Another Gem!
Iron Maiden and Bollywood? Seriously! This guy is a GENIUS!
Gonna be a good show tonight, I assure you!
Come on over to Vicious Circle and catch us live!
Alan found this lovely internet gem.
Have a look! Enter your settings and it generates however much meat-themed gibberish as you want.
I had to trump it. Crank out a paragraph or two over there, copy it to your clipboard, then jump over here and have the computer read it back to you in a myriad of accents!
I was laughing my ass off as the cheezy voice read the nonsense when my wife walked into the armory. She rolled her eyes and was generally unimpressed.
If you want to not impress your significant other you too can be like Weer’d!
Enjoy!
So the lovely Jennifer had a great idea, have us gun bloggers tell our stories. Not sure how much of this is already out there, but seems like a good enough cause.
I was born and raised in Portland Maine. That’s pretty important because gun culture can very widely from location-to-location. A Massachusetts Liberal isn’t any more or less Liberal than a Vermont one, but unless they’re a transplant from another state the Vermont Liberal won’t be bat-shit afraid of guns, while the Mass one will be. Simply fear of the unknown, and cultural history.
My family was and is fairly liberal, and certainly the area where I grew up leans pretty hard to the left, still its Maine, there were natural Woods abutting my parent’s property, and you don’t have to drive far to find safe hunting land. Could have been a sign or the times, or a factor of the area but guns were rarely discussed as defensive tools, but lots of people had rifles and shotguns for ducks and deer. My Grandfather who lived in Bridgton Maine kept a .22 rifle near the back door with a bowl of loose .22 shells nearby for killing various varmint species that might disrupt his garden. Nothing was locked up, and the ammo was right there. Still even as a VERY young boy I was told I was not to touch those things, and that was it.
My Uncle is an avid hunter. When my cousins and I would play we’d sometimes tinker on his computer in his office. His hunting rifles hung on the wall there. Unlocked. No ammo.
None of this was a big deal. Nor was it for anybody else. To add to the culture, here in New England there are revolutionary war forts, and you can see the graves of British soldiers killed by the Patriots fighting for independence, and the whole city was burnt to the ground by the British during the war. In my whole life I never once thought the Second Amendment meant anything but the keeping of arms to fight against a tyrannical government.
Still I was coming into my teens in early ’90s. I loved action movies, and fantasy novels, and weapons fascinated me. I drew guns and swords in the margins of my notebooks and on the flaps of my subject folders. The news was awash with guns. The politicians were ramped up to ban “Assault Weapons”. Saw lots of cool guns all the time, but it seems always in the hands of bearded men in camo of backwoods clothing and shooting at stuff that invoked a reaction. I remember seeing video footing of some dude in a mullet with an AK-type rifle popping away at watermelons and cinder blocks. It was scary to see all that power, and given that my family and my neighborhood was mostly white collar where Dads would come home at the end of the day in a shirt and tie, I got a strong feeling of “Other” from these reports. These were NOT my people, and these guns seemed so much more powerful than the .30-06 and .308, and .30-30 rifles that hung on the walls of the deer hunters.
I remember a social studies class where we actually talked about what an “Assault Weapon” was. I know the definitions now, but all I remember from them were large “Clips”, “Flash Hiders”, and “Grenade Launchers”. Wow those all seemed pretty scary, and boy that seemed like a good idea to ban those! I also remember asking my Dad one night what the term “Semi-automatic”, Dad’s response “I don’t know”.
I know I’ve mentioned it before that I knew “Fully-Automatic” was what machine guns did, so semi-automatic must have been what describes what Robocop’s Auto-9 (A Dressed-up Beretta 93R SMG) that fired in 3-round bursts, that struck me as not-quite automatic, and scary en ugh to ban. Note I’d seen semi-auto rifles and pistols shot in movies and TV, and frankly that wasn’t a big deal.
Now fast forward to my attendance to the University of Maine, by that point I was a full-bore “Progressive”. Taxes, Gun Control, and nosing into other people’s business, you name it. I also didn’t much care for the military because I had fallen for the talking point that war was simply a rich-man’s game of chess, and the “Pawns” would be perfectly willing to discuss the issue and settle it without killing if it wasn’t for their superiors safe-and-sound in the rear. At some point I had heard of (2nd Hand) of the Arthur Kellerman study that claimed that guns in the home were super dangerous, and by keeping a gun in your home you were more likely to kill somebody you know (I assumed a family member or a friend) than a stranger (I assumed a stranger).
UMaine is in the middle of the state, and in the middle of the woods. Also its the biggest state-school in the state so it was the place to go for lots of Mainer’s looking to get a good education without spending a ton of scratch. Many of these were solid-gold Maine Rednecks. A term I use with the greatest respect. These were people (men and women) who drove pickup trucks, had mud on their boots, and fixed stuff that was broken. Now meeting these people in College also meant that many of these rednecks have higher degrees, and are now working as engineers, scientists, or Doctors (many of the ones I hung with became vets, but I’m sure some are physicians). There was nothing stupid, or backwards about these people.
They also carried tools. They all carried pocket knives, many of them multi-tools, they had tool boxes in their trucks, and at home, they had guns. Also a lot of these people were on the military path. Some were on the GI bill, some Gulf War vets, others were ROTC looking to serve after graduation. I don’t remember exactly, but this had to have been some of the first times I got my ass kicked in the gun control debate.
Still the big tipping point came in 1999. A buddy of mine invited me to his home in a neighboring town for the expressed purpose of shooting guns. I wasn’t all that excited about it, but frankly it seemed more fun than just bumming around campus.
We started off with some sort of .22 carbine, then .22 Pistols. Eventually I shot some beefy bolt-action rifles, a .357 Magnum and….a Colt M1911A1. I mention it last because I could have cared less about anything else in that lineup. They were neat, but frankly nothing worth writing home about. The 1911, now that was something magical. Nothing I could put into words, just everything made sense on it to me, and the .45 ammo was powerful, but not unpleasant to shoot. I was in love.
Now this in no way flipped me. I distinctly remember going back there and asking to shoot the 1911, only to find it missing. My Friend’s Dad was out running errands, and that was his carry gun. Why would he carry a gun? He must be REALLY paranoid.
You see I WANTED a 1911 of my own, but I wanted it the same way I want an Arial Atom, because its cool, and its fun…but nothing practical. And because of that I also still didn’t have problems with making it difficult for others to acquire guns. I found myself thinking the anti-rights mantra of “I don’t have a problem YOU PERSONALLY owning guns…but what about those other unnamed people? Do we really want THEM to have guns?”
I wanted a 1911, and I was an underage college student with no money. I also had an internet connection, so I started reading about guns. I’d heard some of the vets and some of the hunters mention that .223 Remington was an underpowered round. I looked up the information and saw that it was essentially the cartridge for the M16, and the “Assault Weapon” AR-15…wait I thought “Assault Weapons” were more powerful than the .308 and .30-06 Deer rifles the hunters had. Also I found myself getting into the foolish caliber war. I was strongly on the side of .45 ACP, and against 9mm. Didn’t see the point on the expansive magazine, when you could have more power. Really made the AWB magazine ban seem stupid, especially when I knew how fast I could throw a fresh box into my Buddy’s 1911.
I started learning about how guns worked, and what they were used for…and I found lies. Given that I felt that the NRA were the bad guys, and the Gun Control groups were the good guys, and the “Good Guys” had been lying to me, well the NRA had to be lying too, right?
Except I couldn’t find any serious lies in their talking points. Also the more I shot the more safe I felt guns were, and the less hesitant about letting people keep guns around.
After I graduated I moved back to Portland and worked various jobs on the waterfront and in the Marine Biology community. I went shooting a few times a year with friends, and by this point, while not a gun owner myself I was a big proponent of the 2nd Amendment and the keeping of arms for personal protection and personal liberty. It was also around this time (specifically after the 9-11 attacks) I started identifying as a Republican.
I had been dating Mrs. Weer’d this whole time, and she landed a job down in the Boston area and moved down there. We’d see each other on weekend, or when I’d have time off from work. Given I was working for the Observer Program at the time which was based out of Mass, I decided to request for a transfer to Massachusetts, and I moved in with the Mrs in Medford Mass and we got married the next year. I’d contemplated buying a gun several times while living in Maine, but never did. I finally decided to take the plunge when I lived in Mass. I looked up what I needed to do and I found Bruce and his ordeal. Bruce took almost 4 months to get his permit just to BUY a gun. That made me REALLY mad, and made me want to get guns even more. FYI Bruce was the big inspiration for me to start blogging.
Went to the Local PD and asked what I needed to do to get my permit. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of carrying personally, but I wasn’t opposed to carry in general so I asked for the LTC A which was also a carry permit. “Oh we don’t give those” was what the secretary told me. I had JUST met her, what did she know about me? My permit process was uneventful, and about a Month later I had my LTC A, but with an ugly-red “Target and Hunting” stamp on it. I could buy a gun, but I could NOT carry. My government trusted me to own all sorts of guns, but not to carry them outside my home.
That was the biggest insult. I still have that permit here on my desk, and it fills me with anger just to look at it. “Shall Issue” is “No Issue”, and “police discretion” is simply the “discretion” to only issue to friends and relatives. I Bought my first 1911 that day, and kept bringing home more and more guns. Also at this point I joined the Northeast Shooters Forum, and met many new friends and learned a lot about guns and the laws. Still of all the online conversations I had the one I remember the most was what really solidified my thoughts on carry. I was complaining about my restricted permit, and mentioned I wanted it removed mostly for my own personal freedom, but I thought I’d only carry when I thought I might need a gun. I was thinking of the times the wife and I traveled into Boston to see shows and to go to dinner. There are lots of dark and crummy streets we’d be traversing, and having a gun seemed like a good thing to have at hand. The woman responded “How do you know when you’ll need your gun?”
WOAH! Talk about a door being opened. Obviously if I thought I REALLY needed a gun in X location I wouldn’t go there. There are some really dangerous sections of Boston that I will NEVER go to, because the Gangs control those areas, and I might get killed for my skin color alone there. Doesn’t matter if I have a gun or not, I won’t go to those places. Still did everybody who got attacked think they were going to need a weapon? Why did I have a home defense plan, yet was happy where I was living? I decided that day that when I could carry I would carry every time possible.
I moved to a different town a few years later, and I contacted the licensing authority, and was again told I couldn’t get my restriction removed. This officer was nicer, and pointed out how dumb the rules were, but that was how his department stood.
Finally when we bought I house I declared I would NOT buy property in a town that wouldn’t trust me carrying a gun. I consulted this list, and I didn’t look at a single house that was not in a “Green” town.
A few months after moving in I had my carry permit and I’ve been carrying every day since.
If people are interested in my stories of carrying, that’s a tale for another day, but that’s how I came to be the gunnie before you from a wimpy “Progressive” gun-grabber.
Found this from some random surfing: Enjoy!
Now that’s a prime example of the whole being more than the sum of its parts!
Pretty Straight Forward, street brawl that ended in fatality.
A Hennepin County jury on Friday convicted a Minneapolis man of second-degree murder for fatally stabbing an acquaintance during a street fight in downtown Minneapolis.
Sounds like these “Friends” got into an argument, one pulled out a can of mace and hosed the other one down, he pulled out a knife and murdered him.
People say that guns make murder too easy. That’s bullshit, killing somebody in cold blood takes a special mindset, and if you have it it doesn’t matter what the tool.
Of course those who say that cling to the metric of “Gun Death”, so they have an alterior motive.
h/t Maddmedic
Just got back from the Doctor’s office. No silly gun questions (and I had my rebuttals all polished too!) and no Digit!
Said I need to lose some weight (I’m trying, bub!) and that smoking cigars is bad for you (No shit, I’ll take my chances!)
And now the wife will be off my back about getting a check-up!
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!
Again, from Joan. Not only is this typical Joan, but typical Brady Campain, and Joyce Foundation activists (of which she is both).
Honestly- most people just don’t care about all of this stuff.And in the end, much of it doesn’t matter. The general public does not like assault type guns and associate them with war or crime. I know you guys like them and don’t have a problem with them but many people just plain don’t care about guns and the details of them. No matter what the Brady Campaign does, you would not like it and find it wrong. It is a fact that criminals are using assault rifles on the streets and the police are outgunned. As I have said before, your world is quite different from mine and the many people who agree with me. That doesn’t make you right and me wrong or vice versa. We disagree. But as long as we have the highest gun death rate in the civilized world, we will keep working to keep those guns from people who shouldn’t have them.
This is in reference to the Brady Campaign’s posted stance on the “Assault Weapons Ban”
Let’s run down the line.: “Most people just don’t care about all of this stuff”: True, there are lots of people not very interested in the whole 2nd Amendment debate. Of course that goes for BOTH sides, if they don’t care about the erroneous definition of “Assault Weapons” they also don’t care if they are banned or not. Of course the numbers of people who DO care are steadily growing.
“The general public does not like assault type guns and associate them with war or crime.” Feelings not supported by facts. She cites no support, nor can she. I would add that this is because its untrue, but I also can cite no support. I will point out that companies that build rifles like the AR-15, or similar, as well as make magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are doing very well, even in this down economy. For a while it was very hard to find “Assault Weapons” in gun stores because they were selling out as soon as the shipment would arrive. Now that buying frenzy has slacked off, but those guns haven’t disappeared. I personally sold my WASR-10, took me all of a week to find a buyer and arrange a meeting time. I then turned that cash into my FAL which is also an “Assault-type Weapon”, tho both guns were indeed ban compliant.
“It is a fact that criminals are using assault rifles on the streets and the police are outgunned.” False (PDF) I would note its a common theme on Joan’s blog for her to be butthurt that people are calling her a liar. Joan, you want people to stop calling you “Liar”? STOP LYING! That does wonders.
“As I have said before, your world is quite different from mine and the many people who agree with me.” Indeed, one deals with facts and reason, the other seems to think they can make the sky turn green just by believing it is. In another post Joan wrote: “my facts most certainly are wrong because they have better ones”, the other facts are “Better” because they are supported by Data. Because your “facts” are erroneous and supported only by feelings.
“But as long as we have the highest gun death rate in the civilized world, we will keep working to keep those guns from people who shouldn’t have them.” Of course Joan gets to decide what nations are “Civilized” and which aren’t. Places like Mexico, and South Africa, and Brazil aren’t “Civilized”? Is it because they’re full of brown people? That’s inflammatory because most of Eastern Europe is filled with white people, but they have higher “Gun Death” than the United States….oh and they also have modern technology and medicine. I would LOVE to see Joan take her next Vacation to Mexico or Russia and spend her time there pointing out what “Savages” those people are. I mean if the United States has the highest “Gun Death” in the “Civilized World” then those places are the “Uncivilized World”, and I think they’d appreciate her opinion!
Of course again she’s using the metric of “Gun Death” because there are many places where MURDER is much more common per capita than in the United States, but not by means of guns. If we banned all guns here in the United States we most likely WOULD achieve a lower “Gun Death” rate. Would we get a lower murder rate? I doubt it. Also without lawful people carrying guns in self defense, and given the high incidence of defensive gun use in this country I’d imagine that less murders would be PREVENTED in that “Utopia”.
And “we will keep working to keep those guns from people who shouldn’t have them.”??? Umm what has the Brady Campaign done to prevent people who shouldn’t have guns from having them? I would state that they have yet to do anything effective (with the exception of waking up people who were once not interested in firearms to the debate) why should we believe your lies now?
This is of course the best they have. They occasionally double-down by buying a “Scientific Study” that throws all ethics and analytical rules to the wind to make it appear that their side isn’t lying. But that’s all they have. Feelings and lies.
