I did have a comment on that article, referring to a co-worker who "never saw any reason why anyone would want to have a gun." I started to reply in the comments section, but it started to get a little "Geek-Length" so I decided instead to reply here.
If you're reading this, you are probably a recreational shooter. Chances are, you shoot IPSC and are more or less competitive. Statistically, it's a toss-up whether you have a gun because you want to do a particular kind of shooting ("I need to hunt elk so my Elk rifle doesn't get rusty!"), or have a gun and just want some reason or excuse to go shoot it.
I actually shot my first IPSC match because at age 38 I had recently bought an army surplus 1911 from my father and was wondering what to do now that I had it. (I had never been a pistol shooter; some say I'm still not.) Someone at my office had posted a sign about "competitive pistol shooting" being available at a local range - Tri-County Gun Club - and I showed up the next weekend for training and certification.
Yesterday, home with the flu, was one of the few months times I missed a TCGC match. It takes a reason for me NOT to shoot.
You and I need no better reason than to shoot for sport -- an excuse to go to the range in nasty weather and embarrass ourselves in the company of good friends. We do have other reasons, including personal defense and hunting, but it's all of a package.
We just do not commonly associate with people who have NO personal firearms experience, who quite possibly have never handled a gun and aren't sure they remember if they've ever seen a "real live gun". The person of whom I wrote was one such individual, and was not only indifferent to an invitation to come out and try shooting one, but acted skittish about it.
It is a fact that there are people who are literally fearful of guns. The reasons for their fear are not easily understandable to me, I can never tell whether it's Nature or Nurture. That is, they're essentially timid or fearful people, or they have been taught to scorn and/or fear firearms. I suspect it's more often that their family was much different from mine, when they were children they were discouraged from a 'morbid interest' in guns.
I see this 'nurtured' abhorrence of firearms less often in my own generation than in the generation which was raised in accordance to the concepts advocated by Dr. Spock. Spock's best-selling book "Baby and Child Care" was first published in 1946, but his radical political ideals became more evident in the 1970's when my generation started families. Spock was a
Not to put the blame for timidity about guns, if blame there must be, on the shoulders of one man; many families consider firearms to be 'instruments of violence' and reject the ownership and/or usage of firearms as they reject violence. Some do this for religious reasons, some because it is a connection they have made independently.
I refer you to Kevin Baker's blog The Smallest Minority, and specifically to one article which in part discussed the two types of violence.
I refer to this as an inability to differentiate between the two "gun cultures" - the "violent and predatory" and the "violent, but protective." His type (exemplified by the British press, and it would seem, the majority of the British populace) sees only violent, and all violence is, by their definition, bad - unless that violence is carried out by an authorized member of the government, where it is instead referred to as force. And there is still some ambivalence even about those acts. I'm heartened to see what appears to be a growing public support for what they term "have-a-go heroes" - those who fight back against attackers - but they've got a long way to go after almost ninety years of a disarmament culture.[Emphasis in the original]
I warn you, The Smallest Minority is (a) addictive and (b) almost invariably "Geek Length". The difference being, of course, that Kevin can put more concept and information into his writing than I do, he is a better writer, and a much better researcher.
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I agree with Kevin's proposition, that people who object to guns on the basis of an abhorrence of violence do so indiscriminately. Literally, they don't see any difference, for example, between, a man who initiates a home-invasion burglary and the home-owner who defends his home and family by the use of violence. These are the people who say "only the police and the army should have guns."
And that is the fast-track to Gun Control, which is a growth industry which parallels the Information Age both in time-span and the increasing prevalence.
You ask: "Geek, a few minutes ago you blamed Dr. Spock for teaching parents to be fearful of guns, now you're blaming computers for gun control?"
Good question, and I'm glad you asked that. The answer is no.
The only way computers lend to the gun control movement is in the same sense that computers have enhanced the information-sharing ability of us all. Again, this is indiscriminate and allows strong opinions to be shared with like-minded individuals. You can not name a Gun Control Organization that doesn't have an active website, and you can't find a Gun Rights Organization that doesn't have an active website. The breaking point is that there are a lot of private blogs (such as this one) which allows individual Gun Rights activists to spout their own personal opinions on the subject. There are fewer personal blogs specifically devoted to advocating Gun Control than there are devoted to Gun Rights, by a factor of 1000%. (Yes, I made that up. Gun Control advocates make up their own statistics, I guess I can too.)
That private, individual alternative is part of the reason why the Gun Control controversy is becoming more intense in recent years ... say, fifteen years. In the same way that blogs such as Little Green Footballs (LGF) have exposed Main Stream Media (MSM) inaccuracies and slanted reporting (LGF was instrumental in exposing both the Dan Rather "Bush Letter" and the photo-shopping of TWOT photos from Iraq and Afghanistan), other blogs help us to become aware of anti-gun legislation such as the recent Kalifornia Microstamping Technology. We, as private citizens concerned with our Second Amendment Rights, can't always stop the passage of such wrong-headed state and local laws, but we can help ensure that legislatures don't push these bills through without the scrutiny of an informed citizenry.
And in a way, as we talk about these issues between ourselves, we are encouraged to talk privately to people who "never saw any reason why anyone would want to have a gun." We can at least act as an example of a rational person who sees no reason why they should not be able to have a gun, in careful distinction to not want to have a gun.
To not want to have a gun is to exercise personal choice.
To not be able to have a gun is an exercise in tyranny.
It's not a matter of safety. It's not a matter of culture. It's not a matter of "if it only saves the life of a single child".
It's a matter of who makes our decisions.
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