I'm watching CBS Sunday Morning, their entire episode is an examination of guns and Americans. They're being pretty even-keeled about it, which I feel qualified to judge, because I am right squarely dead center on this issue, being a non-recreational and not terribly enthusiastic gun owner.
I think about guns a lot. On days like this, after something particularly heinous happens (I'm speaking specifically about the backyard massacre of Wilkinsburg family, just in case you're reading this after any number of other mass shootings have occurred), my internal arguments match exactly any comment section on any extremist liberal or conservative video or opinion post. The difference between this issue and most other on-the-fence opinions I hold is that I tend to disagree with whoever is spouting off at any given moment, regardless of which side they're on.
I am, fundamentally, pro-gun. This is rooted in my experience of growing up in a pro-gun home and spending a lot of time with the best kind of pro-gun people: guys who were deadly serious about the sober and responsible use of firearms, even when they were not terribly serious about much else. There was none, absolutely NONE of the gun-fetishism and liberal-bashing that you see now, which seems to be the primary trend of the pro-gun movement, and which has soured me toward being a member of the NRA or aligning myself with people who display certain types of bumper stickers.
My core belief is that one person should not be able to impose his will upon someone else just because he has superior upper body strength. Put differently, although probably not more succinctly, if there's a tool that can keep a person from being forced into the van if that person doesn't want to get into the van, then it's immoral to keep that tool from that person.
The practicality of this sort of falls away because the people who would benefit most greatly from concealed carry aren't even going to consider doing it for a variety of reasons, primarily the needless politicization of the gun issue and, secondarily, the tendency of self-protection advocates to be borderline sociopaths who can barely discuss tactical gear without talking about how it all makes them super-duper hard.
The thing that I want to be true, but doesn't seem to be true at all, is the idea that more armed people you have per square foot, the better off you are. I cling to this idea based on the fact that moral people outnumber immoral/wacko people by orders of magnitude. But once shots start going off in a public area where some significant fraction of the population is armed, you're relying on a lot of adrenaline-rich people to react with steely precision in differentiating between the assailant and the guy who's taking the assailant down -- and maybe the guy who is accidentally taking down the guy who is taking the assailant down.
Having said that, and I don't know why I never hear about pro-gun people with this position, I'm not an absolutist. I believe in the morality of guns, but I do not care about the Second Amendment.
In terms of lethality, modern firearms have more in common with chemical weapons than they do with the firearms of 1787. No one gets all jerked out of place about restricting access to blister agents, but the idea that every breathing citizen ought to be able to throw 900 rounds a minute without demonstrating some sort of psychological wherewithal seems perfectly reasonable to some people -- just because the technology moved slowly enough that it never occurred to anyone to stop referring to these things as firearms, even though they bear no resemblance to the weapons that the constitution referred to. If you traveled back to 18th century Philadelphia and tore up a tree stump with an MP5, you'd be burned as a witch. Or, maybe your picture would be on all the currency. There are a lot of ways that could go.
Clearly, there are people who shouldn't have guns. A bunch of people. And when pro-gun people argue that removing the right to purchase firearms from the mentally ill would have no effect, they are ignoring the enormous effect of sparing the NRA the embarrassment of defending the motives of the mentally ill. How about that? Wouldn't it be great to all come together on one fragment of this issue and agree that the guy wearing one shoe and screaming some combination of verses from the book of Daniel and early Jethro Tull lyrics at a bus stop movie poster shouldn't, no, really shouldn't, probably not, seems like a dicey idea, be allowed to have a Glock right now?
Gun ownership is just one of a dozen things you should be restricted from if you hear or see things that those around you do not see or hear. It's probably right up there at the top, along with authoring legislation and bathing other people's children.
Anyway, the whole reason I'm chiming in on this is that I had a thought while watching Sunday Morning's segment on women carrying guns. This is going to sound like I'm joking, but I promise you I'm not.
If you have a concealed carry permit, and you value tactical superiority over everything else, which you must, because you're walking around with a piece of machinery with absolutely no function other than its stated purpose of ending a human life, your daily carry should... be... pink.
I think about guns a lot. On days like this, after something particularly heinous happens (I'm speaking specifically about the backyard massacre of Wilkinsburg family, just in case you're reading this after any number of other mass shootings have occurred), my internal arguments match exactly any comment section on any extremist liberal or conservative video or opinion post. The difference between this issue and most other on-the-fence opinions I hold is that I tend to disagree with whoever is spouting off at any given moment, regardless of which side they're on.
I am, fundamentally, pro-gun. This is rooted in my experience of growing up in a pro-gun home and spending a lot of time with the best kind of pro-gun people: guys who were deadly serious about the sober and responsible use of firearms, even when they were not terribly serious about much else. There was none, absolutely NONE of the gun-fetishism and liberal-bashing that you see now, which seems to be the primary trend of the pro-gun movement, and which has soured me toward being a member of the NRA or aligning myself with people who display certain types of bumper stickers.
My core belief is that one person should not be able to impose his will upon someone else just because he has superior upper body strength. Put differently, although probably not more succinctly, if there's a tool that can keep a person from being forced into the van if that person doesn't want to get into the van, then it's immoral to keep that tool from that person.
The practicality of this sort of falls away because the people who would benefit most greatly from concealed carry aren't even going to consider doing it for a variety of reasons, primarily the needless politicization of the gun issue and, secondarily, the tendency of self-protection advocates to be borderline sociopaths who can barely discuss tactical gear without talking about how it all makes them super-duper hard.
The thing that I want to be true, but doesn't seem to be true at all, is the idea that more armed people you have per square foot, the better off you are. I cling to this idea based on the fact that moral people outnumber immoral/wacko people by orders of magnitude. But once shots start going off in a public area where some significant fraction of the population is armed, you're relying on a lot of adrenaline-rich people to react with steely precision in differentiating between the assailant and the guy who's taking the assailant down -- and maybe the guy who is accidentally taking down the guy who is taking the assailant down.
Having said that, and I don't know why I never hear about pro-gun people with this position, I'm not an absolutist. I believe in the morality of guns, but I do not care about the Second Amendment.
In terms of lethality, modern firearms have more in common with chemical weapons than they do with the firearms of 1787. No one gets all jerked out of place about restricting access to blister agents, but the idea that every breathing citizen ought to be able to throw 900 rounds a minute without demonstrating some sort of psychological wherewithal seems perfectly reasonable to some people -- just because the technology moved slowly enough that it never occurred to anyone to stop referring to these things as firearms, even though they bear no resemblance to the weapons that the constitution referred to. If you traveled back to 18th century Philadelphia and tore up a tree stump with an MP5, you'd be burned as a witch. Or, maybe your picture would be on all the currency. There are a lot of ways that could go.
Clearly, there are people who shouldn't have guns. A bunch of people. And when pro-gun people argue that removing the right to purchase firearms from the mentally ill would have no effect, they are ignoring the enormous effect of sparing the NRA the embarrassment of defending the motives of the mentally ill. How about that? Wouldn't it be great to all come together on one fragment of this issue and agree that the guy wearing one shoe and screaming some combination of verses from the book of Daniel and early Jethro Tull lyrics at a bus stop movie poster shouldn't, no, really shouldn't, probably not, seems like a dicey idea, be allowed to have a Glock right now?
Gun ownership is just one of a dozen things you should be restricted from if you hear or see things that those around you do not see or hear. It's probably right up there at the top, along with authoring legislation and bathing other people's children.
Anyway, the whole reason I'm chiming in on this is that I had a thought while watching Sunday Morning's segment on women carrying guns. This is going to sound like I'm joking, but I promise you I'm not.
If you have a concealed carry permit, and you value tactical superiority over everything else, which you must, because you're walking around with a piece of machinery with absolutely no function other than its stated purpose of ending a human life, your daily carry should... be... pink.
Fact*: Most people who conceal carry are men who look more often than not like Charlie Daniels.
Fact: It would be really weird to see a guy who looks like Charlie Daniels holding a pink gun.
Fact: Being confronted by someone who looks even remotely like Charlie Daniels holding a pink gun in the heightened circumstances of an armed conflict is going to, as the saying goes, put a hitch in the giddyup of anyone who sees the Pink Gunslinger draw, giving Charlie Daniels a tactical advantage of maybe an entire second, which is the thing that he should want in that moment above all else.
Fact: It would be really weird to see a guy who looks like Charlie Daniels holding a pink gun.
Fact: Being confronted by someone who looks even remotely like Charlie Daniels holding a pink gun in the heightened circumstances of an armed conflict is going to, as the saying goes, put a hitch in the giddyup of anyone who sees the Pink Gunslinger draw, giving Charlie Daniels a tactical advantage of maybe an entire second, which is the thing that he should want in that moment above all else.
So, run this thought experiment. If you are willing to carry a pink firearm, designed, as it was, to be a playfully ironic statement of the relationship between femininity and lethality, then you are, without a doubt, all about strategic preparedness. You're a warrior.
If you would never dream of carrying a pink sidearm, then maybe you're just into the aesthetics of it. Maybe you just like the way the leather holster feels, maybe you like the weight of your piece against your thigh, the chub that gets going when you field strip your semi-auto and lay its pieces in pornographic splendor across the surface of your work bench, the air thick and tangy with the smell of Hoppe's No. 9.
There is nothing inherently wrong with being into firearms in THAT way if you can conduct yourself without hurting anyone. But, you should be honest with yourself. If you're just trying to look cool, you're not doing anyone any favors.
*Probably not actually a fact.
If you would never dream of carrying a pink sidearm, then maybe you're just into the aesthetics of it. Maybe you just like the way the leather holster feels, maybe you like the weight of your piece against your thigh, the chub that gets going when you field strip your semi-auto and lay its pieces in pornographic splendor across the surface of your work bench, the air thick and tangy with the smell of Hoppe's No. 9.
There is nothing inherently wrong with being into firearms in THAT way if you can conduct yourself without hurting anyone. But, you should be honest with yourself. If you're just trying to look cool, you're not doing anyone any favors.
*Probably not actually a fact.
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