime.
Others will post stories of accidental shootings, or fabricate stories of an ak-47 wielding madman with a scanner shooting up Idaho, or other tragic, but anecdotal story that has no bearing on the reality of the situation.

When presented with facts such as a reduction in crime to its lowest levels in decades while gun ownership is at an all time high, we hear crickets, much like you do now.

No, you answered your own question, my friend, its is the lack of reason that drives them crazy, because they just cannot seem to reconcile the fact that their rhetoric does not match reality, even though they believe it to be the case.

[Texasborncowboy]

29. This can be an emotional subject.

I am amazed when I read a post that states "I hate guns". Worse is when they state that they hate people who carry/own guns.

I have no problem with people hating someone who misuses a gun, however I find it insulting when they hate on lawful gun owners. And even stranger when they hate an inanimate object.

A gun saved myself and my wife from being victims of a violent criminal.

"I freaking hate guns."

from:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x355718

Do a search of DU for the phrase "I hate guns" and you will find thousands.

[spin]

42. Welcome to DU (n/t)

[Hoopla Phil]

30. That is a good question. Case in point.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x346796#346843

[safeinOhio]

31. I find it hard to reason with

anyone that calls my President an "authoritarian extremist". Be it about guns, race or war.

[RSillsbee]

60. Speaking of flame bait...

Can I assume you're answering from an "I hate guns" POV?

[markfall]

37. Pure emotional bull crap

In my experience, those that have a irrational dislike of firearms are using emotional reasons to justify their position. Emotions have no place in something as serious as the world of firearms.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[spin]

44. I own firearms and enjoy shooting ...

but they don't evoke any "raw emotions" in me.

They are inanimate objects, merely tools.

[Pavulon]

56. My side has statistical evidence and two supreme court cases

so that trumps feelings. Its a right, its here to stay. The other side can decide how it wants to proceed in limiting and taking away a right..

[spin]

43. Welcome to DU. (n/t)

[Tuesday Afternoon]

51. taking a stab at this ... compare a gun to art

and the emotions that any art work can convey. I guess to some people the connotation of a gun evokes a visceral reaction of fear and loathing no matter how fine the craftsmanship.

[RSillsbee]

59. I think you have gotten as close to a real answer

as we're ever likely to see on this forum

[spin]

62. Firearms can be artwork ...

[Tuesday Afternoon]

64. yes, I agree and perhaps you and I see a wonderful work of art but, perhaps

someone else feels repelled by them. Has nothing to do with laws and such.

[Katya Mullethov]

66. This afternoons' bit of sculpting

[PavePusher]

67. Granted that one mans' "art" is anothers trash...

that's not justification to ban or restrict the "trash".

[Tuesday Afternoon]

69. I never said it was. n/t

[RSillsbee]

71. I'm sorry

I am a gun guy but those gold plated NRA pimp gun monstrosities do not qualify as "art" in my book. Neither do leopard print desert eagles.

You are more than welcome to buy all of them you want though

[Tuesday Afternoon]

72. pretty kitschy, yeah

like Thomas Kincade vs Monet, par exemple

[RSillsbee]

74. It's more like taking a Monet

and painting a mustache on it. Those guns cost 1000$+ and the first time you pull the trigger they become worthless

[Tuesday Afternoon]

75. hmmm...

not sure what point you are trying to make with me.

:shrug:

really not sure that you meant to reply to me as I was not the one who posted the pictures of the guns.

[RSillsbee]

76. You're right

my apologies. Although the "Monet" response was directed to you

[Tuesday Afternoon]

77. again, I am not sure what you meant by it.

perhaps we have different tastes in guns as well as art :shrug:

I guess this just drives home my original point.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

91. ok got it... we are in agreement on those guns aesthetically. They are not

appealing to me either.

[MicaelS]

80. Yup, never have seen the appeal

Of guns that are gold / silver plated, or engraved. Owning a gun you can never shoot always seemed pointless. If you simply cycle the action, or dry fire them, they lose value.

[spin]

78. I do not own any collectors firearms ... my firearms are users not safe queens.

But careful investing in firearms could have easily outperformed the stock market in recent years.

I should clarify that I do own one firearm which could have been a collectors firearm, a 1911 Colt 45 European Theater of Operations Commemorative Model. It had been fired when I inherited it. Realizing that it has lost any collector value I enjoy shooting it.

Surprisingly, it's extremely accurate and feeds hollowpoints without any problems.



edited to mention the Colt 45 auto

[Euromutt]

109. Or, indeed, historical artefacts

I have a close friend whom I met in college, while we were taking a course on Russian history and culture. He owns guns that have a history, such as a Winchester 1894 saddle ring carbine made in 1918 which his grandfather used to put food on the table during the Depression; a Soviet Mosin-Nagant M.1891/30 rifle, made in Izhevsk in 1943; and a Soviet Nagant M.1895 revolver, made in Tula in 1934 (which I gave him as a present). I myself have an interest in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, and own an M1959/66 carbine (aka a "Yugo SKS"), and I'd love to pick up a Yugoslav M48 Mauser.

The Nagant revolver is also interesting as a curiosity of firearms engineering, because of the ludicrously complex mechanism intended to make it more efficient (which it failed to do). As such, it's an artefact not only of military history, but also of firearms design history.

Of course, old military weapons may have a chequered history (especially when they're from repressive regimes like the Soviet Union under Stalin) and even if the specific example doesn't (I suspect my M1959/66 spent most of its service life in a Territorial Defense armory in Serbia, rather than, say, being carried by some chetnik in the siege of Sarajevo), it symbolizes not only the good ends but also the bad ones to which that model has been put. A Soviet rifle might have been used to drive the Nazis out of Hungary or the Japanese out of Manchuria, or it might have been used by camp guards in the Gulag. An M1 carbine supplied to South Korea might have been used to repel North Korean troops on the Pusan Perimeter, or to shoot protestors against Syngman Rhee's rigged re-election in 1960. As such, what the weapon symbolizes can certainly evoke emotions, and not unreasonably so.

[Katya Mullethov]

89. It aint about guns

They hate you .

[spin]

93. The strange thing is that I own guns and I don't hate anyone. (n/t)

[Kennah]

98. I own guns, and I hate the Tan Man

[Katya Mullethov]

104. Is that like the Tan Klan ?

Or the Fashionably tan practice bat lashin' dude ?

[rrneck]

92. I always try to remember

that everybody has a story. Some people may hate guns because they or someone they know was a victim of gun violence or an accident involving a gun.

Most are victims of ignorance.

Some are just jerks.

[Kennah]

99. If you want divisive ...

... venture over to THR and tell 'em you voted for a Democrat, in any race, any state, anywhere.

You'll quickly be treated to unreasoning hatred.

[jazzhound]

105. Perhaps another point that could be made is the false

dichotomy relating to guns and a peaceful disposition.

In the minds of many progressives, it seems as though you can't be a gun owner without being of an aggressive, violent or cold disposition. A passive disposition and gun ownership being mutually exclusive.

Yet the same "progressives" who hold to this sentiment would rail quickly and loudly against those who promote the Christians = Good / Agnostics and Atheists = Bad attitude held by some of those on the right.

The hypocrisy of some "progressives" on the issue of the RKBA is both extreme and multi-faceted. A hypocrisy that reveals itself in this discussion forum on an almost daily basis. Keep practicing it to the extreme detriment of the Democratic Party!

[Katya Mullethov]

111. Would he have anything to add

On the ever so clever term , " Gungeon" ? Dungeons are dark scary places you never want to see because they will wind your guts up on a pole , with slime and rot and rats and snot and vomit lying on the floor . And you sure left a trail of gore in this thread friend .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGh2mRLE1O0

[jazzhound]

114. More on the subject of hate........

I'm beginning to read "Under the Gun" -- a book by Kathleen Daly, James Wright and Peter Rossi. (1983) By it's own description, the work does not set out to reveal new data or submit new arguments.......but rather intends to objectively review the data on guns & violence. The conclusion of Chapter Six -- Characteristics of Private Weapons Owners is instructive: (pages 121 & 122)

CONCLUSIONS: THE "TYPICAL" GUN OWNER

We were once again proven a savage, uncontrollable, unpredictable, gun-ridden, and murderous people...

Robert Coles, commenting on Charles Whitman's slaying at the University of Texas.

Could any response be more American than that of the two New York youths who shot and killed a storekeeper because they asked for apple pie and he had offered them Danish pastry instead? Or the husband who shot and killed his wife for being thoughtless enough to run out of gas on the way home?

Rober Herrill, in The Saturday Nite Special, p.5.

In the popular literature on guns (and even in much of the scholarly literature), the "typical" private weapons owner is often depicted as a virtual psychopath --- unstable, violent, dangerous. The empirical research reviewed in this chapter leads to a sharply different portrait. The key findings are described below.

Most private weaponry is possessed for reasons of sport and recreation; sport guns apparently outnumber defensive guns by roughly three to one. The uses of weaponry for sport are correlated with city size, but not perfectly; large numbers of sport users can be found even in the largest central cities. Relative to nonowners, gun owners are disproportionally rural, Southern, male, Protestant, affluent, and middle class. Most adult weapons owners were socialized into the ownership and use of weapons during their early childhood and thus have experience in the use of weaponry spanning virtually the whole of their lives. There is no evidence suggesting them to be an especially unstable or violent or maladapted lot; their "personality profiles" are largely indistinct from the rest of the population. (emphasis mine)

****************************************

I suppose we can disregard what these criminologists have to say. After all, everyone know how biased liberals are in favor of gun rights.

:sarcasm:

[old mark]

115. Some feel it is their "duty" as a progressive to hate guns/gun owners...

I suspect much of this came from teh hippie "peace and love" thing in the '60's that got mixed in with left politics. It is interesting that many of the hard leftists in the old days advocarted guns for Liberals as means to defend their homes and faimiles against the police and private gangs of thugs who oppressed leftist dissenters around the turn of the 20th century, and well into the labor movement and depression ending with WWII.

The idea that gun ownership/advocacy is strictly a liberal thing is propaganda fostered by the right - they use it to peersuade many voters to vote against every Democrat in fear of "confiscation", "gun grabbing", etc...When they point to the gun controp plank in the current Democratic platform or hear ANY Democrat speaking for increased "gun control", it simply adds fuel to that fire.

I live in a strongly Democratic county in PA, and there is a huge number of people here who are licensed to carry firearms by the State of PA, myself included...Many many Democrats do so.

It SHOULD NOT be seen as a "right-left" issue...many of us have been trying for years to slowly disabuse the RWers of that idea, to find our work sabotaged by screaming anti-gun people on the left.

If you are so against guns, by all means don't own one, but don't deny MY RIGHT to choose for myself.


mark