Charlton Heston - From My Cold, Dead Hands!
Is he cold and dead yet!
I wish gun advocates would stop trying to use these utility defenses and fall back on the “guns are awesome bits of engineering, and firing them is a blast! (when done in controlled environments and with proper safety precautions).”
I have some firearms in the house. They are not for personal defense. They’re for taking to the range and enjoying. I can’t imagine ever turning a firearm on another person, regardless of the situation.
Personally, I advocate for community ownership of firearms.
While I hate guns and hate the gun lobby, I have to say this is nowhere near what anyone is actually saying. Saying we want guns to protect ourselves in case we need them is far from “we are statistically justified because the world is such a dangerous place.”
We would make it further in hot button debates if everyone on both sides would stop and listen to what they other side is actually saying.
And yes I’m well aware someone will now find one quote where some idiot contradicts what I just said, further proving my point.
Although not as cool a machine for playing with hot lead as a Linotype machine.,…
I am watching.
I’m not sure what any organization’s “statistical” claims in this are. I think the point is more that this is what many, many private citizens believe and will tell you. I don’t know if these are talking points that trickle down or just phenomena.
I can’t imagine ever turning a firearm on another person, regardless of the situation.
Really? I don’t own a gun, but I can think of situations where I would kill another person.
Oh…. I don’t know. I’ve got a tactical shotgun setup (ya know, for when the government comes for my civil liberties. Or home invasion or zombies or something…) that is pretty damned fun. Buzzy, endorphin kind of fun that makes you yell F Yeah! and such.
What can I say? Im a simple man.
Oh, sure, I can invent situations, but they all exist so far outside of any life experience I’ve had, I doubt I’d accomplish anything- I wouldn’t have the capacity to act.
In the real world there are only two ways to decrease accidental gun deaths.
Method One: Educate people in the correct and safe use and storage of firearms.
Method Two: Begin a bloody campaign of extermination of gun owners, slaughtering them wholesale in the name of ending accidental gun deaths. In the end you’ll have a disarmed populace and exactly zero police left unwilling to kill citizens in the name of public order.
There are lots of methods that won’t work - for example, you can live in a fantasy world where people will willingly give up their guns because you’ve made an argument that’s convincing to Cali Libruls, or legislators can make laws aimed at preventing the use and sale of guns. Guaranteed failure on both of those, at least in the USA.
Tell me another option that will work. I’m listening. Maybe I’m wrong about this, eh?
PS: I totally love the Yosemite Sam rootin’ tootin’ saloon’n’spitoon clip. Well done!
I do not own a gun, but having shot one on a few occasions, I can completely see the appeal; shooting them is super fun, the same way that setting off explosions or fireworks is fun. I wish that more gun owners would admit this, rather than fall back on partisan politics to justify their firearms.
I think if I’m ever in a situation where I could possibly need a gun, that it wouldn’t do me any good to have one.
In many European countries you can own guns for sports or hunting. I know in the country I live in this is controlled by some strict rules. These rules dictate what types of guns are allowed, how many ammo you can own (in the Netherlands, for instance, ammo is stored at the shooting range, not in your home. Only hunters are allowed a small amount of ammo), what police checks you need to pass before getting a license, etc. This results in very low amount of gun related accidents.
I don’t think “pure fantasy” is accurate. I think the problem is that the stats aren’t tracked. The American Rifleman will have about a dozen documented examples of guns being used in defense every month. Surely these aren’t the only ones. I personally know someone who used a gun in defense. He’s lucky he’s alive, scary stuff.
There is also the issue of how many times guns are brandished, ending a confrontation, and people go their separate ways and no police reports are filed. There is a lot of anecdotal data out there an no one has made a lot of effort to figure out the reality of the matter. There has been some grassroots movements to track the who what when and where of police killings, I’d like to see a similar thing for guns being used in defense.
FWIW accidents where you don’t properly ID what you are shooting at violates one of the 4 cardinal rules of gun handling. Accidents still account for a small number of gun deaths overall.
Go on, let’s say, Pinterest and search for something like “gun control” or “gun ownership” or something like that and you will find the “guns are used bajillions of times to save lives every year” statement a lot of times. So, yeah, pro-gun people are in fact using this statistic. At the very least, this statistic is influencing people’s views on guns.
The article uses some basic statistics and common sense to bust the myth that guns are used more often for self-defense than for crime.
It claims “gun owners are far more likely to end up […] accidentally shooting an innocent person or seeing their weapons harm a family member”, but offers no evidence for that claim.
As far as I can tell that’s it. That’s all the article says. It doesn’t actually offer any evidence one way or the other as to whether defensive gun ownership is good or bad.
Yes. It is super fun. EVERYONE loves shooting. Maybe not guns, but taking an object and accurately putting it somewhere else, whether that be a bullet, an arrow, a rock, a basket ball - is one of the most primal rushes people can get. I imagine it stems from our primitive ancestors being able to score a kill meaning them and their kin are going to eat well tonight. Most of our sports involve taking an object like a ball and smacking or throwing it somewhere. “Good shot!” goes the cry!
I honestly am turned off more and more by the defense drum. Yes it is a valid use and some people need it. But most guns when they are actually USED are used in sport and recreation and are done so in a safe manner.
I think too many supporters use the defense defense because it’s hard to argue you don’t have the right to protect yourself and your loved ones.
Ooh boy, this is gonna get ugly.
All I’m gonna say is: I’m really happy with the Finnish gun regulation and our lack of violent crime (correlation =/= causation, yeah yeah all that, not making any scientific claims here). I can’t, as an outsider, understand the American relationship with gun ownership, so I’m just not gonna even try to make sense of this endless discussion. It just always saddens me. Because I know in the end, people just want a safer world, but disagree on how to achieve that.
