in the hands of anyone not working for the government

I'd like to see something other than "open carry". I really would like to learn more about the gun control pov.

I don't like violence either. Put what people like you and I have is a philosophical difference. I think your argument would be that firearms help make violence easier. Even if I agreed with your argument, I'd have a hard time getting over global data that at least in some respects suggests that gun control is "the answer."

How do we move past that?

Last edited Thu May 19, 2016, 06:08 AM - Edit history (1)

Do you hate his choice to die, the gun or the method he chose to kill himself?

You want the truth? The truth is, there IS a characteristic of gun culture that bothers them like no other, and it is the reason for their culture war:

Gun culture has the size and strength to tell them "fuck no" AND make it stick legislatively.

I always enjoy your posts and tend to agree with you. But unfortunately your statement isn't always the case in the United States. Look at Hawaii, NY, MD, NJ, and several other states that have more or less fundamentally opposed liberalized gun rights at least by slight majorities.

Times change, most folks change with them. A few holdouts inevitable need to be, as sharesunited would often loudly proclaim, "dragged kicking and screaming into modernity".

Those states know that this applies to them sooner or later:

"Legislators have to stop trying to be too cute by half with regulations"

Thank you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_on_the_Hudson

The Robin Williams movie where he is a defector from the USSR who comes to live in Manhattan.

Excellent movie.

Best scene is later on, where he is used to living in the US, but there is something about his old life he actually misses.

Turns out, it is misery that he misses. Excellent soliloquy where he describes how sometimes misery was the only thing he had,

Fear. There is a segment of modern American society who spends their entire lives managing fear.

Various sources of fear, various levels, various intensities, various reactions, but the fear is always there.

For these people, the only true, definitive source of 'non fear' is a uniformed officer. A cop. Carrying a gun.

When the cop leaves, fear returns.

Armed civilians ruin that paradigm. It's like Robin WIlliams' character in the supermarket in Manhattan with products all around.

The sweeping nature of moral condemnation and distasteful caricature used to stereotype tens of millions of "others" goes to a fundamental fear on the scale of a racism. The casualness when expressing these hatreds suggests a legitimazation.

Going back to the earlier days of gun-control at the end of the 1960s and for several years thereafter, much of the talk was truly mean-spirited. And that talk wasn't the scrawlings on a bathroom wall, but the considered "opinion" of journalists, daily news cartoonists, politicians, academicians, and other "opinion-makers." This set a tone early-on for legitimizing inflammatory dialog which persists to this day. Said another way, what fan of the racism of Theodor Bilbo would turn down a free-pass to bark anything you want without fear of community retribution?

We come to the present when the older "order" of mass media legitimacy which encouraged this animosity is in collapse. The language persists in cartoons, late-night, and on some blog sites, and here. But the old hope of another massive social change on par with the Civil Rights Era, feminism, GLBTQ rights, even environmental awareness, has been lost. The enemy is truly us, and in massive numbers, but the old ways of behaving still persist.

In a sense, it is these early elitist and well-positioned banners who can best answer the question. They set the template.

Is a constitutionally protected right drives the controllers crazy. Although many of them really don't care about that fact and are more than willing to trample on this part of the Constitution.

On much more than one Amendment-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=193711

That so-called "progressives" are willing to ignore the Constitution if it advances their personal view of how the world ought to be, freedom and the rule of law be damned.

someone who firmly believes in the right to self defense against threats to person or property, even if that involves terminating the existence of someone who in actuality is a victim of the same damn system I am trying to change as a progressive, I find myself VERY uncomfortable with the 'gun culture.

I'm a second generation San Franciscian, much more at home at the opera or an art gallery than a stock car race or country music concert, a Bernie supporter and hardly even know many Republicans. I quit the NRA after a complimentary free year after purchasing my .357.

The gun culture, I think, is fundamentally based on Christianity- as interpreted by the worst elements of that as distilled by the Evangelical movement that looks towards an 'end of times'. It is a patriarchal, fire and brimstone mental construct that still uses race and class identification, even if many POC have embraced the theological teachings through sheer indoctrination. It is based on insecurity, hatred of the 'other' and a tribal nationalist religious based insularity.

So I am NOT a 'gun control' advocate except in the sense of supporting background checks and a requirement to demonstrate proficiency and understand of safe handling. Gun control advocates do not understand that they are NOT trusted for good reason- more than once guns that WERE legal when registered were later declared illegal and required to be turned in (I know as a friend had to do so with an SKS here in California), so the paranoia and distrust have been somewhat earned.

Having zero desire to ever use a firearm against another human but I will if someone is threatening me or my family with violence, and no interest in shooting someone over mere property *but* I have to assume that someone trying to kick in a door or otherwise attacking my property would also be capable of doing me harm, at which point I believe that I have the right of self defense.

So I sort of see both sides. Loath the culture as representative of, indeed even a distillation of everything that can make one ashamed to be an American when talking to people in Europe but not willing to even acknowledge as anything other than idiocy those who would say that self defense is anything other than justified

I view my firearms much as I do my car's airbag or fire insurance policy, I will be very happy if never used (obvious exception of occasional practice to maintain proficiency).

...something that as of yet has no specific definition.

You are careful to exclude yourself from certain elements of culture "stock car race or country music" but neither of these things are part of the 'gun culture.' They are working class entertainment, not shooting sports.

As a corollary, how do you know that at an "opera or an art gallery" there are no concealed carriers? These two pursuits are not necessary exclusive of the 'gun culture' mind you.

I like to hike, to run my model trains, and to work on my house. Am I part of the 'gun culture' based on these activities?

I don't think you could tell either way.

Do I own a firearm, like you do? Yes. Hunt? No. Carry for self defense? Yes, occasionally.

Do the interests of other gun owners/CCW licensees relate to my self interests? Yes, they do. If I travel out of state, the pro-gun landscape (reciprocity/non-resident licenses, etc) that has evolved since the 1990s benefits me. Heller and McDonald benefit me. Carry in National Parks benefits me.

I am not a redneck, if that is what you are implying. I am originally from a major, very anti-gun city as well.

That does not mean I am not part of the gun culture in America.

BTW the rest of your post is excellent.

I guess, to be plainer, that "working class culture" is something that I have worked hard to distance myself from. The rest of the post is the 'why', or perhaps more of an explication of what I find about it that makes me uncomfortable: I HATE sports (competition of any sort except against myself), religion (in any form, format or degree), most of what passes for 'patriotism' (flags, parades, any sort of foreign involvement) and really wish that America was a lot more like Europe in a lot of ways. I certainly HOPE that there were concealed carriers at a given opera or art gallery, as I tried to say, the post was about what parts of 'gun culture' do you dislike; I think we are both kind of trying to define *that* first, it could mean one thing to you and another to me.
Interestingly, I've had *ZERO* flak for either an Obama or Bernie sticker at any shooting range.

Thanks for your kind comments, it's a difficult subject.

I agree that Heller and McDonald benefit me, I would like to see a national 'Shall Issue' law, with ONLY very specific subsets denied the right to possess pretty much damn near anything. I've been involved in left leaning activism since working for McGovern, so I feel no need to give a shit about what any anti RKBA person thinks about my position on firearms.

....that firearms ownership is in any way naturally and organically related to any particular socio-economic, educational, cultural or any other strata in American society. Historically, the shooting sports have been the domain, mostly, of an upscale, leisured class. Kind of like golf with bullets.

I believe that those who would oppose the ownership or carrying of firearms have made every attempt to denigrate, to diminish, to lower the societal opinion towards gun owners.

They do this in order to create a 'superior, more enlightened' level of society which looks down on RKBA.

By enlisting the so-called 'elite' in an anti-gun outlook, gun owners are labeled as rednecks, rubes, the paranoid, gun nuts, etc. etc.

And yes, to a great extent, it has worked...

Except for the military, any organization I have been involved in (mostly corporate or educational) the higher you go in the structure, the fewer gun owners there are.

From a geographic perspective, the sparser the population, the denser the (legal) gun ownership becomes.

However, conflating gun ownership/culture with being hopelessly rural, backward, etc. is a recent, artificial construct.

Hunting has gone from an upscale pursuit to one dominated by the working class. Collecting firearms by the wealthy has been re-labeled as 'hoarding' or 'stocking up' which is an act of the uneducated and possible racist.

"working class culture is something that I have worked hard to distance myself from"

I'm not sure it is necessary to distance one's self from such a large group of hard working people.

I always avoided, as much as possible, becoming involved in my kid's sports games. However, school age sports are supported just as vigorously in upscale suburban communities as in working class areas. Religion is not, in my opinion, more prevalent in working class areas as in upscale areas, nor is an outward display of patriotism.

If you are going to a shooting range, you are part of the gun culture. That does not mean you are of any particular socio-economic, educational or cultural strata in society, or that you are also required to go yell at a sports game, attend church, or wave a flag.

I agree completely with your views on 'shall issue' and as I have said on this website, I want to live long enough to see New York City a shall-issue jurisdiction for concealed carry.