Is it illegal to not carry a gun? If not, what’s the comparison with seat belts for. The two things really don’t compare well. There is a need to comply with law and wear a seat belt if you want to live after driving. There is not a need per se to carry a gun, is there? You do it because you want to or else why?
7 Likes
Wearing a seat belt poses no risk. Walking around with a portable killing machine increases the risk for you, and everyone around you. This is born out by the stats.
Plus, you didn’t answer my question. Why do you imagine you will need it?
18 Likes
…Speaking as someone that is pretty pro-gun, a firearm is not in any way a safety device, except maybe in a warzone, and even then only if you’re trained in its use and maintenance and tactical usage and so on and so forth.
A seatbelt… Goes “click”, it’s almost impossible to get wrong, and everyone knows how to use one with no more than about 2 seconds of observing its use by someone else.
18 Likes
The Pink Pistols have a chapter in Albuquerque, but I have no idea how close that is to where she lived. They could have helped with better training 
2 Likes
When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.
10 Likes
If you’re going to buy a portable killing machine, you might as well buy it in whatever colour you like.
Wanting to own a portable killing machine - even if the colour selection is as broad as the Model T Ford’s - is the relevant part, IMO.
That’s why I’m very unlikely to ever allow a gun in my home. I may be in reasonably good mental health now, but
- my own suicide risk isn’t so very low I would just casually double or triple it
- I can’t predict my entire life course of mental health
- I certainly can’t predict the entire life course of mental health of every member of my household, including any unborn heirs who might end up with a gun through no action of their own
15 Likes
One of the biggest fears for white gun owners are black gun owners…
12 Likes
2 Likes
I work with a guy who lives in the rural wilds of central Wisconsin (we are all remote workers). I mean it’s literally a 2+ hour drive to a proper airport for him.
He’s a gun owner (despite having young kids, one of whom has learning difficulties). Nice guy, but often steers the conversation to how “gang members from Chicago” have been spotted in his town planning home invasions.
I think it’s vanishingly unlikely that “gang members” would drive 3-4 hours into the woods looking for some skillets and TVs to steal. I remain convinced that a couple of black students from UW were passing through once on the way to go hiking somewhere and that’s been the rationale for everyone in town buying ammo ever since.
31 Likes
Buys a gun, and then asks for safety pointers? Yeah, I wouldn’t feel confident about that either.
If only there were some gun owners association that promoted the idea of talking serious gun safety courses before buying one…
10 Likes
I think this proves my point about guns: guns make people stupid.
4 Likes
I respectfully disagree. People are stupid. Guns make them dangerous.
19 Likes
Well, either that or maybe women doing stupid things with guns. This reminds me of an episode of Bojack Horseman that ends with California finally banning guns once one of the incessant mass shootings is committed by a woman, shocking the nation, leading to a statement at a congressional hearing that “even one death from the bullet of a female gun owner is too many.”
9 Likes
Exactly.
Owning a gun only makes sense when the outside risk probability of threats that a gun may protect you from are higher than the risk probability of ownership. ( Which people consistently underestimate )
If I was in a warzone, or camping with Grizzlies, or in a line of work like armed guard I would need one. Otherwise, keep that mess away from me.
11 Likes
When you have a nuclear arsenal, you are either thinking of obliterating another nation-state, or another nation-state obliterating you.
Like methamphetamine, which can convince people they can be president with enough of the drug, nuclear weapons can make people think they are invincible. Destroying all tactical judgement.
It may shock some people, but a moron has been given nuclear arms, and now we have a moron with nuclear arms.
I know we all know how bad it is, but oh my god it’s fucking bad.
That’s the color of the metaphysical being the product is intended to be used to transform humans into.
1 Like
Cruces and Albuquerque are 225 miles apart. It’s only a 3+ hour drive, but you don’t do it unless you have a darn good reason.
And what between the two? So little the US government decided detonate the first nuke about midway between the two.
There are also a couple nice towns and some (believe it or not) beautiful wetlands.
4 Likes
Man i haven’t seen that show in forever
A gun is a tool. A powerful, dangerous tool. Would you go to sleep with a plugged-in circular saw under your pillow? Leave it on the kitchen table where kids could play with it? Attempt to operate it in the middle of the night while still half-asleep?
No.
And a circular saw isn’t half as dangerous as a gun, with its range and ability to ignore home drywall.
sigh
19 Likes
‘I know how good a gun feels. It makes you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, 3 meters tall and covered with hair. You’re ready for anything and kind of hoping you’ll find it. Which is exactly what is dangerous about it—because you aren’t anything of the sort. You are a feeble, hairless embryo, remarkably easy to kill. You could carry an assault gun with 2,000 meters precision range and isotope charges that will blow up a hill, but you would not have eyes in the back of your head like a janus bird, nor be able to see in the dark like the Thetis pygmies. Death can cuddle up behind you while you’re drawing a bead on something in front.’
-Robert Heinlein, Tunnel In The Sky
11 Likes
IIRC this is the reason California has strict gun laws, and they were signed into law by (drumroll)… Ronald Reagan
7 Likes
