Maybe they should get a gun to protect themselves from these violent jerks.
In college I knew someone who carried a small gun some years after a sexual attack, mostly for backpacking. She was confronted by a frat-boy type claiming that feminist women should be unarmed because a man could take it away and threaten her life with it.
Her position was that for her case she wanted something to even the odds if she were ever attacked again but mostly it was to empower her to again go out in wilderness.
In the western world a swimming pool is far more dangerous to a person than a gun.
Misogynists gonna Misogynize, douches gonna douche, people on the internet will attack on any topic that strikes their fancy, just look at youtube comments.
The activist in question does have a gun, and remains a Second Amendment supporter even after a gun-wielding criminal paralyzed her. That’s the most insane thing of all: you’d think the gun nuts would be propping her up as a poster child for their cause instead of spitting on her in public, threatening her with rape and coming to her home at night to scare her witless with assault rifles.
There may be plenty of reasonable gun owners out there, but they sure aren’t the ones steering the public conversation.
OK… so any movement has it’s share of trolls. I think we all knew that.
Does the fact that every side has fringe assholes mean that their position is automatically wrong? Seems like a flawed argument.
I think if you re-read the OP you’ll see that your argument here is a straw man.
I’d really like to hear @moneta_mace’s response to your eloquent post. And, by the way, thank you for your enlightening post.
The problem is that the reasonable people are never involved in most political conversations; it’s always extremists vs. extremists. No one else is sufficiently motivated. There are about 90 guns per 100 people in the U.S., with about 100 million gun owners. A few dozen wackadoodles does not represent the general population.
That’s not an ideal comparison for a number of reasons. For example:
- Relatively few people are murdered with pools.
- Even if you were to commit a pool-based murder, you’d be hard-pressed to kill a large number of people at once.
- Gauging risk by number of deaths per pool to number of deaths per gun is misleading, because few people own a large collection of pools. A more reasonable risk assessment might compare deaths of people who had access to one or more pools vs. deaths of people who had access to one or more guns.
- Pools aren’t mobile or concealable, thus I can keep myself and my family away from pools if I don’t want to assume that risk.
I just read the entire story. Wow. The intimidation and use of the internet to attack people is really out of control.
One of the reasons that Mothers Against Drunk Driving was successful was that they helped develop a cultural shift in thinking. Of course they were attacked by the “spirits” industry. The weapons industry use not only psychology and marketing to manipulate people, but also they incorporate their understanding of the constitution. It is a potent combination.
The group that would be needed to rein in the harassers needs to come from inside the ranks of the people who want to maintain the current situation. But they will not. However they can use some psychology on the people who are doing the harassing.
“Wow. Harassing a woman in a wheelchair, not cool dude, not cool.”
I’m becoming exhausted by all of this- the knee jerk reaction to threatening women with violence and rape when they express their thoughts- from guns to comics to video games, because it isn’t just about silencing the one woman who spoke up it’s a larger message to all women to keep your mouth shut. I’m tired of the bullies who hide behind anonymous posts and the thugs who believe that their right to own and use a gun supersedes my right to not be injured or killed or intimidated by it.
There are also a lot of laws and codes that come with pool ownership…
If I want to add a pool to my backyard, I need to make sure that there is adequate fencing, that gates meet specs, that doors leading to pool are alarmed, etc. If I want a gun, I just go to walmart and get it – I can then leave it loaded on my coffee table.
Did you read the article? Longdon IS the reasonable person. She supports gun rights (even after being paralyzed by a gun-wielding criminal) but doesn’t think any random psycho should be able to buy dangerous weapons on a whim. For that she was called an “extremist” (and much worse), spit on, stalked, harassed and threatened with rape and murder.
You must live in an interesting state. In my state, I’m subject to over 2000 federal, state and local laws and ordinances that govern gun ownership.
They can’t, unless they do so illegally. If they are doing it illegally, laws don’t matter.
Do any of them preclude the following?
If I want a gun, I just go to walmart and get it -- I can then leave it loaded on my coffee table.
Yes, of course. In my state, for a rifle, I need to get a firearms permit first; I need a psychiatric and criminal background check, and to place my fingerprints on file. For a handgun, it takes months to get a permit. I can’t even buy ammunition without a firearms permit.
Of course, that’s all applicable to those that follow the law. A criminal just needs $500 and they get a gun same day.
I disagree, but we’re getting off the original topic.
Do you really think Longdon is an “extremist” for her support of certain gun regulations? If so then it’s hard to imagine what your idea of a “non-extremist” would look like. If not, then it kind of undercuts your earlier “it’s always extremists vs. extremists” statement.
These paranoid fringe cases are both the cause of, and solution to, a lot of the shooting sports industry’s problems. They’re regular customers, buy a lot of guns and ammo, and magazines, so the manufacturers don’t want to piss them off, but they are really unpleasant and tend to be loudmouthed, obnoxious manchildren.
They’ve always been there. Give those of us who hunt and shoot responsibly a bad name. The Internet has just given them a far bigger platform to shout from, rather than just offending people at the local range.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to shut them down short of having them arrested for death threats…
If the call was for nationwide uniform gun laws, or for mandatory gun education, I would see that as moderate and reasonable. Adding additional regulation to legal gun owners - who are already under an onerous burden - is extremist in it’s lack of understanding. No matter how many laws are added, those with criminal intent are not impacted (by definition).
It’s like adding additional items to the FBI warning at the beginning of a DVD that you have legally purchased. “You must stand on your head and spin around three times before you can watch this DVD legally.” Those that pirate are not impacted.
