Are you considering purchasing a gun?

please note that this is more about the act of purchasing a new/used gun than it is about general gun ownership, hence lack of "I used to own a gun but I got rid of it" options

I can't see it doing me much good, and I've read too many horror stories about kids + guns to ever feel comfortable having one in the same house with children, so no.

If lived out in the boonies and it was just me and my wife? probably.

November 9th was the first time in my adult life that I ever gave any serious consideration to the thought of buying a gun. That's where we are now, I guess.

i don't really want a gun at all, even if extreme precautions are taken the idea of my kids finding a gun and playing with it scares the shit out of me, it happens often enough that it is something i strenuously want to avoid and not owning a gun is the easiest way

xp outic otm

my brother-in-law keeps a shotgun in the house but has no ammunition, for protection in the case of a break-in the threat of a shotgun is pretty strong so i can see the logic in that.

it hasn't crossed my mind honestly

One of the first sentences my wife said to me on November 9 was "I want to buy a gun." I had already had the exact same thought.

Probably will not do it as long as we live in NYC because (1) license is very expensive and hard to get here (2) not sure my apartment has a good place to secure a gun and (3) gun as home defense in an apartment seems like a big risk of just harming your neighbors (on top of the already present risk of harming family). I also imagine that btw licensing, training, the gun and some sort of gun safe I'd be looking at a couple thousand dollar investment.

Still considering it though.

I have been considering a gun purchase since June

I thought about it very, very briefly in the days after the election, and mentioned to my wife, even acknowledging at the time that it was fear-driven and irrational. And that the most likely outcome of having a gun in the house would be me harming myself with it, either through incompetence or when experiencing low points in my depression. We both decided it would not be a good idea.

I also acknowledge that as a married white middle-class male, I am not one of the ones who needs to be afraid enough to buy a firearm. But if any of the African-American or Latino families in my neighborhood have bought one since 11/9, I would neither be surprised nor would I think it was a bad idea.

well really to be more accurate I've been considering purchasing a gun since the death of Eric Garner but I did't start talking about it until June

I think the country is absolutely becoming a more dangerous place but I don't think owning a gun ultimately makes your life safer, so no, until the government actually collapses I'm never touching a gun

and djp - especially w/r/t state condoned violence, possessing a gun *definitely* doesn't make your life safer

thank you for the patronizing advice

The gun I currently own is actually my wife's, a pistol which she purchased years ago when living by herself. She had stored it with her parents until we had a reason to be concerned that they could not safely keep it, at which point we retrieved it and brought it into our home. We benefit, at this point, from not owning any ammunition for said gun.

I have wanted more guns for years, the desire for which falls into the following two categories:

1.) I have often dreamt of taking up hunting, which would require a gun, but have not been able to take this dream seriously enough to go through with buying one.

2.) During the past several years, I've been disturbed as I watched conservatives who were wildly out-of-touch with reality stockpiling guns at every opportunity. It has occurred to me that they are now the ones who are incredibly well-armed. There is a seriously lack of balance in this regard in America. My head keeps playing out worst case scenarios to our national nightmare. God knows what is going to happen? My wife is more gung ho than I about having a gun for protection, and brought up her desire to have another gun on November 9. I still do not at this moment think I will buy another gun for this purpose, but the consideration is becoming more serious.

My mother has a safe full of my dad's guns that I can have my choice of if I want, but I don't want. Ideally there'd be some gun buyback program where I could decommission them at a profit. A small part of me wants my mother to sell them and split the proceeds with her kids, but the guns are safer right where they are, out of anybody's hands.

I also imagine that btw licensing, training, the gun and some sort of gun safe I'd be looking at a couple thousand dollar investment.

In addition to the general truth that guns actually decrease a family's safety, this has been the major impediment for me. I have home repairs that need to be done that I can't afford.

everybody's situation is different but for me personally and in the neighborhood where i live i think i would be much better served and protected by getting to know my neighbors and having them get to know me and my family

my fiancee would leave me if i bought a gun, so no

also the sheer thought of holding a gun is terrifying to me

recently began considering it, will most likely not

Wait, why would I need a gun?

to shoot nazis

i've only considered getting a gun to prepare for a collapse-of-government, mad max post-apocalyptic world. but i figure even if i had a gun in that situation i'd get killed within the first week by all the gun nuts who own .50 cal sniper rifles and machine guns and have been preparing bunkers filled with 10 year old sardine cans

i would never, ever buy a gun.

I'm down to two guns because 'gun culture' is such a cesspool it's not even fun to target shoot unless I'm the absolute only soul at a range, no plans to own more and I have no interest in them as offensive or defensive weapons. Viscerally I can understand the desire despite statistics, etc., but I'm a single adult male in a fairly low-crime area. If there's a threat to me it's in property theft of some kind (burglary or robbery) and that guy can have my iPhone or TV or whatever.

Whenever my dad dies it's going to be a nightmare selling all of his but I think they should be able to pay off the mortgage so my mom will be secure at least in terms of living arrangements.

i figure even if i had a gun in that situation i'd get killed within the first week by all the gun nuts who own .50 cal sniper rifles and machine guns and have been preparing bunkers filled with 10 year old sardine cans

otm

if life turns into a shitty action movie i will play the role of Extra #4 who gets shot through a restaurant windows and dies off camera during the first 10 minutes

trump is mandating gun ownership for every citizen I saw a very official looking faceBook post

One caveat to no more guns - I have no plans to go vegan any time soon so if the opportunity presented itself to hunt game and get out of the industrial meat system I would invest in a hunting rifle.

I would, literally, rather be deported to the gas chambers than ever own a gun.

A gun is like the home equivalent of trying to take a bath in a Yellowstone geyeser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfgfKpnTCrM

I would, literally, rather be deported to the gas chambers than ever own a gun.

I, on the other hand, would not.

yeah I'm not going willingly

voted never but yeah i could imagine some universe in which i owned a hunting rifle

Has anyone ITT considered emigrating as much as if not more than buying a gun?

yes

how i would make a living elsewhere is the Q

I get the increased desire for personal safety, but this is comparable to deciding not to take planes anymore and just drive everywhere john madden style in the name of safety. and I guess john madden is getting some emotional comfort from riding around the country in a bus, it's not like that comfort is worth nothing to him, it's clearly worth a lot. but it is still ultimately not a rational decision and you're putting your own life and your family's life in marginally increased danger to get that comfort.

guns are good and fun just don't shoot your neighbors or whatever

I am 95% sure that I'm eligible to receive German nationality because my paternal grandfather was deprived of his in 1941 by the Third Reich. Once I get that figured out and have a German passport that's basically my Plan.

In ascending order of likelihood, I have considered buying a gun, leaving the country, moving somewhere very remote and isolated, and staying put and trying to figure out how to interface positively with my immediate community while the country at large voids its bowels in a protracted death spasm.

i'm too poor to buy a gun, let alone leave the country

Honestly I feel like if the USA, aka the most powerful nation on earth by far, becomes so bad that I need to emigrate, it's hard to imagine where I'd feel confident in my safety.

and i'd be more likely to kill myself than "protect" myself or whatever
i'm white and male btw

I have to say I've also thought a lot about leaving New York City and moving somewhere much less densely populated (but still liberal).

I'd leave the country if it was an option, but that's generally been true regardless of President. I have no particular allegiance to the US as an institution.

Another thing that gives me pause about the gun thing is that it seems like it takes a lot of practice to really be able to use it effectively, like it's a big commitment. I suppose there's the deterrent effect and maybe that's more important. OTOH I also have a feeling I'd be a decent shot based on my sharp eyesight, icewater blood and skill at laser tag and virtuacop, lol.

Decided a while back I would rather be killed for my beliefs than kill for them. No.

I will never leave California

When I consider a gun as a functional tool, I do not foresee having any use for its functionality. It would be like me buying an arc welder, even though I have no need for it and no training in using it.

Don't live in the USA, therefore no need of a gun.

... not sure how you would go about it here anyway.

I am not buying a gun but I thought about it.

more specifically i don't think the calculus of "owning a gun is a risk to your family" v. "owning a gun to protect your family" has come down on the side of owning a gun yet. and i'm not worried that they're going to close down the gun stores any time soon so i can afford to wait and see.

Do you guys who are considering getting guns already have other weapons? Or a scary dog?

childless friends were pushing me to get a gun in light of trump america they were like "you need to get guns and then teach your children how to use them and respect them" i'm just like "my kids are 5 and 3 i am not getting guns and teaching them how to use them until society breaks down and we're wandering the wasteland trying to avoid cannibal scavengers"

havent considered getting a gun but wouldnt mind living and working abroad it broadens the mind doesnt it

childless friends' parenting advice = the most worthless advice ever

xp at that it'll be too late though won't it?

Honestly I feel like if the USA, aka the most powerful nation on earth by far, becomes so bad that I need to emigrate, it's hard to imagine where I'd feel confident in my safety.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, 22 November 2016 18:20 (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i mean congrats on that power thing but yknow it is not really the only line on the spectrum of life is shit/good nahmsayin

don't live in the u.s. therefore no need for a gun. when i lived in a ground floor apartment by home defence was a claw-hammer next to the bed.

also literally most first world countries are safer than the u.s. lol

I had a brief moment of "maybe a gun isn't an incredibly stupid idea" immediately post-election

not for my own protection, but to spread out the demographic. right now, gun ownership as a percentage of the populace is actually relatively low, but the number of people with a shitload of guns is high. so any effort to get gun owners to push for accountability is hijacked by wackjobs -- and gun marketing and ownership orgs don't care because they're working off the same money pool and more guns sold is success. if a bunch of responsible people who were for regulation were the bulk of gun owners, it might have a chance.

but none of that shit is happening, it's a blue sky argument, and demographically I look a lot more like the guy who flipped his shit and shot two cops along what is basically my route to work... and I'm not owning a gun

i didnt want to say it that baldly but yes lol xp

thread needed for tough love to panicking americans whom we nevertheless adore

havent considered getting a gun but wouldnt mind living and working abroad it broadens the mind doesnt it

otm

taking sides: getting a gun so that in the event of neo-nazis arriving at your door you can threaten them with your gun and/or try to kill enough of them to make your escape before the rest of them show up,
vs
living abroad

a couple years ago, I took a gun class with some friends -- it was one of those groupon things -- and I thought it'd be cool, but it freaked me the fuck out, so, no.

thread needed for tough love to panicking americans whom we nevertheless adore

there's a lot of hysteria going around atm. you should see how much the jews are freaking the fuck out. if i didn't know better looking at my timeline i'd think it's 1936.

A gun class. Shouldn't snigger but..

you learn about safety best practices, different types of guns, the mechanics of the gun, how to clean and maintain them, how to use them, and how the real and only purpose for guns is killing things.

you should see how much the jews are freaking the fuck out. if i didn't know better looking at my timeline i'd think it's 1936.

yeah I'm getting a bit irritated at this point. I think this may be the first time my wife has felt her family is specifically under threat because of anti-semitism, whereas I'm a little more sanguine about things, and it's weird seeing her freak out and post ADL "Never is NOW" memes

xp

xxp well they make you take a class to drive a car and those things aren't even meant to kill people

oh aren't they

, whereas I'm a little more sanguine about things,

literally got accused yesterday of being "sanguine" by a normally level-headed friend

i just disarmed u with this cup of coffee. and a gun. and a car.

sarah, was it an NRA class, or something else? Just wondering about your experience. Last time I looked into classes, everything local to me was NRA-affiliated, which is another reason I've held off.

the more sanguine they are

*sunglasses*

the easier they bleed YYYAAAAAAOOOOWWW

No but a friend is taking us to a shooting range next week to learn how. This is mostly because my wife wants to and I know she's much more interested in owning a gun than I am.

youre gonna end up with a gun then def Jordan the same happened me with a fireside poker/brush set and we dont even have a fire! you just cant argue with the little woman!

xp - not NRA sponsored. I think the guy was a home security consultant?

my workplace is a lot further from the city center than my home and it's a few miles away from a national guard training facility, which also does a lot of training for law enforcement officers. it's also just off an interstate highway exit two stops down from the state patrol hq.

so basically if i go out to lunch in the immediate area there's a high likelihood i'll see people in fatigues, if not a handful of officers carrying guns sitting around eating lunch. and it still freaks me out! there's a shooting range on the edge of that suburb, probably because they get traffic from people wanting to go shooting off-hours when they're in town, and it's right behind a pediatrician's office. this shit never ceases to freak me out when i think about it

would never consider having a gun esp with a child in the house. a big fuck no to that.

i just disarmed u with this cup of coffee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hReFx1kjuIE

My best friend is a cop, I could easily get qualified on the police range in no time. I've fired rifles and shotguns before (everything from a .22 to a .460 to a .30-.30) but the only handguns I've ever fired were pellet guns.

i definitely feel less comfortable living in a major east coast city than i used to, though i'm not sure what reasonably could happen to justify that fear

Not in the USA, no need. The concept of carrying or even owning a gun is utterly alien to me. And I realize that's a very privileged way to feel about this.

grew up with guns

some family members own over a dozen firearms, some are military veterans

i was in the lunchroom yesterday and this topic came up, and i said they owned guns and people, in an act of kindness i guess, said sure to protect yourself

then i said, well not just that but for fun you know? killed the vibe. dead silence in the entire room. no pun intended

i assume people will react the same here

i guess its cultural. while i think shooting and hunting can be fun, i think there isn't enough regulation and the process to acquire any firearm is too lenient

i have a specific way i would like to see put in place but it will never happen

but know that even veterans, when out of practice, make mistakes handling a firearm. what makes you think any of you should just simply be able to buy one "for protection"

learn how to handle a gun before you even think about buying one

how the real and only purpose for guns is killing things.

bingo! the crazy thing is how many people owning or considering owing guns right now have no intention of hunting, either for subsistence or recreation, but only imagine using their gun(s) to kill or maim other humans.

Raised a hunter in the Michigan suburbs, took hunter's safety when I was 12, got a single-shot over/under small shotgun/rifle for my birthday that year, and a .22 squirrel rifle within the next year. Haven't fired them in maybe 24 years, and pretty much they've sat in my dad's gun closet/safe since the HW Bush era.

But I'm a big white dude who lives in an apartment in the residential area of a PacNW city, and my view of risk is demographically skewed. My domestic protection is a goodsize axe handle stored behind a bedroom door.

i am basically as anti-gun a person as you might find, i definitely do not agree that owning a gun makes one safer under usual conditions (i tend to think that the ability to think correctly when in crisis-mode is a quality most gun owners assume they have when few actually do) but since the election and kind of abandoning my assumptions about the future, my views are evolving. i think at the very least im starting to understand the appeal of gun ownership

specifically, the class was on handguns, and handguns are for killing people, whereas rifles are often used for hunting animals. I guess, technically, one could use a handgun to put down a suffering animal, but the thought of saying, "Fuck, your cat got hit by a car, brb gonna get my .45" I dunno, maybe where I grew up, but living in a city, it sounds ridic.

kingfish, ya. the same people in my family that own a gun have an axe or even a good bat for protection

all their firearms are sealed and not loaded, as is the law

by the time you get it, load it, you are dead already

One of the bits about pistol ownership that always sticks in my head is that I remember something Robert Evans(the younger one) wrote, about how many shots cops take and miss, and these are people who are professionally required to put in regular range time.

I've shot handguns at gun ranges over the years, not a total noob but not super experienced either

I've been considering buying one since the election

I guess it has come to this: a recognition that our society is revealing its latent potential for fascism very openly now, and with that a fear of others and a desire to protect myself from racist mobs / the security state

but: a family member died from gun-related violence and I don't want that pattern to click into place for me too and that's just more likely than some valiant heroics on my part

so . . . I'm not sure it's a good idea to sign on for the proliferation of guns in a society already deeply fucked by their over-proliferation

i guess its cultural. while i think shooting and hunting can be fun, i think there isn't enough regulation and the process to acquire any firearm is too lenient

Yeah; firearms are for taking a bunch of pumkins and bottles and beat-up cats in the Gorge or the desert or 4-square miles of empty farmland and blasting at shit like once a year or two, then you secure everything and lock 'em in your offsite storage locker and forget about them for 12 months.

Beat-up cars, rather. Cats presumably wouldn't like participating in this.

I was like, you've already punched the shit out of those poor cats, why are you shooting them, too? Rude.

was out shooting with a sniper and he didnt even need to be in a tactical shooting position to hit a few bullseye with an assault rifle

scary but that's why he was special forces

exactly, kingfish

Recently my father moved into assisted living and I had to take custody of his large gun collection. If money for his care runs low, I'll be forced to sell them to a dealer. I'd rather keep them out of circulation. They don't make me feel safer and I don't think putting them back on the market would make anyone else safer.

So far axes, clawhammers and the classic baseball bat.

I'm really curious about other weapons because I'd assume most people considering a gun but worried about endangering themselves and their family would get other things first. But is there a likelihood that your attacker will also have a gun, so a baseball bat won't be much comfort?

Crossbows? Things you can throw?

If some people use an empty gun to scare, are there people with fake grenades and fake rocket launchers?

Don't live in the USA, therefore no need of a gun.

― The Doug Walters of Crime (Tom D.), Tuesday, November 22, 2016 10:36 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not in the USA, no need. The concept of carrying or even owning a gun is utterly alien to me. And I realize that's a very privileged way to feel about this.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, November 22, 2016 11:33 AM (thirty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm guessing you both live in developed countries because there are places in the world that aren't the USA where the inhabitants would argue that they need guns.

is there anyone on ilx who lives in "the third world"?

I think darragh is the closest

does China qualify

whatver, it just seemed like a weird thing to say. "gotta make sure to raz the USA here"

*deleted a bad "Poster X lives in [US state name redacted]" joke*

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Crossbows, shall not be infringed

come at me xp

A crossbow bolt or bodkin arrow can penetrate modern standard-issue body armor, right

irish by birth mayoman by the grace of god

dicktown new jersey
blue ball pennsylvania
etc

My father's old handgun is somewhere in my mother's house (she's mentioned wanting to get rid of it, but whenever I talk to her she hasn't followed up on other things she means to do). My attitude on guns are that IF you are going to have any, 1) get yourself well and thoroughly trained, and 2) practice strict firearms safety.

In the last couple of weeks I have thought about emigrating to Germany. Not to the point of looking up the requirements, but thinking "Well, I could relearn German, and I could probably live for a while on my savings...."

whatver, it just seemed like a weird thing to say. "gotta make sure to raz the USA here"

Not at all, just stating a fact.

I'm not about to pull a Frederik and tell people in the USA how to live their lives.

i'm guessing you both live in developed countries because there are places in the world that aren't the USA where the inhabitants would argue that they need guns.

― a but (brimstead), Tuesday, November 22, 2016 9:16 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Define "developed". The Netherlands scoring way high on #trump2016wheredoImove lists on Reddit etc makes me smdh. This is a deeply racist, moronic country that will have it's own Trump moment very likely next March when Wilders will be the biggest party in the country. Every single day it gets worse and worse. This is too why I pay attention to brexit and Trump: we will be next. Bigotry's rise has a global appeal. Trump's rise, on the world scale, isn't an isolated thing.

My non-white s/o is on the receiving end of so much blatant racism that we are seriously looking where to go, where live our life and have a future without racism when we can financially afford a move. My deepest fear is that no such place exists, anywhere. And I truly would go anywhere to be with her in a place where racism isn't this explicit. For I am sick to my stomach of it, But I don't know man..

Only thing is: guns, yeah, owning or carrying, it doesn't exist here. Alien concept. But that doesn't make it better here than in other "developed" countries or other...

is there anyone on ilx who lives in "the third world"?

― harold melvin and the bluetones (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, November 22, 2016 2:17 PM (forty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think darragh is the closest

― iatee, Tuesday, November 22, 2016 2:18 PM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gree hee hee

Are you really comfortable to use "third world" (or even "developed world") in such a throwaway way in 2016? I'm not.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

that's for self-reported gun ownership i believe

whatver, it just seemed like a weird thing to say. "gotta make sure to raz the USA here"

Not at all, just stating a fact.

― The Doug Walters of Crime (Tom D.), Tuesday, November 22, 2016 12:47 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol god i am dense.. sorry Tom, and LBI, the context is quite obvious now

[/not sarcastic, sincere]

I'm considering purchasing one of these:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ef/Love_gun_cover.jpg

Slightly more seriously, as I wrote here - Reveal Your Uncool Conservative Beliefs Here

- I can kind of understand people who don't strictly speaking *need* a gun, but who like having them nonetheless. One might just think they're interesting objects.

Definitely not something I'll ever be interested in - and not just because I share the concerns of other ilx0rz with small kids. Guns just fundamentally don't "go" with my lifestyle and culture and neighborhood and worldview.

But I don't automatically assume gun owners/enthusiasts are right-wingnuts, tea partiers, survivalists, or bloodthirsty maniacs.

Thread has this stuck in my head

Hey kids!
You want a soundtrack that's gonna make you feel tense?
Let you express your frustration?
Make ya scared, wanna, wanna run out and buy a gun?

may as well raise my unrealistic idea again:

wish we could just ban personal gun ownership and then allow people to rent them at shooting ranges, secure property with deer and other animals, etc. that would help to eliminate the recreational argument that people make to justify owning guns even though it results in so many people dying unnecessarily each year.

alternative is to allow gun ownership but heavily restrict ammunition ownership (i.e. only available at gun ranges or something)

or, limited amount each year for hunting, something like that

gun b&b

ILX 2020: Are you considering downprinting a gun?

Y'all know that many people make their own ammunition - melting metals, using molds, adding powder - right?

A kit to make your own bullets costs like $250 or something.

can't beat the taste of homemade bullets hot from the barrel just like grandma made

the shop-bought ones just don't kill the same

gun nuts are probably all going to die from lead poisoning anyway

i could consider owning a gun (of whatever type) because, well, history can turn in some ugly directions and i could imagine it being a useful skill to have. right-wing boogeymen of rampaging crime or tyrannical gov't don't mean anything to me, but if you add up political and economic sclerosis, a fractured angry society and climate change, the chances of a general breakdown in stability sometime in my lifetime are... not zero.

not that being able to shoot means you'd survive any of that. we all probably watch too many movies.

however i think it's possible (shows what i know?) to own a gun but store it offsite, at a range? i don't want one in the house.

This will sound simplistic and dumb but I want to live in a world where I don't feel like I need a gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX9rN7li8Sg

Do you mean world or country?

Yeah, I should of wrote country.

I grew up with a gun-nut grandfather, and am kind of happy he passed before the fox news era as it would probably have seriously tainted my thoughts about him. He kept a tiny, allegedly illegal .25 in his office desk, a loaded police-style (shorter barrel, higher capacity, absolutely not for hunting) shotgun in the closet at my house when he lived with me, taught me to make homemade silencers, and once told my uncle to act cool when they got pulled over because he had a handgun under the seat and sure as hell wasn't going to tell the cop about it.

My wife's family is full of avid hunters, the kind of people that don't really oppose sensible gun control, use guns as tools to pursue a hobby, and get mad when people assume they're like fetishists like my grandfather.

So I was super familiar with them grew up with a healthy respect, but don't hunt and have never had a need for one. I thought about buying one after the election, just out out of sheer gut-reaction fear and terror but doubht I will. I want my son to learn to shoot to demystify guns and understand the seriousness one needs in handling them, but I'm more worried about him finding it in the house when he gets older. And if all the actual nazis a couple hours east of here ever come to purge the intellectuals from the university where I work, they're going to be way more heavily armed than I would be.

I do think it would kind of funny to write a clickbaity "Liberals should stockpile guns" thinkpiece to get people riled up. And I am getting my kid a passport - Canada's only a couple hours north.

guns aren't really mysterious nor does one need to learn how to shoot them in order to take them seriously

(sorry)

i've definitely thought about buying a gun before because i think about all kinds of things

I grew up around hunters and was forced to hunt as a kid. Almost all of my coworkers hunt and a few stockpile guns. I'm not afraid of guns. I know an equal amount of people who hate guns and love them and it squarely follows party lines/who they voted for, at least in my experience. I do feel like it might be good to buy one in the future and I don't like that feeling.

guns aren't really mysterious nor does one need to learn how to shoot them in order to take them seriously

I don't know, every time guns come up her or in real life conversations at least some number of people who have never handled or fired one seem to see guns as scary/foreign/confusing/evil, like they're dark magic of some sort. And people who teach target shooting or hunter's safety, are, in my experience, incredibly concerned with safety and hammer safe gun-handling practices into students constantly.

every time guns come up her or in real life conversations at least some number of people who have never handled or fired one seem to see guns as scary/foreign/confusing/evil

Maybe because guns are scary?

they are for killing living things after all

Indeed, I mean, I'm not too fond of landmines either.

people are scared of what they do not know

also more and more people live in urban areas where they're scared of how a sausage is made

buddy charcuterie is huge around my way

This will sound simplistic and dumb but I want to live in a world where I don't feel like I need a gun.

― JacobSanders, Tuesday, November 22, 2016 5:59 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have gotten along well without needing one for 38 years. I still do not really feel like I need one, but there is now a looming cloud of doubt.

Consume less media

Lol goole

If civil society breaks down and wild hoardes are after me I think I'd be cool with just dying

^^

Luckily none of that is happening folks

I have a family to worry about, just dying isn't an option. I'm not saying I think anything is on the horizon. But.

Wouldn't want family to be around for post apocalyptic hellscape either

Just gonna bump cormac McCarthy thread altogether ffs

The other day I was talking to my wife about who would not take orders if things got bad and my first instinct/thought was our military would never take orders against the people. Then I saw my step brothers postings on Facebook. Both are military lifers, one a navy seal medic and the other is robotics/army. Both are sympathetic to white nationalist ideas. It was a scary moment for me.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/65/Kent_State_massacre.jpg

People owning handguns is the second-most scary thing about the USA.

Go on

never owning a gun because the statistics say it's much more likely to be used on someone i care about/accidentally than against some fantastical bad guy, and anyone who owns one has to reconcile that. there is no moral case for owning a gun.

however i think it's possible (shows what i know?) to own a gun but store it offsite, at a range? i don't want one in the house.

I don't keep ammo at my house (not for any particular objection - I don't need it and) but I have a small safe bolted to the floor in a closet. It's about as secure as it could be if anyone broke in.

essentially my threshold for owning a gun is when i'm living in an active war zone

what on earth would I do with it? even in a nightmare scenario it wouldn't make me safer

or like if all civil society broke down and i had to defend my homestead against raiders

Is it interesting to ponder how ilx would view the type of discourse it has engaged in since trump's victory had it appeared on an equivalent right wing message board in an alternate universe where Clinton won

I'm stocking up on guns and bunkering up lads

druther muh kids were DEAD than living under this regime

Would Clinton supporters be painting "hang the capitalists" in schoolyards and parks, or stopping randos on the street to yell, "Your time is up, ofay?"

xpost to darraghmac - i don't think anybody has yet copped to buying a gun?

I know how to use a gun, I don't have any interest in owning one. Another expensive appliance to maintain, and mostly just to make it a lot easier for everyone in my house to commit suicide, apparently? Nah.

If someone comes into my home and threatens my family with a firearm, my chances of disarming and disabling them with random kitchen implements or my giant fuckoff t-ball bat sized maglite seem about even with the winning-a-gunfight scenario. I'll take shit I don't need a license to own for $0 / sunk costs, Alex.

Would Clinton supporters be painting "hang the capitalists" in schoolyards and parks, or stopping randos on the street to yell, "Your time is up, ofay?"

― and this section is called boner (Phil D.)

quit giving us ideas

seriously is there a white person in history who has ever been threatened by being called "ofay"?

I'm white, a pacifist and a vegetarian, and live in a country where a person like me would pretty much never need a gun for self-defense, so I've never ever considered owning a gun for any purpose. I'm also absent-minded and have butter fingers, so I don't think it'd be even safe for me to be around one.

Finland does have a lot of guns (as do the other Nordic countries, based on that Wikipedia link above all except Denmakr are in the top 20 for private gun ownership), but the majority of them are for hunting. Gun violence against humans is rare, and in most cases it's happened when someone's gone crazy and targeted their family or school or workplace.

As in most of Western Europe, racism and xenophobia is on the rise, so I'm a bit afraid about that, because they are more prominent in rural areals and impoverished industrial towns, where I think gun ownership is also more common (due to the fact that hunting is more common there). Here in Helsinki I've never met anyone who'd own a gun.

Sorry, I'm not sure why I put "Western Europe" there, since it feels like racism is on the rise pretty much everywhere in Europe.

I take it that non-US respondents to the poll would just be adding noise?

for me personally no, I couldn't, but as a lifelong "fuck all guns" dude it was an unusual feeling this week to find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with the specifically gun-related stuff I used to struggle with in 60s black radical theory/texts -- about how black people should arm themselves and vigorously defend themselves, using firepower when necessary, against the violent, racist police state

like when I used to read that stuff I'd think "I hear you but that's only going to make shit worse" and my feeling now is "no, it won't, people should protect themselves and their families and it's moral and righteous to kill people who're coming for your family"

I take it that non-US respondents to the poll would just be adding noise?

No, I don't think so. Clearly gun culture, if it exists, is very different in different countries; it's somewhat interesting to see if current events have spurred these thoughts in the minds of people who live in countries where guns aren't really A Thing most citizens think/worry about.

Obviously not in the US etc etc. Definitely get why it might be an impulse even for people who had been anti-gun previously. Not just because of fear - viscerally I want to fight the forces of bigotry, the seeds of fascism as well as the actual fascism rising across the west. I want to destroy it, to be more precise, and I'm prepared to acknowledge the role violence can play in that.

The reason I've never thought about a gun, aside from cultural differences, is that this form of protection seems to be for retreating into one's home and one's nuclear family. But solidarity is absolutely imperative if you want to fight, imo - going out to connect with other people resisting and bringing what you can to them, not just defending you and yours.

This is probably also coloured by how useless I find the concept of the nuclear family.

re: protecting your nuclear family, one thing my sister-in-law talked semi-seriously about in the wake of the election was the proliferation of militia culture and how overwhelmingly white it is. For about 24 hours, moving out to the woods and starting a black militia seemed... not reasonable, but not entirely far-fetched, either.

(point being, there is a specific US-centric context built into the Constitution and its current interpretation that puts gun ownership in a more communal context than just "I must protect the people who live with me")

I’ll eventually upgrade my rifle. I’d really like this:

http://14544-presscdn-0-64.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/anschutz_1827-fortner_review_1229101.jpg

but I doubt it’d offer much protection.

it's somewhat interesting to see if current events have spurred these thoughts in the minds of people who live in countries where guns aren't really A Thing most citizens think/worry about.

No chance. There aren't any guns here for a start. Thank God.

Nothing to hunt here!

also less of a desire to protect yourself from people w/ guns

Because there are hardly any people w/ guns.

right

it's weird how that works, huh

like when I used to read that stuff I'd think "I hear you but that's only going to make shit worse" and my feeling now is "no, it won't, people should protect themselves and their families and it's moral and righteous to kill people who're coming for your family"

― though she denies it to the press, (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, November 23, 2016 8:26 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i'm reminded of some huey newton essays and i get the mindset but unless you sincerely believe we are at an endgame where people are "coming for your families" i still find it to be some pretty shaky calculus

I mean yeah if you are actually gonna form a militia you will wanna get some guns

For anything else tho (leaving aside schoolyard shootings & the like) aren't you basically just going "yeah yeah facts statistics whatever" and is that ever a good idea when it comes to incredibly dangerous shit

would never buy a gun ever. feels similar to a colleague at work asking me if i'd consider getting a british passport to stay in the uk. if that's the way the country goes i don't want to be part of it.

Read an article (Atlantic maybe?) about a militia a few weeks back, possibly deliberately sought out because it included at least one woman, at least one black male...regardless they tend to come across as profoundly paranoid and believing they had to be 'ready' for when their territory must be defended (this not necessarily extending to the nation as a whole). Like the Messiah they're v locked into the belief that the/an enemy will come for them. Beyond that it was just interesting to see all of that as the basis for this particular community's desire to bond and thwart their sense of isolation as if they were just a D&D club or something.

wouldnt join any gun club that would have me as a member obv

we had armed resistance to our govt from self appointed guardians of the constitution or whatever in my living memory and even were it to come to that being a prominent fact of life in ireland again id just move tbh

if i was super rich i would buy all the guns and then destroy them

Read an article (Atlantic maybe?) about a militia a few weeks back, possibly deliberately sought out because it included at least one woman, at least one black male...regardless they tend to come across as profoundly paranoid and believing they had to be 'ready' for when their territory must be defended (this not necessarily extending to the nation as a whole). Like the Messiah they're v locked into the belief that the/an enemy will come for them. Beyond that it was just interesting to see all of that as the basis for this particular community's desire to bond and thwart their sense of isolation as if they were just a D&D club or something.

Profound paranoia is not necessarily an irrational response when a) police officers seem to be able to kill people who look like you with impunity, and b) your fellow citizens vote into power a platform based on and fueled by white supremacy.

If it were possible to get a gun easily here, I'd probably buy one, but only to kill myself with. Not sure there's an option for that.

My takeaway from this thread: I'm still not buying a gun, but maybe I should buy some bulletproof armor

paranoia is by definition irrational but I appreciate the bigger point. I don't think being more lethal makes you feel less afraid/paranoid though

Obvs can't / wouldn't own a gun but I do have a vague and largely irrational feeling that, like riding a horse, being able to use one is the kind of life skill it may be useful to pick up just in case and I have briefly toyed with going to a lesson when I am over in Dubai. However, given that I have never bothered to learn other life skills like how to drive a car, my chances of getting around to it are minimal.

Not sure which is less appealing between using a gun, driving a car or riding a horse. I like the idea of riding a horse but they're scary.

I am definitely buying a gun

Not sure which is less appealing between using a gun, driving a car or riding a horse. I like the idea of riding a horse but they're scary.

I'm pretty sure.

I've had a gun pointed at me once (betting shop robbery) and it was fired into the ceiling, it scared the shit out of me and fuck no would I ever own one.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/trump-s-victory-has-fearful-minorities-buying-guns-n686881?cid=sm_tw

Profound paranoia is not necessarily an irrational response when a) police officers seem to be able to kill people who look like you with impunity, and b) your fellow citizens vote into power a platform based on and fueled by white supremacy.

― ¶ (DJP)

and, i mean, even for those of us who don't have to live with the constant fear of being murdered by the state, whether or not it's rational, paranoia is not just something that happens to other people. i know there are plenty of folks on this board who are perfectly sane and rational, and, uh... that's ok.

My plan for 2017 was to basically liquidate much of my possessions, buy a van and then road trip around the US taking pictures while attempting to write a book. I've taken many extended multi-week/month road trips before and have only been hassled a few times for being a foreigner (in some rural parts of the country, having California plates on your car will do that), but for the first time ever I'm considering taking a gun with me.

I'm pissed off at myself for even thinking this way, but in Trumpmerica it can appear to be a logical decision. I've shot guns from .22s up to those machine guns you can rent in Las Vegas but have never owned one. Honestly, I've had enough severe depressive episodes in my past that I'm glad I've never owned one.

Would you pack ammunition for it?
Would you keep it loaded?
Would you point it at another person?
Would you shoot them?
Would you shoot them first?

If any of the above answers is no, I'd suggest saving your money.

why not. i think this is an accurate depiction of what trump's america will look like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgK0uRR5jGY

x-post

I'm planning on saving my money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TboABkjrZIE

Yeah ET I realized right after posting "why am I telling HIM this?"
anyway I figure that catechism is applicable for most folks in most situations

http://img.poemofquotes.com/pulp-fiction-1.png

last Thanksgiving my cousin told me I was welcome to stay at his dad's house if shit ever hits the fan with ISIS. my ex-uncle (who I haven't seen since he divorced my aunt a decade ago) lives alone in rural VT and apparently has a stash of over 100 guns in his basement. I'm not sure if the invitation extends to Trumpocalypse scenarios, and the idea of waiting out a political crisis in the company of paranoid far-right gun nut relatives doesn't make me feel particularly safe. fwiw I'm not considering buying a gun for my own use.

this concept of ex- uncles and aunts interests me

I also have an ex-aunt. Lived in Pasadena, loved having guests, gave us crash space when we saw the Rose Bowl in 1998. Nice lady.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Are you considering selling your NYC apartment, buying a cabin on 100 acres in Upper Michigan, burying several underground gas tanks, food bucket caverns, filling them, getting your share of guns and ammo, and waiting for Michael Flynn and Trump to play China brinksmanship?

no, but i'm considering buying a gun again

actually that's not true. i was thinking of taking shooting lessons, not buying a gun.

fucking hell

because a gun is a dangerous thing to have around the house if you don't know how to use it!

i am also considering buying a donald trump stress ball

hey it might be a good way to relieve some stress

and it's my constitutional right as a nationalized citizen (*for the time being)

haha whoops i meant naturalized

buying guns is good everyone who can should do so

All buying a gun would accomplish is dramatically increase my risk of dying of a gunshot wound in my own home

So far in my life I've blithely assumed people don't have guns at home but I may start asking.

You should totally take "shooting lessons" i.e. gun safety training. it can be profoundly edifying. and then, don't fucking buy a gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duW5WhxKjQY

Don't have a gun, don't need a gun, don't want a gun.

If you're at a Christmas party and a man and wife show up with assault rifles, your handgun isn't going to do much good. If you're a first-grade teacher and some deranged maniac comes into your classroom with an AR-15, the gun in your purse isn't going to do much good. If you regain consciousness on your couch after two men have invaded your home and tied up your daughters and wife, your gun isn't going to do much good.

I can't think of any recent event -- I'm sure someone out there could provide a link -- where someone had a gun at the right exact moment to protect themselves and their family. I could probably counter with plenty of links of toddlers, ex-husbands and despondent teenagers harming their families with guns.

If you need a rifle to go hunt Bambi in the woods, knock yourself out. But there's really no reason for most people to own anything nastier than a 30-06.

is there anyone on ilx who lives in "the third world"?

― harold melvin and the bluetones (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, November 22, 2016 2:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*deleted a bad "Poster X lives in [US state name redacted]" joke*

― ¶ (DJP), Tuesday, November 22, 2016 2:19 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's ok, man. I can take it.

I can't think of any recent event -- I'm sure someone out there could provide a link -- where someone had a gun at the right exact moment to protect themselves and their family. I could probably counter with plenty of links of toddlers, ex-husbands and despondent teenagers harming their families with guns.

yeah, that's the fuckin' thing, the whole "protect yourself" mantra is predicated on the idea that you have ample time to prepare for and anticipate the attack. the odds don't favor you if you're the defendant because you're reacting to a threat you have minimal time to assess and facing duress that the attacker does not have to deal with.

Like unless you're gonna do one of those 80s action film flips to dive out of the way of bullets, somehow get into your drawer to get your gun, and fire like John McClain, unless you're lucky in a home invasion, if they wanna shoot...you're swiss cheese.

with that said, knowing how many looney tunes people in FL have these things, the thought has crossed my mind. but I don't know how to shoot them, so would need to invest in training, and my anxiety and fear is a bit out of wack at the moment so I wouldn't trust myself not to be jumpy with the thing. so....fuck a gun, really.

just gonna find a really big assed stick.

I highly recommend the Stanley FatMax fubar series

what if it's not a home invasion robbery i'm thinking of preparing for?

i seem to recall lots of tea party folk feeling the same way!

exactly!

i used to have faith in my government's ability to protect me from them

now i'm not as confident

like i kinda 'get' the motivation for libs to arm themselves, but all it'd do at this point is put money in the hands of gun manufacturers > NRA > GOP

that's an excellent point that i had never considered

buy second hand?

only one solution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SXq1yFrqsI

now we're talkin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z2ucmARq-k

3D printer manufacturers are not (yet) synonymous with the gun industry. just sayin

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that, if society erodes to the degree that I feel that I NEED a gun, I'd probably just invest in a cyanide capsule instead.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/03/what-is-a-black-professor-in-america-allowed-to-say-tommy-j-curry?CMP=share_btn_tw

“The evidence of the last 50 years has convincingly demonstrated the failure of multicultural coalitions, civil rights legislation and integration,” he wrote in a 2007 paper. “The current task of radical Black thought now rests in the development of alternatives in light of this disappointment.” Those alternatives might include violence: “Historically, the use of violence has been a serious option in the liberation of African people from the cultural tyranny of whiteness,” he wrote, “and should again be investigated as a plausible and in some sense necessary political option.”

It was a provocative thesis, and Curry knew it. He did not consider himself a violent person. Even when he was a teenage socialist, his revolutionary vision had been passive: white capitalism would collapse under its own weight, and black unionists would help build a more egalitarian society in its ruins. Anyway, philosophy was supposed to be about asking hard questions without fear or prejudice, and Curry was not interested in steering clear of topics just because they made his white colleagues uneasy.

Stikkers urged him to pre-emptively defend himself against charges that he wanted to incite violence. In the paper, Curry explained that he wanted to raise violent resistance in the context of US racism “not as a call to arms, but as an open-ended political question”. Still, the young philosopher knew he was treading on dangerous ground. “To some,” he wrote, “for a black scholar to even ask if violence should be used to combat racism is a career faux pas.”

trigger warning for R*d Dr*her content

fuck these people tbh

Changing my vote to yes.

I'm tempted to repoll this

While guns are most likely to kill someone who lives in the house they’re in and I would never buy one, I do REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED

I mean seriously if I owned a gun the most likely person to die by it would be me, what the fuck would I do with a gun

I don’t want a gun in my house the next time Aimless tells me to kill myself

I have surprised myself by no purchasing a gun in the past 4 years, although my belief that I should own and learn how to properly maintain one has solidified. And I've gone from "it would be cool to have a shotgun that could pull double-duty for home protection and waterfowl season" to "there's nothing wrong with a semi-automatic rifle with all that shit on it".

ha I feel this

Jesus

What are you gonna do with it

armed peace, man

What are you gonna do with it

Hopefully I would do nothing with it.

how are you going to prepare yourself to kill someone with it though?

"it would be cool to have a shotgun that could pull double-duty for home protection and waterfowl season"

i don't know why i have seen this before, i think i spend too much time on the internet https://imgur.com/gallery/nYIHM

^ blood and gore

ILX 2020: Are you considering downprinting a gun?

― nashwan, Tuesday, 22 November 2016 22:05

At least this is taking longer than I thought to happen.

heh, same. although i assume it's still happening, and that one really dumb kid who wanted to be the spokesperson for 3D-printed guns finally learned to stfu

didn't he get arrested for soliciting sex with a minor or something

he didn't even realize he could 3d print a minor

which also must be a real thing, i just realized

ok, i'm going to stop thinking now

join yr local SRA chapter imho

yup.

Optimistically, target practice on the weekends. Pessimistically, it would be a good thing to have in any number of scenarios as the world falls to shit.

As I mentioned the first time around, it's quite clear that the overwhelming majority of firearms are owned by people politically on the right, ostensibly because they want to "protect themselves from tyranny". I always scoffed at that: "they obviously don't get it - that's not how Democrats are." But I was missing the point.

The Republican mindset has been demonstrated to be one of projection. "We accuse you of whatever we are planning to do to you." It's not much of a stretch to see the parallels between "DEMS ARE CORRUPT LIARS (j/k it is we who are the lying and corrupt ones)" to "DEMS ARE GOING TO GOOSESTEP TROOPS INTO YOUR TOWN (j/k it's us)." Do I really think they would? Based on my life experience, meh probably not. But "meh" isn't enough to make me feel secure anymore. Additionally, I think that building up a culture of gun ownership on the left could perhaps take some of the heat off.

i've had a gun pointed at my heart before so i don't want anything to do with guns basically. also i don't think having a gun of my own would have made the situation any safer.

taking sides: getting a gun so that in the event of neo-nazis arriving at your door you can threaten them with your gun and/or try to kill enough of them to make your escape before the rest of them show up,
vs
living abroad

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, November 22, 2016 1:06 PM (three years ago)

Cool, you know any countries that'd pay to relocate a guy in his 40s with a B.A. in Literature who has spent most of the last decade just reading ILX?

my feeling is that anyone who owns guns for purposes of "self-defense" against potential military or paramilitary attacks would do well to learn how to fight a war, which is a somewhat more involved undertaking than target practice is.

if guns become like necessary for survival in the future then i'm fuckin dying

suggest dn change to 'piece man'

xp

nope! and no one's paying to relocate me, that's for sure. i'm just saying, imagine the actual scenario where you might be forced to use a gun. if you're imagining defending yourself against the racist apocalypse horde, that's a pretty extreme situation. i can imagine it, too - i have nightmares about that horde, with my dad as a foot soldier (or a leader). that shit terrifies me, but if it comes to that i hope to be far away when it happens, rather than in my bunker cleaning my guns

Guns are for forming militias and murdering schoolchildren, if you have any other purpose in mind they are a stupid idea

how are you going to prepare yourself to kill someone with it though?

This seems like the wrong question, or at least the less-interesting one; you should be asking "How are you going to prepare yourself for the aftermath of killing someone?" because the entire point of a gun is that it makes it really easy to prepare yourself to kill someone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuG9kUiRC_I

This seems like the wrong question, or at least the less-interesting one; you should be asking "How are you going to prepare yourself for the aftermath of killing someone?" because the entire point of a gun is that it makes it really easy to prepare yourself to kill someone.

― DJP, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 8:51 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

that's more of what I meant yes.

if guns become like necessary for survival in the future then i'm fuckin dying

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, April 28, 2020 10:36 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

^^^

i can imagine it, too - i have nightmares about that horde, with my dad as a foot soldier (or a leader). that shit terrifies me, but if it comes to that i hope to be far away when it happens, rather than in my bunker cleaning my gun

sounds like you have an in.

if guns become like necessary for survival in the future then i'm fuckin dying

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)

it's more than that, i've had people say to me "kate, you don't need to own a gun, i'll defend you with my arsenal"

and i don't want to be rude, i'm sure they mean well, but could they please not?

i've had a gun pointed at my heart before so i don't want anything to do with guns basically.

― trapped out the barndo (crüt)

booming post. the only scenario in which this poll shld be rerun is if the yes/no options each include the qualifiers "(X), and i have/have not had a loaded gun pointed at me in anger"

when I was about 15 some folks turned up at my house with big 'ol guns looking for drugs. I don't think they were especially angry at me personally tho

did you answer the door while holding a gun? to protect yourself?

one thing that's important to know is that when people with guns unexpectedly show up at your house, whether they're authorities or villains, they will instantly recognize that you're a good guy with a gun.

if guns become like necessary for survival in the future then i'm fuckin dying

Yeah this. I feel the same way about preppers: if the world gets so bad that I'm forced to live in a bunker eating beans to survive, that's not a world I want to be in.

that's why it's important for more people to carry weapons in schools and other public places. this way, when a bad person with a gun starts killing people, you can pull out your piece and start killing people in the name of good, and then cops will show up and instantly recognize that you're on team good guys

Are you considering being fitted for a cyanide dental implant y/n

Statistics show cyanide pills overwhelmingly kill the people who had them installed

did you answer the door while holding a gun? to protect yourself?

no I was armed only w my matching leopard print pyjamas

in retrospect I am fortunate they did not mistake me for an actual leopard

they recognized you were a good guy leopard

Additionally, I think that building up a culture of gun ownership on the left could perhaps take some of the heat off.

Nice.

I'm still working through the political ramifications of "allies" who can pass for white belittling and mocking the fears of people who can't in a society filled with white people who own guns and a legal framework that permits them to justify killing non-white people.

I'm trying to come to a conclusion that isn't "allies don't actually exist"

jfc are you buying a gun or not

I mean go with God and your gun

I really just don’t understand what problem is solved by buying a gun for your house. How are you going to have time to remove your gun from the safe, disengage the lock, and load it before the militia at your door gets you? You’re going to unload, lock, and lock up your gun right?

it makes u feel strong

That’s why I post

I really just don’t understand what problem is solved by buying a gun for your house. How are you going to have time to remove your gun from the safe, disengage the lock, and load it before the militia at your door gets you? You’re going to unload, lock, and lock up your gun right?

― silby, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 12:42 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is definitely something I've wondered about. From what I have gleaned online, it seems like you could do a halfway measure where you keep a shotgun loaded but without one in the chamber and then keep it in a quick-access safe or something -- that way no risk of accidental going off and no kid access, but still can be grabbed pretty quickly and ready to fire with a pump. The greatest scenario in which I can imagine a gun being useful is a burglary or scaring off an individual or small group trying to harass or harm us. In a true militia/civil war type scenario you'd need your own militia and military training to have a prayer, and I'm probably too old for that now (although I seem to see a lot of older guys in way worse shape showing up in camo at these right wing protests/events). Plus the amount of time and effort I'd have to put in seems grossly disproportionate to any likely benefit. In an extreme scenario, fleeing seems like a way better option than sticking around.

DJP you're on a forum that's like 99% antigun and you've been considering buying a gun for several years. i think that's the main driver of the anti-gun sentiment you're facing. i recognize the fear you must feel, and that's about as much as an ally i can be on that. i'm never going to think it's a good idea for an otherwise smart person to obtain a personal firearm in the interest of personal protection. i can't make a clause that exempts people because of the fear that they feel, because that doesn't change the underlying badness of the idea. on the other side, you could just...buy a gun. it doesn't matter what i think! i won't know if you do or don't! but i'm not going to pretend like i think it's a good idea. all i can do is point to all of the reasons it's a bad idea for everyone to own a gun (which i've done ad nauseum for years now).

(although I seem to see a lot of older guys in way worse shape showing up in camo at these right wing protests/events)

I suspect these people are mostly cosplayers with live ammunition

come on karl be a good ally and let djp post about maybe probably definitely thinking about for sure buying a gun for another 3 years

i think djp should buy a gun, if that is what we are polling. he seems like he would be a responsible gun owner.

if I lived out in the country I would probably consider buying a gun. I otherwise have no interest in the culture or collecting or bitching about my rights being taken away if they became prohibited.

feel like I've I were a longtime gun owner I would've def killed myself at some stage. just too easy a method to have at your disposal 24/7

I’ve been reading so many bad covid opinions the last few months it’s almost refreshing to read dumb opinions about why actually *I* am a good person to have a gun because

i think he would be a fantastic gun owner! but it's kind of like driving - it's inherently dangerous. you can be the most responsible driver of all time, but some other dumbass can still kill you in a heartbeat. there's more than one variable in the equation. the local police teams that like to show up and (understandably) assume that anyone holding a gun is a malign actor is part of that equation. so is the possibility of someone who isn't djp getting their hands on a gun and not being quite so responsible.

if I lived out in the country I would probably consider buying a gun.

Why?

"get off my property"

the few times i've had a gun pointed at me have all been out in the country

one time i was just a kid exploring the woods near our house, and although i guess i understood that i was on someone else's property when i hopped the fence on our property's perimeter, it wasn't until the shotgun went off that i really understood how seriously some people take it

Jim otm, it's the main reason I wouldn't get one myself

Buy a gun and you too can say, "Get off my property".

but yeah, having a gun in the country is 10% in case a wild animal does something and you need to protect your outdoor cat, and 90% scaring the hell out of stoned teenagers who wind up on your property

Jim otm, it's the main reason I wouldn't get one myself

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.)

same here

yeah, i would say a large part of those that have guns out in the country are those libertarian/distrustful of everything types. I was just thinking of being far far from any type of assistance and also because of wild animals. I hate crossbows.

men and killing themselves with guns is a whole other thing.

I'm still working through the political ramifications of "allies" who can pass for white belittling and mocking the fears of people who can't in a society filled with white people who own guns and a legal framework that permits them to justify killing non-white people.

― DJP

hmmm. have i been belittling or mocking your fears? i haven't really seen that here, but i am very definitely white so there might be something i'm missing

I really just don’t understand what problem is solved by buying a gun for your house. How are you going to have time to remove your gun from the safe, disengage the lock, and load it before the militia at your door gets you? You’re going to unload, lock, and lock up your gun right?

A lot of people who buy home defense guns just leave them in a nightstand or something IME but for someone whose brain isn't mush (like djp) there are quick release safes with fingerprint scanners and stuff, it doesn't have to be an Old West bank fault deal.

btw, the true advanced protectors of the home should look into buying one of those DARPA-grade EMTs that can make people temporarily lose their minds. i'd much rather deploy one of those when you hear a bump in the night, rather than grabbing a gun or a barbwire baseball bat or whatever people use these days

That was to Karl, who at this point can fuck off.

btw, the true advanced protectors of the home should look into buying one of those DARPA-grade EMTs that can make people temporarily lose their minds.

― let me be your friend on the other end! (Karl Malone)

failing to see the benefit of this, at least the way you're phrasing it

had a gun fired off in the air near me last year. friends booked an Airbnb with some land on an island. one of the peripheral friends brought some big firework for some reason, or had it on his person anyway.

we were told by the Airbnb hosts that if we were going to make noise at night we should go down by the firepit, which was on one side of the property, away from the 2 neighbours' houses, which weren't visible from the house, but where somewhat nearby.

anyway, at some stage in the evening, while tripping on LSD, a loud bang went off. it was presumed this was the big firework although in hindsight it didn't sound like a firework - I've heard a shotgun fired a couple of times before, it sounded like that. the next day the guy with the firework informed us all he hadn't let it off as he hadn't thought it advisable. the Airbnb hosts had a complaint from their nearest neighbor a farmer, who was livid about us having been noisy at night.

on the other side of the firing guns in the air thing my beloved grandfather (in Glasgow) once fired a shotgun in the air because kids from a nearby scheme (barlanark) were throwing rocks at his house. the police did charge him and he ended up with a criminal conviction but he had his guns back in few years.

xp

i don't think that's fair, but if i'm pissing you off that badly it must be for a reason.

xp
i was joking about the EMTs. just trying to lighten the mood after talking about the real likelihood of killing myself with a gun, at various times in the past

but what the fuck do i know about guns

it's not like i grew up SURROUNDED BY GUNS

dick

I'm not the one who needs to dial it back here, asshole

You're the one who came parachuting in here belittling me (and the late great) for having the temerity to say "as minorities, the developments in this country are making us nervous enough to think owning a gun would be a possibility". I never said you needed to have a gun, I never said you needed to be around guns, and I never said you need to be comfortable around guns. You, on the other hand, spouted a bunch of bullshit and are now hiding behind past trauma because I said it felt like I was being summarily dismissed for being scared. The only reason I'm bothering to respond to you and not One Eye Open is that most of the time, you aren't acting like an irredeemable jackass.

well, i'm sorry for belittling you. that wasn't my intent but i can see that's how it came across all the same.

i did not spout a bunch of bullshit, though - except the part about DARPA EMTs.

and the reason i mention suicide is not to hide behind it (didn't appreciate that, btw), but to remind you that just like you have a special reason to want a gun, there are people who special reasons to not want guns.

losing your cool on the gun thread c/d

The reason I still don't own a gun is because of the fifteen minutes I spent as a teen holding one to my own head. Don't fucking presume what I do or don't know.

I bet this conversation would be going better if we all had guns

but just for self defense!

You guys are the purest form of asshole

karl and dip to have an old west style quick draw duel but with those guns that the little flag comes out of

xpost

sorry to hear that, really. most people don't have that experience (thank god).

I don’t at all exclude myself from blame here when I say that I’m really bummed that a bunch people who have been talking to each other here for 1 to 2 decades have been going for the jugular at each other for weeks but I guess it’s understandable under the circs that we’d all be short of patience. I wish I had other things to do!

I still want to know what your precise plans for your guns are, especially peace, man’s semiautomatic rifle. What will you achieve with your gun

Do people itt (milo?) who own guns tell all their friends you have a gun in your house before they visit you? Have they decided not to come over? Do they leave their children at home?

i didn't mean to go for anyone's jugular, and i regret saying "dick". i knew that was dumb even as i was doing it (a process that took about 1.2 seconds). i was just mad. sorry DJP.

i really need to just avoid gun threads (and capital punishment). i've said my thing, years ago, i'm just repeating myself. i honestly don't think it's being a good "ally" to entertain the thought of it being a good idea to own a gun. but that doesn't mean i have to come in here and try to prove it.

I'm much less anti-gun than I was in the past. I'd couldn't imagine owning one myself but I don't have an immediate reflexive negative reaction to someone saying they are thinking about it (which I most definitely would have done in the past).

The Swiss seem to do ok with their guns. I don't want to mis-step in making any parallels with cars but with a responsible gun owner I'd be much more worried about the unintentional damage they might cause with a car than with a gun

I am on the record as being in favor of banning both guns and cars.

I don’t own any guns but when I did I rarely had any at home. My dad did have a big fire safe so I kept them there.

It wouldn’t have mattered to anyone, though, anyway? ILX is extremely weird about guns relative to any experience I’ve had IRL.

(xxp) And what's the point of owning a gun in Switzerland exactly?

I don’t believe I know anyone irl who would consider keeping a gun at home. I would not knowingly enter a home with a gun in it.

Leaving aside shooting for sport - which includes hunting - or farmers shooting foxes or whatever it is they do with their guns.

Switzerland has a unique gun culture due to nationalist reasons plus mandatory military service (iirc the idea is you keep the rifle you used after you're done?), lots of shooting clubs and the like, but yeah they have a very low homicide rate

I'm curious what prompted this revive--the anti-lockdown protests? (photos of which were indeed chilling)

Switzerland has a unique gun culture due to nationalist reasons

Those sound like good reasons.

Is there a Swiss driving stereotype I don't know about?

Would you pack ammunition for it?
Would you keep it loaded?
Would you point it at another person?
Would you shoot them?
Would you shoot them first?

If any of the above answers is no, I'd suggest saving your money.

― El Tomboto, Sunday, November 27, 2016 8:56 PM (three years ago)

Probably should’ve been the last word honestly.

I’ve done virtually a 180 on guns. It wasn’t that many years ago that I sorta but not all that tongue-in-cheek supported a repeal of the 2nd, reason being that it would be a strong, possibly one day even *popular* position for non-lunatics to negotiate common sense gun laws (lol so stupid)

Then I got to thinking that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for me to get reacquainted with handling a gun, which I haven’t done since I was adolescent (in the presence of responsible well-trained adults).

Now I’m basically at “I should probably be comfortable with a variety of firearms because as much as I hope we can turn a lot of shit around (and this goes way beyond Trump to be clear), it’s probably best for me to be prepared in the even that we do not”.

Just before the lockdown rolled in I was watching a lot of doomsday preppers.

I'm typing from the UK here so the question 'would you get a gun' is totally different from in the US.

One thing is though. Every defensive system the dudes on the show came up with could easily have been overrun by attackers in sufficient numbers. Amazing burglar alarms and tripwires and guns, the lot, really, they're all vulnerable to enough guys showing up.

I think DJP's safety concerns are valid based on what I've been able to gather about the prevalence in the US of armed racists both irregular and uniformed. I wonder though if joining some kind of group rather than owning a thing might be the way?

Considering our history, maybe the shortest route to gun reform is for Black people to arm publicly arm themselves. On the other hand, in our current state of militarization on steroids/white hate resurgence, I don't have much hope that the white response would be anything other than immediate widespread murder of Black people.

On the third hand, I'm not in a position to opine on whether that would be worse than the level of violence POC/Black ppl currently experience anyway.

Is there a 4th hand? This is a terrible conversation.

LOL and to think poor old leftie UK ILXors get castigated for joking about guillotines and gulags.

Side note: something I notice when Americans discuss guns. The phrase 'home invasion' comes up. And that's an interesting phrase, because it's technically accurate, but you know, I have, technically, been the victim of a home invasion, only I wouldn't call it that. It was a kid of about sixteen seeing if there were any laptops to pinch and sell. Like his motivation wasn't to GET INSIDE CARDAMON'S HOME AND VIOLATE HIS BOUNDARIES.

I shouted at him to Fuck off and he did.

The talk of 'home invasions' rather brings to mind Funny Games dudes in animal masks as opposed to real life opportunist robbers and I think this tends to skew the discussion a bit.

"home invasion" was made a new crime in my state a few years ago, another hot topic crime like carjacking that is a combination of already-existing crimes. a suburban fear crime. what people picture is that their home will be invaded by armed strangers. what actually happens 99% of the time is drug dealers coming into other drug dealers homes and doing assaults.

Anyway I don’t think DJP is considering buying a gun bc he is worried about property crime

Sure. And going back to that, I realise I'm out of my depth here, but I don't know if there's any anti racist / community self defense groups available? Joining which could get some security back w/out needing gun in home and the attendant risks.

Home invasion is a more useful term because it’s scaaaaaaaaary instead of “a kid broke into the garage trying to steal a lawnmower to pawn.”

harbl otm

there are probably people who would be safer owning a gun, but those people are criminals

I grew up around guns: dad's a hunter, has a concealed weapons permit. When I still lived at home it was a fact of life that he carried a small bag with his pistol to the car when we out; under the seat it went. After a while I didn't notice. I've fired a gun several times at Big Cypress: loathed it. I hated the ugly deformed metal thing, hated the loudness. Everyone on that side of the family owns rifles, shotguns, pistols f every kind. No one's a member of the NRA, nor is their behavior noticeably swinish because they own guns. Because of the children and grandchildren, they're kept under lock and key and with those trigger locks.

While in my inexpert legal opinion the Second Amendment, like the others, contains the most grievous comma splice in American jurisprudence that has allowed grotesque interpretation, and while I wish every gun to vanish mysteriously from the United States, I've come to recognize that, to DJP's point, it was precisely because black men owned guns, among other obvious reasons, why the KKK and the White League formed in the 1860s. This is why Clarence Thomas believes the Second Amendment protects individual ownership of guns: owning a gun represented a measure of black agency, a way to protect a home (y'all should read Corey Robin's recent intellectual bio of Thomas).

I should, however, mention that during a, uh, fraught moment after Sandy Hook and my dad went on a rare tirade about the importance of guns, I said something like, "Yeah, like your fat ass is gonna waddle to the safe to get the .22 while the burglar's already in the bedroom." This didn't go over well. I was drunk. *shrug*

oh i totally told my dad during one of our fights I was going to take all his guns and give them away and he would only notice way too late.

one of the times i had a loaded gun pointed at me was by a person who had just shot another person and didnt want me to look at their face. I never found out if they were a good or bad guy with a gun, or what sort of ally either one was.

DJP before you went in on me and karl your posts in this revive were flip comments about semiauto rifles being cool and the "interesting" question of pondering the aftermath of killing someone, which screw that. Dont fuck around goofing about guns and shootings and then be shocked SHOCKED when other posters dont 100% defer to your Very Very Important Feeligns About Gun Ownership. Corny.

youre going to do the thing where you, im not going to use the word but the thing that means getting a strong reaction out of people

Who said I was being flip?

Actually what kind of psychopath parachutes into a thread about guns and says "oh, the dude wondering about how people live with themselves after killing someone, what a laugh he's having"? Fuck off.

Despite getting a sharpshooter marksmanship badge in the Army Reserve (a hospital unit in the doldrums after the 1st Gulf war), I still find the things repellent. I sold my grandfather's two long-guns 20 years ago, and was surprised at how much they were still worth. Didn't want them in the house as I was having a lot of suicidal ideation at the time. So, I'll never own one.

most grievous comma splice

it was precisely because black men owned guns, among other obvious reasons

is that a zing

thought that post of Alfred’s was interesting

thanks

It’s still not obvious to me what you plan to do with the gun.

can't imagine ever shooting anyone

fire warning shots and wave it at passing raiders from behind the improvised fortification i've built on my roof top

is that so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vWgx1I6qrY

I'm no expert at all (and would never consider having a gun) but I think warning shots are common in the military so surely they have a use !

fire warning shots and wave it at passing raiders from behind the improvised fortification i've built on my roof top

Lol, sure, sure you will.

I mean, I hope that was a joke.

The paradox of gun ownership to me is that if things get bad enough that you will truly need a gun, the only thing you will need it for is to quickly end you and your loved ones lives when the food supply has broken down. /sanpaku

The paradox of gun ownership to me is that if things get bad enough that you will truly need a gun, the only thing you will need it for is to quickly end you and your loved ones lives when the food supply has broken down. /sanpaku

― Night of the Living Crustheads (PBKR), Tuesday, June 2, 2020 8:24 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm. The Charles Bronson standoff / hero of the zombie apocalypse narrative is perhaps the most baffling of the many enduring maga fantasies

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/opinion/coronavirus-gun-deaths-suicide.html
reproducing in its entirety (minus graphs) below for those without a login

Coronavirus Could Make America’s Gun Problem Even Deadlier
We studied 26 million Americans over 12 years. Here’s what we learned about gun ownership.
By David Studdert, Matthew Miller and Garen Wintemute

Millions of Americans have experienced the coronavirus pandemic directly, as they or their loved ones suffered through infection. But for most of us, the experience is defined by weeks and months on end stuck at home. The shut-ins are testing the safety of our home environments. Stress and isolation combined with another feature of American life — easy access to firearms — could form a deadly brew.

Last week we released results of a new study — the largest ever on the connection between suicide and handgun ownership — in The New England Journal of Medicine revealing that gun owners were nearly four times as likely to die by suicide than people without guns, even when controlling for gender, age, race and neighborhood.

Several myths cloud public understanding of the connection between guns and suicide. Perhaps the most pernicious is the idea that people who really want to end their lives will find a way to do it, making the presence or absence of a gun somewhat irrelevant.

Decades of research on suicide tell a different story. Suicide attempts are often impulsive, prompted by fleeting crises. A vast majority of people who attempt suicide survive and do not go on to die in a future suicide. But whether attempters get that second chance at life depends a lot on the method they use, which in turn depends on what is readily at hand. Firearms afford few second chances. In sum, methods matter.

Our study compiled information on 26 million Americans over 12 years. We tracked handgun acquisitions in a large sample of California residents and then compared the frequency of death among those who did and didn’t own them.

The elevated suicide rates among handgun owners were driven by their higher rates of suicide by firearm — eight times higher for men and 35 times higher for women, compared with non-owners of the same gender. By contrast, handgun owners did not have higher rates of suicide from other methods or higher rates of death by other causes. These results are consistent with those from every serious study that has examined the relationship between gun access and suicide in the United States. If anything, we find a stronger connection than most others have.

A lack of good data has long hampered efforts to improve understanding of gun violence in the United States. California is probably the only state in which this study could have been done. The state requires all firearm sales to be transacted through a licensed dealer, and records of these transactions are reported and archived, creating a unique statewide repository. (The fact that only a few states gather such records greatly inhibits researchers’ ability to measure the risks and benefits of gun ownership.) This comprehensive historical information allowed us to identify people acquiring their first handgun, and then see what happened to them over time. Knowing about gun stocks and purchasing histories is important, because an owner’s first gun is likely to matter much more than his or her second or 10th one.

The period of greatest suicide risk for first-time handgun owners was the initial few weeks of ownership, when it soared to be 100 times greater than that for non-owners. Nonetheless, 85 percent of all gun suicides among owners occurred more than a month after purchase, and more than half occurred more than a year later. Taken together, these findings suggest that while some people who die by gun suicide buy their weapons intending to kill themselves, that isn’t true for most who die this way — their deaths reflect the substantial and enduring risk posed by access to handguns.

Better information about gun stocks and purchasing histories would also be valuable for disentangling the effects of the Covid-19 crisis on firearm violence. News reports and commentators have focused on spikes in guns sales. But how many of those sales are to new gun owners? Unfortunately, we may never know. Also, purchasing spikes tend to be short-lived, ultimately accounting for a small fraction of total sales over the longer run. None of this is to suggest that concerns about rising rates of gun violence during shutdowns are unfounded. But expect the largest public health impact to come from rising levels of violence in the estimated 40 million American households that had guns long before the pandemic struck.

People buy and keep firearms for many reasons. When it comes to handguns, surveys consistently show self-protection at the top of the lists. Despite colorful anecdotes of armed defense of home and hearth, there has not been a credible study demonstrating the security benefits of private gun ownership for individuals or communities. On the other hand, evidence that guns may be misused and do serious harm — to owners and their family members, including children — is substantial and growing. It’s a lopsided balance sheet that should give pause to people who own guns or are considering buying their first gun.

David Studdert is a professor at the Stanford University schools of law and medicine. Matthew Miller is a professor at Northeastern University. Garen Wintemute is a professor at the U.C. Davis School of Medicine.

for the tl;dr among you, the big takeaway is “gun owners were nearly four times as likely to die by suicide than people without guns, even when controlling for gender, age, race and neighborhood.” That's based on a study of 26 million americans over a twelve year period.

seriously.

Yes, and don't assume you're immune because you're not depressed. If you take any kind of mind-altering/mood-altering substance, including alcohol, you're at risk. Don't want to offer any horrible details but I had a friend die that way while drunk, and I'm 99.9% sure he wasn't suicidal when he was sober.

I’m a Black American. I Need a Gun to Feel Safe in This Country.

https://jalopnik.com/the-tsa-is-finding-tons-of-guns-on-people-flying-in-the-1844676075

Best keep calzino off this thread when he comes back, you can't be too careful.

at least this joke gun wasn't loaded

Best keep calzino off this thread when he comes back, you can't be too careful.

― Young Boys of Bernie (Tom D.), Tuesday, August 11, 2020 9:11 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

jesus christ get over it

Jesus Christ, develop a sense of humour why don't you.

Stupid cunt.

Jesus Christ, develop a sense of humour why don't you.

― Young Boys of Bernie (Tom D.), Tuesday, August 11, 2020 9:17 AM bookmarkflaglink

Stupid cunt.

― Young Boys of Bernie (Tom D.), Tuesday, August 11, 2020 9:18 AM bookmarkflaglink

Haha, love this kind of humour.

Was rather witty, wasn't it?

You’re an ass, fuck off.

Touchy lot aren't you?

Fuck off.

Go on try warning me how many FPs I've got, you dick.

You're an ass, fuck off.

I hope you guys aren't considering buying a gun.

These posts are like the equivalent of people buying guns but just stroking them, or something..

tom d, might be worth taking a breather. if you go onto other threads talking trash on calzino, you're bound to run into resistance, so in effect you're picking fights with random people at this point. i've definitely been at that point before - just saying, it might be a good thing to just step back for a bit

Trash talking calzino? That'll be the day.

I don't understand what's happening here and I'm okay with that

Nothing worth bothering about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we37yX3zpKA

WHAT IS THIS 😭 pic.twitter.com/JueFatO892

— jess (@_joodlehead) August 10, 2020

The only acceptable open carry
https://i.imgur.com/ZdrcboR.jpg

haven't FPed in a while, but today is a new day

That was a pro-ranch post.

https://frinkiac.com/video/S06E25/TuszCgPU3ILm2jAj9nDyfzCE9lI=.gif

https://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2018/02/28/192d47ed-163b-46e8-bc84-76174029f385/thumbnail/1240x866/a4aee7c845dcb8e456c21a1e5fa8c56e/ap-18059675312394.jpg

I was FPing the mess upthread, tbc

if I couldn’t accept getting called a stupid cunt every once in a while I wouldn’t be on ILX

Wtf xpost

what is happening

this is suicide weather tbf

You raise up your head and you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says, "It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?" and somebody else says, "Well, what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God, am I here all alone?"
But something is happening and you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

horrid revive

ffs

if I couldn’t accept getting called a stupid cunt every once in a while I wouldn’t be on ILX

Bleedin' spellchecker, I meant to call you a stupid crüt.

Apologies to crüt, things can got a bit heated there.

Apologies to crüt, things can got a bit heated there.

I've always been quite fond of the archaic French verb 'enconner' and have only just realized that there is an exact English equivalent: to encunt.

See also: decunt, uncunt.

Can’t stop thinking about these words

Uh

we've got a live one

threadban ahoy

Now, you see this one-eyed midget shouting the word "Now"
And you say, "For what reason?" and he says, "How"
And you say, "What does this mean?" and he screams back, "You're a cow!
Give me some milk or else go home"
And you know something's happening but you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

I’m just going to delete oder doch’s posts. If it happens again this thread will be locked.

xps it's all good Tom, sorry I was rude to you!

No worries. I blame the weather.

May you get a revolution out of it (not even joking btw).

absolutely wild to me that the punishment for bringing a loaded gun to an airport is a fine of “up to $4100”

sorry, “starting at”. point stands

Very good piece.

I spent months working on this story, so wanted to share again for those who may have missed it. Gun control advocates are missing a very important piece of modern gun culture: the future of firearms is in 3D. https://t.co/rI3a682KR0

— Kim Kelly (@GrimKim) August 21, 2020

are there any programs in California to provide lower-income people with guns, I can’t afford anything decent right now but i need to fulfill my duty as a real progressive

The new house I just bought has a fairly steeply terraced portion of backyard, and a weird, paranoid thought kept unwittingly entering my mind: "that's good, defensible high ground"

Are you considering purchasing a large pot of boiling oil?

highly recommend a home alone style distribution of self-defense/prank weapons

rewatching home alone recently, i couldn't help but imagine the police scene surrounding marv's body in the basement, killed by kevin with the iron falling through the laundry shoot, or maybe the body outline out on the stairwell, where a swooping paint can slammed marv directly in the head, again killed by kevin

Would the baby be charged as an adult for this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAVgqYZ1Xqk

My sister in Orange County just emailed me this:

I had to replace the filter in my air conditioning system, and its unusual size was hard to find--unless I ordered online, which I didn't want to do. Anyway, the right filter existed at Graingers off the 55 Freeway, so up I went. It was in a big building and because of Covid the doorways were taped off. At one doorway there was an "open" sign and another taped-up one said the wait to get in would be at least 45 minutes. At 3pm on a Wednesday? A guy came up and another with his girlfriend, and they started chitchatting and the subject went to guns and ammo. "No problem bringing ammo here from Idaho!" And after about 10 minutes it became clear they were here to buy ammo. I'm wondering what kind of store is this. After a while a store clerk came out and announced the wait time and I asked him if they indeed had air conditioner filters. "Oh that's next door; everybody comes here first!"

Well at the real Graingers they told me that the next door down was an ammo shop. Sure enough, it was called "Ammo Bros." They went on to say that there's usually a line all day outside, as well as a line that starts early in the morning before opening like a Black Friday sale. It seems that there are ammo shortages these days--like the new toilet paper. People are prepping for what's coming

Friend who works in a gun distributor warehouse has been working overtime for months now, even though they have no ammo the orders keep coming in for everything else.

People did it during the early Obama years as well - ammo prices doubled and never recovered. Now you've got COVID and a semi-likely Biden Presidency. Most aren't prepping for "what's coming" it's FOMO of just not being able to buy <whatever>.

They should have kept all that ammo from the last time they freaked out over nothing

Now you've got COVID

Better stock up on really tiny bullets.

Give me back

Give me back my COVID

You're going to have to pry this Covid from my cold, dead hands.

Better Covid than Red.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/how-liberal-gun-owners-see-2020-self-defense-is-self-care.html

For Yafeuh Balogun, the founder of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, an organization that teaches firearms skills to people of color as part of a commitment to self-defense and “militant culture,” guns are an integral part of his progressive ideology. His father was a marine and Vietnam veteran who was shot in the face in combat. Nevertheless, a formative part of Balogun’s childhood involved his dad teaching him and his siblings how to use guns safely.

Owning firearms, according to Balogun, is a way to have agency over communities that have been failed and brutalized by the police state. “Guns are tools to push toward self-determination,” he says. “In a utopian sense, we would hope for a world that doesn’t need weapons. We would hope that we can have a world where people can live in unity and harmony across the color spectrum. That’s not the case.” To quote a popular post in r/liberalgunowners, “Armed minorities are harder to oppress.”

--

For Randy Miyan, the executive director of Liberal Gun Owners, gun ownership feels like an essential part of the human experience. “Liberals and leftists treat the 1960s as year zero,” he told me. “We have had a specialized relationship with specialized projectile weapons for 73,000 years. They’re archaeologically normative.” The mission of Liberal Gun Owners, which is registered as a 501(c)4, is to provide a community for gun-loving lefties as well as to look for solutions for gun violence beyond gun control. The earliest iteration of the group, Miyan explains, “was a shitshow of 4chan, 8chan bullshit. Whenever you do something online and don’t put a gate around it, every regressive asswipe and jerko on the internet is going to find you.” When Miyan finally earned the role of moderator, “the new sheriff was in town,” he says. He created a set of rules and protocols to turn the group into a healthy space for gun-toting lefties.

Miyan grew up in a working-class family of Democratic voters in Pittsburgh and now lives in North Carolina, but his affinity for guns is part of his spiritual questing. From age 21 to 31, Miyan studied to become a Buddhist monk, and though he ultimately chose to follow a more conventional path of getting married and having children, his time studying under Tibetan monks taught him the importance of compassion, love, and nonviolence. “There’s a notion out there that guns couldn’t possibly be an extension of compassion, that their very existence is regressive,” he explains. “You can be involved in self-defense and firearms and have that be an extension of love for your kin.”

There’s a notion out there that guns couldn’t possibly be an extension of compassion,

Yeah I have to cop to harboring that notion

”We have had a specialized relationship with specialized projectile weapons for 73,000 years. They’re archaeologically normative.”

lobsters have claws
humans have guns
it’s proven by science
QED, baby

Randy sounds fun

btw having both a gun and a child in the same house is fucking psychotic

his affinity for guns is part of his spiritual questing.

i see

like it all comes back for me to the question, who do you intend to point your gun at and kill

otm for most people I think it's more like a kid who has a blankie that makes them feel secure

like it all comes back for me to the question, who do you intend to point your gun at and kill

My answer would be "someone trying to lynch me"

Yeah DJP that's the main answer I would think of as plausible

but like are the Socialist Rifle Association actually prepared and organized to turn guys out to defend people from the pigs? Or are they another batch of bros with a hobby?

genuinely don't know

living in a house with a gun would pretty much guarantee I'd eventually kill myself with it, is where a lot of my recurrent revulsion itt comes from

“You can be involved in self-defense and firearms and have that be an extension of love for your kin.”

i would guess that a bunch of right-wing gun nuts would agree with this exact statement.

DJP otm.

I would say “someone trying to lynch my friends and neighbors” bc I'm white.

My limited experience with SRA suggests it varies widely by region/crew. Some are definitely comprised of people with a hobby, others are deep into mutual aid projects and community defense, of which firearms knowledge/use is a facet. They are explicitly less outwardly militant than other groups like John Brown and Huey Newton Clubs or Redneck Revolt.

but like are the Socialist Rifle Association actually prepared and organized to turn guys out to defend people from the pigs?

Are you a militia?
We are not a militia. As a social welfare organization, we work to educate and advocate. While the organization and its chapters do at times sanction presence at protests, we forbid armed protests under the SRA banner, as this is not the goal of the SRA. We encourage members who wish to participate in armed demonstrations to investigate organizations that have been established for that purpose. Opposing fascism and reactionary ideologies is a multifront struggle, and we fulfill the education portion of that struggle.

(from: https://socialistra.org/about/ )

^^^was just about to c&p this myself

i'm considering purchasing a knife and learning how to use it tbh. also self-defense classes.

going to get pepper spray first tho

I would say “someone trying to lynch my friends and neighbors” bc I'm white.

To be clear, being White may not protect you depending on your interactions with normal lynching targets (see: Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, a quarter of the lynchings recorded between 1882 and 1968)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csz_Ul1Y7iE

Lads, it's Tottenham.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/tottenham-hotspur/3249226/Feeble-Tottenham-Hotspur-continue-to-fire-blanks-in-Uefa-Cup-as-they-fall-to-Udinese-Football.html

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/amp/news/deeney-misses-penalty-spurs-fire-blanks-watford

https://amp.sportsmole.co.uk/football/spurs/league-cup/half-time-report/half-time-report-spurs-firing-blanks-against-forest_178661.html

etc

lads

straight trigger fingers plz

no one should have a gun

But how else am I supposed to protect MY FAMILY????

and how would soldiers shoot each other?

we have drones for that now

can we use drones to shoot wild animals and eat them? because to me, that hobby is more important than all the people who have committed suicide with guns

haha, it often strikes me that one of the reasons we don't have more ilx posters is because visitors may arrive, read a series of posts like that, and assume we're all hardcore conservatives

TRUMP 2020! THE FREEDOM TO KILL

It's cute that Karl thinks there are visitors arriving, reading things, and leaving.

It will just be the same couple dozen people arguing over stupid things until we're dead.

Perhaps we can establish an ILX retirement home where we can sit in rocking chairs with laprobes and ear trumpets and rehash old disputes.

I picture all of you looking like the ranger from Yogi Bear

lots of people arrive, read and leave!

didn't we figure out once that 9 out of 10 ILX users is a lurker?

or ILX views, rather

9 out of every 10 ILX users is a lurker, but 10 out of every 10 lurkers are Chris Martin from Coldplay

Perhaps we can establish an ILX retirement home where we can sit in rocking chairs with laprobes and ear trumpets and rehash old disputes.

Constantly boring each nurse and attendant with reminders of their first mention

I've mentioned it on other threads, but we own a gun. Have belonged to various leftist gun clubs, none at the moment.

congrats

Show up after nearly a month of not posting to make a snarky one word remark, how bout fuck you

What is your gun for? Who do you intend to kill with it?

tbh, one can be against the country's fetishization of guns and also simultaneously feel so fearful of the armed contingent in this country that they feel safer having one in their house. i know one of you will probably cite 70 studies showing how it's "not actually safer", but it's kinda counterproductive to do the "demonize poster who says he has a gun" every time it crops up itt

Assuming they gun for you first of course. Like, that’s what “self defense” means, right?

if I had my druthers every gun would be instantly melted by Optimus Prime but I also recognize not everybody lives in the same quiet quaint suburb neighborhood that I do

but it's kinda counterproductive to do the "demonize poster who says he has a gun" every time it crops up itt

especially when that poster isn't waiving it around like a yahoo on the thread.

the "I'd feel safer" thing is also something I understand; even if I was not completely anti-gun, I suck at stuff like first-person shooters and choke when it's time to fire, why should I think I would be any better with an actual gun

(and also suck at things that require precise movement and handling of cumbersome physical objects, e.g., aiming a gun)

well part of my suckiness at sports was because any time a ball would hit my hand I would freak out and just fling it aimlessly towards the basket. lots of airballs.

so a gun? yea, i'd probably be useless with it.

So, we lived in an area of the country that was very conservative, and we're queer leftists and one of us is brown. We received enough death threats and crazy Nazi tweakers stalking us to feel the need to purchase one.

Eventually, we moved. We probably go target shooting once a month or so just to keep everything in working order. For the most part it sits with a trigger lock in a double locked safe.

That's the reasoning. I don't like guns, really, or view them as fetish objects, but when someone with swastika tattoos is shooting a gun in the air outside your cabin, it feels a little better to have one by your side.

Tbh, we've thought about selling it or having it destroyed.

Certainly not to hold a candle to that, but to some similar extent, I had Nazis with AR-15s in trucks with the plates removed prowling the streets of my city, my neighborhood, not two blocks from my house, less than six months ago.

Like, at some point you have to accept that “this is really happening” and act accordingly

And you can’t call the cops, because the cops are on their side

The keeping it locked away part is what's important, I think, especially if you or anyone around you ever gets drunk or does psychedelics.

I spent eight years living in Alaska, most of my family and friends there own guns; the cabin I lived in had about ten guns in it, none of them mine, but I happily helped process and eat the moose meat that came from said guns. And when a drunk neighbor started coming over in the middle of the night and harassing my cousin, I didn't try to stop her from getting a handgun for protection. So I'm not about to judge anyone for owning guns. On the other hand, I now have four stories of people I know/knew that ended with them getting shot in the head, either by themselves or by others, and that is four too many imo.

Agreed! That's why we keep it locked away, always. We're not paranoid about home invasions or anything now, but living in small rural towns can be...something else entirely.

Yeah, definitely. I just want people who haven't spent significant time around guns to know what they're getting themselves into when they buy a gun, especially a handgun. Know that you are now at greater risk of hurting yourself or being hurt, regardless of whether you think you're an exception to that statistic. Assume that the gun wants to kill someone, and that someone might be you, and treat it accordingly.

I think that too often, people think they're an exception and they have the presence of mind and the mental balance and whatever to safely carry a gun around. If my friend B. hadn't been steeped in that kind of gun culture where you always have your gun on you, I am 95% sure he would be alive today.

I'm sorry about your friend, Lily.

Thank you, table! He was a lovely person, and I miss him.

My situation is similar, almost exactly, to what Dan I describes. I'm guessing we live in the same city.

I grew up around guns but not excessively. My dad went bird hunting and my grandpa was a competitive shotgunner (and also much deeper into the "lifestyle", owned military rifles and pistols, as well as a box of .50cal tracer ammo for some reason#.

For years I had no contact with guns at all despite learning how to shoot as a kid, up until the aforementioned Nazis and their cop pals decided to flex a bit. Now I have one of my dad's shotguns and an old .22 rifle of his as well. Not exactly high powered stuff but it all works. They're locked in a closet with trigger locks except when we take them out to practice and clean them. Not having kids makes it a lot easier on my psyche. The idea of carrying a firearm every day, open or concealed, is pretty terrifying to me. That said I do hope to figure out a way to go bird hunting sometime.

I should also note that my grandpa was one of the founding members of his state's Veterans for Peace branch, and was arrested in anti-war demonstrations many times over the years.

He also was a lifelong member of the NRA and the faculty advisor for the rifle club at the school where he taught.

In other words, not all people who own and operate firearms are loons.

A claim made by loons and non-loons alike

Within the USA firearms have a very limited utility for purposes other than killing or maiming humans. But it is worth conceding that such highly limited utility exists and is legitimate, so that those who are suspicious of new gun laws can see that advocates of such laws are not blind to the tiny slice of uses guns can be put to. Blanket denial of such utility only obstructs dialogue with the saner inhabitants of rural America.

To be clear, target shooting for its own sake does not qualify as 'utility'. It's a hobby at best. Most hunting and a few pest control applications do qualify. Firing a gun within city limits by anyone is an awful idea 99.99% of the time.

tbh, one can be against the country's fetishization of guns and also simultaneously feel so fearful of the armed contingent in this country that they feel safer having one in their house. i know one of you will probably cite 70 studies showing how it's "not actually safer", but it's kinda counterproductive to do the "demonize poster who says he has a gun" every time it crops up itt

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Monday, November 9, 2020 6:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

people who have handguns suck imo

no offense

i don't have a gun so that's for someone else

bump

jfc not now

.

Halfway there meself tbh

Don’t bother, you won’t be able to buy ammo for the next 12 months.

leave the guns to the people with death wishes

no ammo allowed across the non-existent sea border

with every passing day these times make me more & more picture myself owning a 12 gauge shotgun

there is a lot of ~atonement~ needed

Today I decided that I am going to. I am going to wait until things are a bit safer after COVID, and then do some safety trainings and practice at a range, and then I will purchase one. I'm going to keep it fully locked up and not readily accessible -- I'm not going to sleep waiting for an ordinary burglar I can blow away. But if shit gets really bad, I will have it.

Ok dude have fun having a gun in the same house as your children let us know how that plays out

Freak

I’ll look for you on the news

Are you going to tell your children’s friends’ parents there’s a gun in the house so they can make an informed decision about whether their children are allowed over?

Guess you’re betting your kids won’t ever be depressed

Just move to the West Bank already

You ok?

Are you?

silby, projecting your concerns about guns onto others is confusing

guns' ability to kill people is concern-neutral

I struggle with understanding other people have different brains than I do

But also what are you going to do with your stupid gun other than hope your eventual teenage children don’t impulsively kill themselves with it?

A number of years back one of my friends saw a groupon for gun classes that included shooting range time and thought it would be a fun thing for a handful of us to do together. So about five of us took this gun class. We learned about safety and cleaning and how to take apart the gun, and how to load it, and how to troubleshoot stuff, and of course this class was taught by a guy who used to be a cop and is now a security consultant. Anyway, this guy told us, don't own a gun unless you are okay with killing a person, because you shoot to kill. And I thought about that, and I left, because I really was not okay with that. ... If I lived with other people (esp. if I were a parent), I would be super super reticent to have a gun* because that responsibility would also be on everyone else. Are they okay with killing a person?

* asterisk would be, an old ass hunting rifle if I lived out in the middle of nowhere and had to deal with vermin/disease-carrying predatory wild animals, and that gun would not be in the house

I'm not able to have children but I appreciate your concern for their non-existence xp

I’m addressing man alive, who does have children

xp man alive -- I would take the class(es) and then make up your mind whether you indeed want to be a gun owner. Seriously.

also think about the fact that you are a white dude

Anyway, this guy told us, don't own a gun unless you are okay with killing a person, because you shoot to kill.

This is still a bizarre sentiment to me and utterly divorced from my experience of living in a gun-friendly regional culture. Even as deranged as the country has gotten, people regularly buy guns completely divorced from any idea of defense or murder.

Well what are they for then?

i don't mean to downplay anyone's fear in these trying times but not sure what "if shit gets really bad" means in this whether to buy a gun context. your anonymous suburban family being targeted by a mob? because you're not going to bring it anywhere, right? idk, is one handgun going to help in a way that outweighs the danger of having it in your house every single day? maybe get like better doors or something instead. or one of those bunker rooms.

Well what are they for then?

Hunting, target shooting, competition - mostly for the hell of it IME.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ZgEtgxxg0

I think I'm a bit more sensitive to posters' coping fantasies than earlier in the thread but I have to say my answer hasnt changed, getting a gun is good for participating in armed insurrection, accidentally killing a family member or committing suicide - for anything else demonstrably bad

xp milo z -- this was handgun training, maybe I should've specified

Anyway, this guy told us, don't own a gun unless you are okay with killing a person, because you shoot to kill.
-
This is still a bizarre sentiment to me and utterly divorced from my experience of living in a gun-friendly regional culture. Even as deranged as the country has gotten, people regularly buy guns completely divorced from any idea of defense or murder.

see, this is a large part of the problem: guns means something very different for people in cities vs people in rural areas, but we all have to live in the same world and follow the same state/federal laws.

people in cities generally buy guns because they're afraid of other people and believe that they might be able to successfully shoot someone in a chaotic situation, and because they don't believe that the people close to them would ever accidentally or intentionally shoot someone else or themselves.

people in rural areas do the same, but in addition they very much enjoy shooting soda cans on their land, as well as killing animals. they are so obsessed with shooting objects and killing animals, and so myopic and selfish, that they want to impose lenient/non-existent gun regulations on everyone else, including city people.

so yeah, of course, people buy guns completely divorced form the idea of defense and murder. a nuclear bomb could also be used as a nice coffee table, if you use it correctly. a nuclear bomb doesn't have to be destructive. (*starts up the equivalent of NRA for nuclear weapons, arguing that because they can be used as nice coffee tables they shouldn't be banned anywhere on earth, ever, and lobbies hard for this for decades*). it's all so silly, but gun hobbyists are no different imo, when they continue to advocate for only their OWN, personal, "gun-friendly" region bullshit, knowing full well that every win for gun-ownership leads to violent deaths for other people. gross

i mention this every year on this thread, so i'll go ahead and put the notch on the board for 2021:

HOW ABOUT BAN PERSONAL GUN OWNERSHIP AND JUST LET PEOPLE "RENT" GUNS AT REGULATED FIREARM AREAS. OR MAYBE EVEN LET THEM OWN THEIR DAMN FUCKING GUNS, BUT THEY HAVE TO BE HELD AT THE SAFE LOCATION/SHOOTING RANGE, AND ARE NOT ALLOWED AT HOME. THAT WAY THE PEOPLE HAVING SO MUCH FUCKING FUN WITH THEIR GUNS CAN CONTINUE TO HAVE FUCKING FUN WHILE OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN DON'T SHOOT THEMSELVES IN THE FACE

no one ever has anything to say about that idea, anywhere, which i take to be a tacit admission that even for the rural "fun" gun people, the primary motivation is still wanting to retain their opportunity to try to kill someone in a violent chaotic situation

one of my best pals killed himself with his dad's gun when i was in HS, and i'm sure many people reading this have a similar story.

there is SO much gun violence in this country, that any time you talk about guns in a public forum, you should assume that multiple people have lost loved ones to guns.

anyway, that's why the "but they're fun!" argument is so, so, SO fucking insulting and dumb to me

like, i fucking LOVE coffee, and i would give it up today and suffer terrible headaches and fatigue and crankiness for months on end if i knew that coffee was very bad for everyone else, and that coffee was only available because me and my whiny coffee-loving friends paid dues to a lobbying organization to corruptly keep it available for me, just me, for me me me, because they loved coffee so fucking much that they didn't care what it did to other people

LET THEM OWN THEIR DAMN FUCKING GUNS, BUT THEY HAVE TO BE HELD AT THE SAFE LOCATION/SHOOTING RANGE, AND ARE NOT ALLOWED AT HOME.

actually, when I was writing my post upthread about the context in which I might own a gun, that was kinda what I thought about ... like, a neighborhood gun safe or something. OTM

Shooting at the range or having access through a neighborhood safe that is NOT IN YOUR HOUSE takes away most people's supposed justification for having guns IN THEIR HOUSE, which is, someday the zombies/people I look down on will come for my family and I will be Liam Neeson when the fact is no one is coming for them and they and their entire family are way less safe with a gun in the house.

Noobs.

"like, i fucking LOVE coffee, "

I said this same argument wrt playing basketball and milo replied with some bullshit about how Chinese workers died making basketballs or something

like, i fucking LOVE coffee, and i would give it up today and suffer terrible headaches and fatigue and crankiness for months on end if i knew that coffee was very bad for everyone else, and that coffee was only available because me and my whiny coffee-loving friends paid dues to a lobbying organization to corruptly keep it available for me, just me, for me me me, because they loved coffee so fucking much that they didn't care what it did to other people

― Karl Malone, Saturday, 9 January 2021 20:32 (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well i mean start listing

Drugs
Alcohol
Animal fats or whatever

Shooting at the range or having access through a neighborhood safe that is NOT IN YOUR HOUSE takes away most people's supposed justification for having guns IN THEIR HOUSE, which is, someday the zombies/people I look down on will come for my family and I will be Liam Neeson when the fact is no one is coming for them and they and their entire family are way less safe with a gun in the house.

exactly! the reason the "rent-a-gun" idea doesn't fly is because that's not the primary reason to have a gun. it's an excuse

NB im not making an argument for guns im just not sure about that argument against them but obv feel free to disregard

no, i gotcha - it's not the most solid argument. but please, see some of my earlier, better arguments. i am more of a tracks poster than an album poster

Lol <3

Lmao Karl

Doesn't that make you more of an album poster?

i guess i mean that my albums are really too long, but some of the individual tracks are ok, you just have to sift through the garbage a bit to get to it

90s still a top decade imo so you have my full support.

I feel the same way about guns as I do about nukes - I'd rather no one have any but if they must exist I don't only want (cops/the USA) to have 'em. but I don't have any dependents and don't care THAT much if I live or die so I'll probably never buy one.

My point re: lived experience around guns and in a gun friendly culture (which is... very not-rural) - an innate terror response to the idea of being in proximity to a gun is not the norm among Americans and expecting/demanding one isn't going to get you very far in whatever your goal is, likewise to the idea that anyone owning or considering the purchase of a gun has to be prepared to become Charles Bronson.

Gun laws up to private ownership of guns are not in my top 30 political issues either way - ban them, don't, godspeed. I have no intention of owning a gun again, unless I'm given a hermitage in the woods where I'll be required to hunt for meat.

No, but i'm considering purchasing a nug

an innate terror response to the idea of being in proximity to a gun is not the norm among Americans and expecting/demanding one isn't going to get you very far in whatever your goal is, likewise to the idea that anyone owning or considering the purchase of a gun has to be prepared to become Charles Bronson

I think everyone is aware this is the reality. and here we are

man alive just going to shoot people in the legs presumably

american gun culture seems totally normal and fine

leftist gun clubs

It's an education, this thread.

well, for some. others just seem to carry on assuming that whatever culture they grew up in is a norm seemingly without challenge

You think American gun laws are bad but then look at SWITZERLANDDDDDDDDD we should aspire to be more like Switzerland why aren't we all like the Swiss why oh why.

I have wondered a few times what the attitude toward the parkland teens is since a lot of the us left decided the whole gun thing in america was fine actually

American gun laws are inextricably tangled up with white supremacy and patriarchy/masculinity and the whole toxic broth is too much for me to be interested in. But then I know no one is coming for me (probably) so I guess that's easy for me to say.

I expect the Biden admin to close the ‘gun show loophole’* which is a good law (if only partially effective) and was (as of a couple of years ago) supported by a majority of gun owners. Plus you can sell it to gun dealers as free money since they can charge $25 to do a little paperwork and make a phone call.

That’s the kind of thing that can be built on, I’d think.

*barring Manchin and Sinema interference

an innate terror response to the idea of being in proximity to a gun is not the norm among Americans and expecting/demanding one isn't going to get you very far in whatever your goal is

America is a large diverse country. ... A couple months back a young woman with a baby in the car was killed in a drive by shooting. Not sure the baby lived either. She was pregnant, and the fetus also died. No idea why she was shot. Then there are all the people killed by police with guns. ... It is just too easy to kill people with guns. ... So, Karl, where can I order one of those nuclear warhead coffee tables? I think it would go well with my industrial boho interior design aesthetic

oops - killed a block away from my friend's house. He was one of the first people to respond.

leftist gun clubs

50/50 as to whether I'd be in one if I was amurrican

What if you were Albertan.

Man alive, does your webmail work?

I feel the same way about guns as I do about nukes - I'd rather no one have any but if they must exist I don't only want (cops/the USA) to have 'em. but I don't have any dependents and don't care THAT much if I live or die so I'll probably never buy one.

― stylish but illegal (Simon H.), Saturday, January 9, 2021 4:05 PM (four hours ago)

lmao hell yeah we are gonna equality our way outta this pickle

xp man alive -- I would take the class(es) and then make up your mind whether you indeed want to be a gun owner. Seriously.

― sarahell, Saturday, January 9, 2021 2:51 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

In seriousness, this is more likely the path I would take, if I start down that road at all. Obivously seeing people storm the capitol in 6MWE and "Camp Auschwitz" tees is a bit shaking, and my post was a reaction to that.

Man alive, does your webmail work?

― Pere Legume (the table is the table), Saturday, January 9, 2021 6:37 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh shit, I haven't checked it in like a year, have to see if I remember the pw

answer: yes, it works

pertinent
https://thenib.com/mlk-vs-rfw/

https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/03/11/gun-owners-welcome-a-new-addition-to-the-club-liberals/

20 minutes later: conservative gun owners kick out new addition to club liberals

a sign with weapons spelling out “Love.”

Could have at least gone for Live Laugh Love, maybe with a different kind of gun for each word.

you'll have my love when you pry it from my cold dead hands

If you can't beat 'em, shoot 'em.

lol

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/05/us-gun-ownership-black-americans-surge

I am hopeful that this current surge in gun ownership will defy all prior experience and actually lead to a reduction in gun deaths

surely this etc

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/04/08/npr-as-asian-americans-seek-safety-from-a-rise-in-attacks-some-look-to-guns

has there ever been a thread to share your experiences of having guns pulled on you? i'm always surprised how many ppl have a experience with this

I had a guy flash a chrome semi-auto at me in traffic once, the woman in the car with him proceeded to hit him with her purse (for being a dumbass, presumably).

damn, hope that Biden zinger was worth it

saw a dude in front of me in line at Burger King adjust his sweatpants and he had pistol jammed in the back of his waistband. my main thought was how the hell does he keep it from falling into his pants?

the power of the purse trumps most things xxp

Not pulled on me, but on two different occasions I've been sitting on the CTA train and had a guy walk slowly up and down the train car, pulling up his t-shirt to reveal the handle of a gun in his waistband, clearly trying to make sure everyone saw it.

the second time I did acid it was with a roommate and his buddy and they argued ALL THE TIME. The friend had a handgun he kept taking out and fondling and I was like “I’m out of here”

That sounds terrifying.

I should clarify that by ALL THE TIME I just meant whenever they were together, I dipped out of that situation soon after I started coming up and called some friends who were more than delighted to hang around me while I was tripping lol

I jumped into a fight one time in high school (i was a dumbass) and some dude on the sidelines pulled one and everyone scrambled

I haven't bought a gun FYI. Moving out here has been very good for my blood pressure, as has the change in administration.

Well, I finally have actually fired a gun. I went skeet shooting, and thus I loaded and fired a double barrel shotgun and a semi-auto shotgun a bunch of times. I enjoyed the experience of skeet shooting on a nice fall day. It was sort of like playing a video game except more visceral, outdoors in pleasant surroundings, and with friends. Or a bit like shooting pool -- combo of hand-eye coordination and connecting projected object with other object. The instructor compared it to golf (which I don't do, but w/e).

I feel sort of good that I can check that off my list. Firing a gun is no longer some weird taboo in my life, it's just another thing I have tried. I feel reassured that it wasn't that hard to handle one safely, the rules were pretty simple. Loading and operating was simple, making sure it was empty was simple. I was nervous the entire first station, but by the second I felt comfortable. Another thing that loomed in the back of my mind no longer looms.

I would do it again sometime. I'm not eager to purchase a shotgun though.

It's been three years after the shootout, and I still can't handle being in the same room as a popping champagne cork, much less a gunshot.

This didn't go over well.

Quelle surprise.

At least you didn't get shot.