Joan dropped a post worthy of my time. Let’s do this!
It turns out, of course, that guns are popular gifts. Not being into guns like that, I have a hard time thinking about a gun as a gift. My experience with guns is that of hunting and then losing a loved one to a bullet. So the idea that someone would be really happy about getting a gun for Christmas just doesn’t fit with my idea of a merry time. But of course, there are many people for whom getting a gun is the ultimate gift. A hunting gun is one thing. If you are into hunting, getting a gun to use for that purpose is likely a good gift. But if the gun is meant for something else, like shooting a person, then the idea of a gun as a gift is a bad one, in my opinion. Guns are dangerous. They are one of the few, if only, products on the market designed to kill a person or animal. That’s why I was both fascinated and concerned about some of the photos that have shown up on social media showing people displaying their new guns or showing children ( and babies) surrounded by guns.
Yep, guns should just be for hunting. This is the BIGGEST wish for an anti-gun lobbyist. Now Joan may say what she wants about hunting, but in America nobody survives off of game meat. Thanks to hunting regulations, even if you WANT to subsist on game meat alone and keep away from farmed meat, you really can’t do it without running afoul of the law. Of course this doubles back to the availability of farm-raised meat in America. Its EVERYWHERE. You simply don’t NEEEEED to hunt animals.
That’s the point. If your reason to own guns is for shooting animals, that right is forfeit, as your reason can simply be boiled down to fun. You see, Joan is right, guns are dangerous, and people indeed to get killed, harmed and preyed upon by guns in the hands of bad and incompetent people. If your ONLY argument is “But they’re fun!” it isn’t much of an argument.
Of course Joan’s objection on owning guns for killing people is EXACTLY WHY we should own guns. Sure some guns are for sport, collecting, and training, but the guns that need to be protected most are for KILLING PEOPLE. You see this is perfectly legal under the law, and if that’s your argument, its rock solid.
Look at the picture she posted:
Ironically, most of those guns indeed are sporting guns ideal for hunting and sport shooting, but that pair Taurus guns are for self defense. The baby in the picture is a life worthy of protection. This strikes VERY close to home as that baby could pass for my own. You try and harm my baby, I’ll harm the hell out of you. Joan doesn’t agree with that, and I find that disagreement abhorrent.
I did have to look up the term “chopper” as used by the very young man who is shown displaying a really scary looking gun that is surely not meant for average citizens. Here is what I found at Urban Dictionary (spelling and word usage not mine):
I’m not a fan of that term, as “Chopper” used for guns is a gangster term, originally coined for the Thompson Submachine Gun used by prohibition rum-runners and depression era robbers.
Still I can’t fault it very much as I own a Jennings J22 because it is a proverbial “Saturday Night Special”, which is a racist term used by racist “Progressives” to disarm poor people in order to secure their votes. I own this gun for one reason only…they don’t want me to own it!
I can see using the term “Chopper” the same way. Further with the threat of “Flash Mobs”, and “Occupy” Groups, and other riots, one must consider a time when you might need to disperse a violent mob single-handily as Police might not respond in enough time. Again dispersing a mob that might be a threat to you, or your home is legally justified.
But back to photos, some new information has been released about the Sandy Hook shooting including some photos taken by law enforcement as evidence. So here is proof that Nancy Lanza owned a certificate of completion for an NRA shooting class. The NRA does not like to believe that the mother of the shooter of the country’s most heinous shooting had anything to do with their organization. But the NRA dominates the gun training classes in our country and does train thousands of people every year to shoot their guns. That’s fine but it would be good to know more about these classes. What is taught. How is it taught?
I won’t necessarily question the photo of Nancy Lanza’s NRA membership, as it appears to be police evidence, still the only photos I’ve seen are low-resolution and illegible. The point is overall moot. Still Joan questions NRA safety training, and she does so from an anti-rights platform that is anti-training! There are NO valid training classes in Joan’s book, so she’s against gun owners getting trained. She’s against all gun owners, even her own gun-owning husband!
After the Sandy Hook shooting the NRA famously suggested that it would sponsor gun training classes to teachers, wrongly and cynically claiming that our schools would be safer if only teachers were armed. And of course, the NRA would benefit financially because more teachers would have to go out and buy guns for this purpose. Great idea if you are in the gun industry which is inextricably linked to the NRA. But I digress.
Except the latest School shooting was stopped by an armed school offical. So Joan thinks this was bad?
And then there’s South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley bragging about getting a handgun for Christmas. Really? …The idea that elected officials need to show their love of guns or hunting in campaign photos in order to be elected is ridiculous and sends a false message about the role of guns in America. And if politicians think that cozying up to the NRA gun lobby will get them elected they should rethink.
Well except it IS good for politics. Further Beretta is looking for a new home:
Beretta has eliminated Virginia from its short list of states to move its company because anti-gun Democrat Terry McAuliffe was elected governor….The family owned, 500-year old Italian company has been scouting locations for its Accokeek factory in reaction to Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley ramming radical gun-control into law last spring.
If Haley’s purchases of a Beretta Px4 can help sway Beretta to relocate to the VERY pro-gun state of South Carolina, not only would it be good for Haley’s political future, it will also be a boon for South Carolina in both Jobs and tax monies.
Now comes the big silliness!
The message here is: avoid those photos of yourself shooting a gun. They just don’t work and they send the wrong message to a country where gun deaths and injuries total 100,000 a year while politicians do nothing to change the carnage. Take the opposite approach- the common sense approach. Rather than boasting about guns and making ridiculous remarks about what one intends to do with the guns, we should be paying constant attention to what is actually happening in our country.
Yep, stay in the closet! remember, if people know you are a gun owner and a supporter of the Second Amendment you make the job harder! Further the reason for gun ownership is shifting from rural sport shooting to urban and suburban self defense. If you are a gun owner in America today you likely own guns for self defense. Joan HATES that, and if she can’t make you not exist, she’d like to make it easy to deny your existence!
This is really a post of sad flailing to protect a false reality that gun ownership is dying in America. It isn’t, and we’re all safer because of it!
One more reason to be OPEN about carrying for self defense!!!
It’s a small thing really…but I do live in America and more than half the meat I eat is from wild game. Some here in rural Alaska do subsist entirely on moose etc. If one earns low enough, hunting licenses are very inexpensive. So up here, the Second Amendment is cherished for hunting, but is also cherished for self defense and as a safeguard against tyranny.
That’s awesome that you can do that! Here in Maine Moose is by lottery, I don’t think the caribou make it here much. Not sure how bear is handled, but generally each person can get one deer, and maybe one bear per season. Couple that with fish, small game, and birds MAYBE you could make a living on it, but you might need more protein for all that hunting and cleaning.
I don’t think in many of the lower 48 you could survive on game meat.
Right on, I was about to post a point of contention regarding surviving off game meat. I know people who DO. Well, most of them combine their hunts with fish for survival. Don’t forget others who are Native who depend on the seal, walrus, or other smaller marine mammal harvest or further North who actually do depend on whale hunts.
Some people who are retired or on disability have equipment and will process game animals for friends or family members. Usually they are given a quarter, not as payment but as a GIFT. (you can’t sell or trade game meat or fish) It makes a huge difference when burger runs more than $6 a pound. I get excited about a 4.5lb prime roast when it is on clearance for $33.
Honestly with the cost of farmed meat, people up here DEPEND on bagging their moose, or caribou. Some families depend on both the husband and wife getting their animal. Plus some game birds too.
Also, for others trapping or hunting fur bearers means the difference between enough extra money (fur sales) to make it OR having enough something to keep them warm for a new coat or what not too.
In the lower 48, maybe. What about out west? I really dont’ know their regs offhand. What about the places where you can deer hunt whitetail as much as you want during season because the population is so high? That would fill a freezer fairly quickly and on the cheep if you process your own meat.
Hypothetically I think people could in many of the different states that don’t require lotto style for big game. Even if they could bag multiple deer- they just have to take the time to do it.
Hunting is so big up here as something to do, I don’t think people outside realize the time and effort residents put into it. My guy’s brother got a grizzly this past spring. They planned for a year (he got a blackie the year prior), went out for two weeks, and his folks took them on their boat to reach the island in Prince William Sound.
Normal moose hunting is at least a week out at hunting camp, if not two. Pretty much every place around town is short handed when September rolls around. It’s like when farms used to have the big harvest in other places, or fair season for the farmers in NH.
As for Christmas guns, nope. I was sad. Nothing. I was seriously hoping the Christensen AR that I actually liked when I checked it out at Sportsman’s would appear. I wasn’t shocked though, I have that talent to find the most expensive one there and wasn’t about to drop $2,000 on an AR.
One year I got a .22 conversion kit for my Kimber 1911. Or that might have been birthday… It was a sweet gift. It hasn’t shot anyone yet either. Come to think of it, none of my guns have. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
I may not have given guns as gifts this year, but I did take my sister shooting for the very first time, along with my brother and his wife. Then I took my dad shooting later and he enjoyed it. Shoot, they all enjoyed it! Furthermore I helped educate my grandmother and she’s well on her way to recovering from hoplophobia. Numerous photos were taken and enjoyed, and some even ended up on FB! Oh the horror!
One little thing… Where the hell does that 100,000 a year number come from. Last I checked its bogus to the max.
The concept is self defense, that also includes wild animals and some “pets” not so much so but still dangerous.
The one paragraph more like a line says it all. Gun, bullet, dead loved one, that’s her
still in the anger stage of grief.
Eck!
Back in 1981, I bought an HK91 for deer hunting. The fact that it can do everything else that I require it to do (steel, paper, hoards…[lol], is why I still have it. It has never harmed another human being, with the exception of a few bruised shoulders inflicted upon the firer. (fireree?) I feel certain that J(M)oan would remain nonplussed at my freedom, and that alone is enough of a reason for its retention in my scary “arsenal”.
Think of what giving the gift of a firearm means
a.) You value the person — firearms aren’t cheap; even the cheapest of them.
and
b.) You trust the person — firearms do equalize physical disparity/inability. Firearms are capable of great harm (like gasoline, chainsaws, knives, cars, etc) — gifting one is saying you trust that person to do the right thing, the safe thing.
“And of course, the NRA would benefit financially because more teachers would have to go out and buy guns for this purpose.”
Ummm…. No. Plenty of NRA instructors were offering to train interested teachers FOR FREE, and I’d say the VAST majority of those interested were already gun owners, and a sizable percentage already had CCW licenses that they weren’t allowed to use on-campus. (Around here, carrying on-campus is legal with a CHL, even for teachers, but the school board makes it a condition of employment that teachers don’t carry. IOW, if caught you won’t be arrested, but you won’t have a job anymore.)
As for the latest school shooting: less than 4 victims = “not a mass-shooting,” so it doesn’t register on her radar. Plus, the shooter killed himself, which means to her it WASN’T “stopped by an armed guard,” regardless of the circumstance. And even it the shooter had been shot by the guard, she’d count him as another “victim of gun violence.” (What this says about her morally equating her sister and a mass-shooter as “victims,” I’ll leave to you.)
She’ll spin, wriggle, and writhe to find ANY way to make this a win for her.
Also I know for the Arkansas school systems planning to arm teachers, Walther came forward and DONATED guns for the teachers to train with and use.