A continuation of this piece. The wife and I were watching Swingers, overall a decent and funny movie but it was an Independent film written by a New Yorker living in LA in the 1999s so it had this scene.
(Pardon the video, skip to 7:20 for the scene in question)
Super-duper top-shelf Anti-gun strawman propaganda. First if you’ve seen the film “Sue” (a boy named Sue, I wonder if that was intentional?) starts out as a generally sympathetic character that is constantly teased by the others and doesn’t seem to be able to, nor have much desire to retort.
Then this scene. He gets shoulder-checked by some punk who obviously is just interested in throwing his weight around to total strangers. Sue calls the guy an asshole, which isn’t all that uncalled for, given that it is the truth. Asshole, being an asshole starts to pick a fight, Sue doesn’t back down, and when the heat gets turned on he pulls what apears to be a S&W 659 (one of the many hat-tips to Terrintino’s Reservoir Dogs) and points it gangster-style until they run away.
Friends get pissed and abandon him. Its obvious his carrying a gun has ruined their fun night. He then justifies pulling the gun for the sake of their “Rep”, and one of the more interesting lines of dialogue come up. Sue justifies packing a piece as a thing one does if you’re from LA. Favreau’s character (named “Mike” but let’s face it this is a semi-autobiographical film) mentions that in LA you can avoid danger easily which doesn’t sound possible in his opinion in New York and he talks about his “Good Neighborhood”.
So let’s have a breakdown of the scene. First while Sue doesn’t exactly pick a fight, he’s give ample opportunity to back down. When he does pull his weapon he justifies the action for the sake of his and his friend’s reputation.
I’ll add to this by dropping a personal story. Shortly after I first got my carry permit I was caught behind a total asshole driver. He was going too slow, was constantly flipping on his blinker and even ran a red light. Finally I was parked behind him at another red light and when it turned green he didn’t move. I started leaning on my horn.
He simply drove off, and thankfully in a different direction than I. The Mrs. told me I shouldn’t have lost my cool like that, and asked what I would have done if he had gotten out of his car. I mentioned I was carrying a gun…and then I thought about it. The guy might get out of his car to pick a fight, but if I pull my gun on him I’d be doing it to use lethal force. Now somebody getting out of a car in the middle of the street most often is indeed something that could come to a violent end, but in this case he’d be coming out because I was goading him. If I ever pull my weapon there will be a Police Report, no ifs-ands-or-butts, do I really want that on a report?
So he pulls a gun not because he’s afraid of multiple larger men acting violent, but because he doesn’t want to be seen as a “Bitch”. There’s a common strawman, that gun owners will shoot somebody because of an argument or disagreement, or over a traffic accident or a parking space. The data never supports them, but they can make it happen in movies, so its ALMOST like its real.
Also note this happened in LA in the 90s. You think he had a CCW permit? You’ll not he didn’t have a holster for his gun (that can’t be comfortable with an all-stainless gun like that) nor does he bother to pull his jacket over the gun when he first tucks it back in his pants. In the next cut the gun is “Covered”, probably simply returned to the prop department. Its stated he grew up in Anaheim which is in Orange County which according to this source is Shall Issue, but of course Anti-Gun people never actually think of the laws, they just think of implications. Nobody asks if he has a permit, or suggests they call the police. Anti-gun people are big-thinkers, and this is as far as their minds go.
You’ll note that later the punks are seen being friendly with Sue in his apartment. The impression is Sue put his gun up and instead used love. Dunno if the first scene could be written by somebody who might think that looking down the barrel of a gun after doing something VERY stupid can get a person to re-think a few things.
Just thought I’d share because it did seem VERY 90s. By which I mean, very anti-gun and stupid.
And a very typical LA attitude… sigh…
I’m getting that the part you dislike was all of the “you don’t need to carry a gun, nice neighborhood, worthless car no one wants” yakking that was happening afterwards. That and the message that anyone carrying a gun acts like this. If I were one of the friends I’d be screaming at him, too, but for a different reason. I’m preaching to the choir here, but you don’t puff up over name calling, escalate, then pull a gun. I think my conversation wouldn’t be “you don’t need to carry a gun”, but more “until you get your attitude and temper in check, you shouldn’t carry a gun”. That kind of gun carrier is just a facepalm news story waiting to happen.
Now, for your story I’d have to say that honking your horn is not “goading” or “escalation”, but maybe leaning on it could have been considered taunting. I’m very unlikely to use my horn, but I got into an accident because of my hesitation to do that (girl texting sitting in the opposite lane, I waited a long while then turned left in front, she gunned it and hit me). The police told me I should have honked my horn. It’s on the vehicle for a reason I guess, so I use it much more after that incident. Now, if that had been followed by leaning out the window and name calling, then yes.
Good points on keeping your cool when going out and about armed. A little patience would serve us well not only in our dealings with strangers, but friends and family as well.
The one anti gun 90’s episode I remember was 90210. Kid’s father makes the decision to go out and buy a bunch of guns. One day the kid (with no supervision) decides to twirl an automatic on his finger cowboy style. Naturally the gun goes off and kills him.
But of course the same politicians who point to these kinds of incidents are also the politicians who believe teaching youth safe gun handling and respect for firearms should be verboten.
One day the kid (with no supervision) decides to twirl an automatic on his finger cowboy style. Naturally the gun goes off and kills him.
I can’t help but wonder how that firearm-twirling thing started. After all, nothing says “paging Mr. Darwin, white courtesy telephone” like placing one’s finger on the trigger of a loaded firearm in such a way that significant pressure on the trigger is nearly inevitable….
Getting back to the main point of this post, here’s an appropriate link to Bill Whittle’s latest Firewall, “Walking into Mordor.”