“Quote of the Day” Bob

A great quote from Bob, here:

Have you ever noticed how the anti-rights cultists absolutely discount our feelings?

I feel safer carrying a firearm in public. As long as I don’t harm anyone, don’t my feelings have the same weight as hers?

That’s just part of his comment, but that right there is a REALLY interesting question. First no, the anti-rights people only count THEIR feelings, and they only reconcile the feelings of OTHERS when agree with THEIR FEELINGS.

Why is that? Well first I’ll point out that anti-rights people, and that includes “Progressives” in general are bigots by nature. They generally only like their own kind, prefer to read and hear views that agree with their own, they get very angry when somebody says something they disagree with. They are strongly prone to quickly abandoning the issue at hand and diving right for personal attacks. One of the best examples in recent date is this post on one of the Joyce Funded CSGV Blogs. Give it a skim, but look for this. Its an anti-gun anti-NRA post, but at any point does it actually TALK about the NRA or guns? Nope, just talks about NRA members and Supporter’s personal lives. An interesting point if you could tie it to the NRA using dishonest tactics to further its agenda….but they really don’t have anything for that. Pretty obvious, they can’t attack the NRA or the 2nd Amendment so they simply make personal attacks to attempt to tar everybody with a broad brush.

You see they aren’t against the issue itself, they just HATE people who don’t agree with them. Its not logical, or political, its PERSONAL.

Like all bigots they see the object of their ire as “Less Than Them” or “Less Human”, this is no different than a Klansman feeling sympathy for the man they lynch, or a Jim Crow-era politician feel bad about the sub-standard separate treatment his black constituents received vs the white ones. Do Sharia Muslims feel sorry for the women in their lives when they force them to wear heavy, concealing clothing in a hot arid country? Do they feel bad when a woman gets beaten for violating these religious tenants?

So there’s one angle. Of COURSE they discount our feelings, we’re not LIKE them, we’re GUN NUTS! We’re THOSE PEOPLE! We’re wrong and they don’t care WHAT the facts say, their paid lobbyists have BETTER “Facts” that are tailor made to fit their narrow and illogical world-view.

But is that it? I don’t think so. I think as pro-gun people, both in our world view, and because we often engage the lies of the antis make it a point to discount our OWN feelings. Feelings can LIE! We’ve all had a plate of nasty looking shit dropped in front of us, and immediately recoiled in horror. The one that comes most readily to my mind is Beef Stroganoff. I remember the first time my Mom made that stuff. It looked like Egg noodles smothered in lumpy wet cement. NO WAY that shit is gonna taste good! Well I was wrong, its good stuff. Not my most favorite dish in the world, but tasty! Similar story, the Portuguese fishermen I shipped out with were huge fans of cooking fish with the head on. Having your meal look back at you for the first time is creepy. But man there’s some good mean on a fish’s head and neck that is lost when you lop off the old noggin!

I started off anti-gun. I’ve talked about it before, and I’ll probably write another post on it today as a request. I won’t spoil the next post, but there were a lot of things that I FELT were true, but turned out to be total bullshit. In my development as a 2nd Amendment activist one of my more recent conflict with my feelings was carry laws. In my gut it just seemed like a good idea to require training and permits for those who want to carry guns. Of course I grew up in Maine where Open carry is 100% legal, and no permits are required, and Maine boarders New Hampshire, and is a stone’s throw from Vermont, both who require NO training to carry or own firearms….and then there’s my current residence of Massachusetts that not only requires training to carry but to OWN. It seems like a good idea to require somebody to fire a few shots under the watchful eye of a knowledgeable instructor before they bring a gun and ammo home for the first time. SEEMS, but it just isn’t so. There are gun accidents and negligent shootings in all of these states, and all states in general, the numbers are REALLY small, small enough to be considered statistical noise. (On a side note, I’m not discounting these events, we should do everything we can to promote safety, I’m just pointing out that nature abhors a vacuum and ZERO will never exist ANYWHERE) And like everywhere else it seems the bad things with guns mostly happen with people who were already prohibited from handling firearms, and generally is correlated with gang activity. Furthermore I had the misfortune of not shooting a gun for over 6 months when I was flat-out busy buying and moving into, and renovating my home. My marksmanship really sucked when I got to the range and started working the cobwebs out of my skills. Also I see people handling guns with their finger on their trigger, or muzzle people at gun shops, gun shows, and gun clubs. A few times bad enough that I’ve had to make a statement. Also just go search for it and you’ll find a multitude of stories of cops having accidental discharges, accidentally shooting themselves or others. These guys need to qualify under supervision once or twice a year, let alone the once-a-lifetime, or once every 5 years that some states require. Truth is there isn’t enough mandatory training in the world to make us all perfect, and frankly just like smokers don’t need a warning label on a pack of butts to know that sucking in smoke is bad for you, people don’t need to be told that guns are potentially dangerous and one should know what they’re doing before handling them. On a similar note I knew getting into reloading that handloading your own ammunition is potentially dangerous. I wasn’t mandated to take a class, and I never did, but I did read several books and talk to several friends before taking the plunge. It seems guns are the EXACT same way, and the mandated training only puts an added financial burden on those looking to keep and bear arms.

So there are many instances where our feelings were proven wrong, so by nature most pro-gun people (and certainly the ones who are out to engage anti-rights activists in debate) tend to hold feelings (theirs or others) at little value, and the antis know that. So they also discount our feelings because we don’t value them in the first place.

I think that’s perfectly fine, because feelings well never win hearts and minds. My wife is creeped out by Mice and insets (specifically swarming ones like ants). I’m creeped out by contact lenses. I don’t want to stick something on my eye, I don’t like it, I don’t want it, and you can’t make me, and frankly I don’t want to see you do it either!

Did either of our feelings change your mind? Of course not! Why should that work for anything else?

When facts are on our side, feelings be damned. When you’re on the wrong side of the issue…well all you have is feelings!