Cultural shifts relating to firearms

GEM said:

However, the major gun organizations went all in for Trump. Look at the editorials in the American Rifleman. One of the disposable presidents said her highest priority was to re-elect Trump. Not to protect the RKBA? The guy didn't have much legislative success or even try. Hopefully, the justices will work out.
My state organization hinted at buying into the fake election nonsense and has rather silly pro Trump cartoons.They do good work but it's not the best foot forward.

Wayne had a cover - STOP THE SOCIALIST WAVE.

Now you may or may not have a preferred economic theory but I would prefer - Stop gun banning. Wayne skirted race related dog whistles also, to be blunt.

You get what you pay for. Send him a check.

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That’s exactly right. They wanted to mobilize gun owners as a political identity group to come out en masse for Trump. They intentionally tried to market Trump’s staying in office and the 2A as the same thing. I’m not enthusiastic at all about the current President, but the last one cared much more about himself than he did the rights of gun owners (or anything else really).

I don’t have many outward displays of gun ownership or gun culture because it’s better to be more gray. I want to talk about guns with other gun owners - case hardening, absurd bayonets, old rifles, WML’s, where to find buck shot in stock. But I don’t want to waste my time arguing with gun control advocates, because I can’t change their opinions. Having a bunch of pro-2A displays sets me up to get yanked into pointless arguments. I don’t care what they think, and I have no desire to invite their noise into my life.

DustyGmt said:

And the defense against tyranny argument seems to fall flat because we have a majority of the public, the president, senators and a number of other talking heads saying how ridiculous it is to think you could defend against tyranny with an AR15. "You need jets and nuclear weapons to take us on". Obviously we have forgotten Vietnam and the last 20 years of war in the ME. Guerilla warfare is a potent, enduring force.... people have forgotten.

Nevermind the disgust that a U.S. President would flex his nuclear arsenal against his citizens. Yeah, we don't have to worry about tyranny....

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Frankly, I wonder if many gun owners (or anyone else) would even recognize tyranny. I’ve seen over the past 3 - 4 years that almost anyone will support policies they personally like, whether it’s constitutional or not. People just want what they want. The framework of the Constitution checks some of that… Thank God.

1942bull said:

I do not think that the majority of the general public has great disdain for guns. I have neighbors who know I carry a gun. They do not care. They ask me questions about gun ownership. I gladly answer them. Yet there is a minority of the general public who think guns are the problem when it comes to crime and violence. I know some of them too. I try to adjust there thinking. Sometime it works, but mostly it does not. I think that is because they have no facts to rely upon, and they make no effort to get the facts. Here is an example. I was engaged by an assault rifle ban supporter. When I asked him why he wanted a ban his answer was because they are used to kill so many people. So i took out my smartphone and opened it to 2019 FBI statistics. Here is what I showed him.

In 2019 violent deaths on the USA are reported as follows:
By firearms: 10,258
by handguns: 6,368
by rifles: 364
by shotguns; 200
By knives: 1,476
By blunt object: 397
By body force: 600

I pointed out that not all of the 364 rifle deaths were by assault rifles only. I also pointed out that more people are killed by each of knives, blunt objects, and body force. (beaten to death with hands, feet, etc) than are killed by rifles. So what not ban all those causes? After all the discussion he still wanted to ban assault rifles. Go figure.

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Nobody even blinks an eye that 4,000 people are killed on the road each year in Texas alone.

Ignition Override said:

The FUDDS should learn to hunt with a bow and arrow or a spear, and be allowed only one arrow or spear when they hunt.

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I happen to have many acquaintances who are dyed-in-the-wool-plaid-jacket Fudds. They do not like bowhunting. They may accept some super woodsmen doing it but overall it's people in the woods with special seasons that don't deserve it plus arrows are cruel. As a whole they all own guns, primarily double shotguns for trap and birds, and various hunting rifles. Very few own handguns (they really like the Judge 410 revolvers) and they express dislike of CC/OC. For reasons I don't understand they tend to support AWBs and mag restrictions. I've heard more than a couple times people who hunt with 7mag and 300rum talk about how dangerous ARs and AKs are with high velocity armor piercing rounds. A couple I've spoken with about shooting pistol/carbine courses with my son truly do not get the silliness of that line of thinking. By the way, these guys cover a lot of age and income brackets.

goon said:

Frankly, I wonder if many gun owners (or anyone else) would even recognize tyranny.

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Believe me, us gun owners in CA have seen it, for DECADES.

Our gun culture has, indeed, taken a beating. I know a number of shooters who dislike AR style rifles, but think everything else is OK. And many who think it should be the job a government to dictate who can own guns and who must be restricted.. These people have no problem with background checks, wait times, limits on gun ownership and ammo acquisition. That no doubt comes from the relentless antigun campaign waged in newspapers and TV every day. DON'T FALL FOR IT!!! And here is my gripe of the day. I read numerous posts with shooting as the main topic. Many such posts include an almost apologetic detail of how safe they are and how they always emphasize safety above all else. Of course we learn to be safety conscious, but you don't have to remind everyone that you use your seatbelt if you are posting on a hotrod site.

One cultural shift is that between the high divorce rate and the high rate of illegitimacy fatherlessness seems to have become the norm, hence too few of the young are introduced to firearms and shooting by a parent.

No, it is more the urban / rural migration pattern. That's been demonstrated in the literature. Now, the SD movement might turn that around a bit. Gun culture is not dominated now by the old hunting paradigm.

The high divorce and illegitmacy rate seems related to the destruction of good jobs, either from automation or sending good jobs overseas. When men cannot be good providers, those two problems increase. Seen all over the world.

Had to put this out there. Article by CNN which I am not accustom to following but a search on the topic lead me to this.

Medea and political types keep touting the gun death and COVID death numbers but then completely ignore the numbers of deaths cause by Fentanyl. A highly deadly drug that is being smuggled in daily through our southern border. So read this and get informed.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/17/politics/fentanyl-overdose-deaths-what-matters/index.html

I don't know about that, I've seen fentanyl stories on the major nightly news quite a few times.

Also, there is a wave of polls coming out showing that pro gun control sentiments are dropping. The biggest drops are in the conservative and independent sections. Left, well, what do you think. However, Pew and Gallop indicate that pro gun control law expansion is not in the majority anymore if you sum across the country.

I think the growth in fatherlessness is due to cultural factors other than job exportation, etc.
One shift is away from hunting to paper punching, and at the ranges I shoot at self defense use of handguns is far more prevalent than target shooting.

Sorry to disagree, but there's fair evidence that loss of solid jobs for males leads to cultural disruption and family disruption. Societies with nuclear families across the world found that fatherlessness increased with the lack of solid male employment.

The study of gun culture has documented the shift to SD for quite a bit of time.

I think that back in the day, a greater percentage of the population owned guns, or had immediate family who did, so there was greater familiarity and comfort with them.

Then tons of people moved to suburbs in the 20s-00s, where crime was a lot lower, and yet there was zero need to shoot something for dinner, or to deal with varmints (because you don’t typically have a chicken coop in the suburbs.) This familiarity with guns was lost, and they became scary death tubes used by criminals and mentioned in the media whenever any sensational crime happened.

There are a lot of gun owners now but because the active ones tend to be enthusiasts in a hobby (rather than owning 1-2 guns for farm use or to keep under the cash register) they tend to have much larger collections than in the past. 1-2 working guns are probably not enough by themselves to justify burglarizing a house…. But 50 guns? Or even 10? A safe starts to sound like a good idea. Especially when your suburbanite cousin freaks out about the idea of her kid seeing a gun at your place.

Mosin77 said:

I think that back in the day, a greater percentage of the population owned guns, or had immediate family who did, so there was greater familiarity and comfort with them.

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The percentage of the general population owning guns is probably greater now than at any point in our previous history. The sales figures tell the story. But the new owners are not hunters, farmers, or target shooters. Social fear is what's driving people to arm themselves. Fear of crime as well as fear of their political opponents.

There is no debate from academic research and industry research that the surge in gun buying is related to personal usage in classic self defense against crooks and social disruption.

One divide is the purchase of AR type guns for SD and social disruption. Their usage in rampages and political demonstrations will lead to push back. How to make them generally acceptable is a battle between their seemingly excessive lethality and how they support a public good. The latter being more intensive self-defense, social disruption and defense against tyranny. The latter threatened tyranny depends on your political persuasion.

Hunting and sporting usages are becoming irrelevant. Ward Cleaver taking out the Beaver to plink or shoot Bambi - who cares for the most part in this debate. Tightly gun controlled countries still have hunting outlets.

Unfortunately, some of the groups mentioned have played into the hands of gun banning forces. Also, they have tried to justify gun ownership based on a hunting and sports rationale.

We know from recent examples in the UK and Australia that claims to allow our 'sport' failed dramatically. We know that in other countries, sporting arms are kept locked in clubs to be checked out for range or hunting usage. Having them at home in any manner useful for self-defense is forbidden.

Rachel Maddow is a gun enthusiast and likes to shoot 1911s and ARs. She takes her dates to the range. She also says that such guns should be kept locked up at the range and checked out for entertainment.

If the 'sporting' groups do not understand or undermine the major reasons for the 2nd Amendment, they are detrimental to the cause as they offer a fictional version of the Second Amendment. As Amy Klobuchar said - she supported the 2nd Amendment as she didn't want to take her Uncle Dick's rifle from his deer blind. Mitt Romney (ARs are weapons of war) and Hillary mentioned their 'prowess' on the hunt. Kerry and his goose!

The proposition was that gun attitudes were changing because of cultural shift from Dad and his boy's guns. That is not the cause. Gun attitudes now are driven by SD issues or fear of rampages, also with the gun becoming symbolic totems of political identity.

Thus I return to the idea that the sporting usages are not a useful focus. Those folks need to come to core 2nd Amendment support. The idea of making ARs nice by calling the modern sporting rifles was pandering to the gun is toy mantra, let me have my toy. Stupid.

If Kyle's defense said that he was carrying a modern sporting rifle, it would have seemed ridiculous. I note that the gun world had major hissy fits when the guns were called assault rifles (as with having hissy fits over clips vs guns). So note that media took the message and are calling them military style semiautomatic rifles. Fat lot of good the hissy fits did.

Folks would say - well, don't ban ARs as you can shoot a lever action as fast. Great plan to get folks to say - Hey, ban those also - check out Australia.

Only core argument for the 2nd Amendment will work if presented without raving and the legitimacy of SD and defense against tyranny is important. Sports are irrelevant.

GEM said:

One divide is the purchase of AR type guns for SD and social disruption. Their usage in rampages and political demonstrations will lead to push back.

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It depends on what you mean by "pushback." Yes, there are (diminishing) calls for them to be outlawed. But the more significant "pushback" is in more people wanting AR's. The AR has become the weapon of choice for both the bad actors and for those trying to oppose them. (Fill in your own definition as to who is who.)

A common theme on left-wing forums is the need to arm up. You don't see nearly as many calls for gun control among the activist left these days. Everybody is equipping themselves with AR's as if there is no tomorrow.

There is a clear drop in support for gun control according to recent polls. What I mean is that the divide demonstrates that the antigun forces will focus on EBRs. I don't see them adopting the idea of buying guns to fight the forces they don't like. Yes, there are folks on the left and minority communities that are buying ARs. That is on the left's gun forums and by some of their groups. However, the major left politicians are still all for bans. Beto just reiterated his confiscation mantra in his campaign for TX Governor. But you are correct, the recent Politico article suggesting the Democrats need to alter their gun stance is evidence that there may be a change. Let's see if a major pol switches the rhetoric.

What kind of Shooter am I? I personally like bolt action military surplus rifles. I reload for some to find the best performance. For one, I've begun casting to find the most accurate load for the bullet I made that expands the best. After that, I'm ready to move onto another rifle or handgun. It's a great hobby. My ideal next rifle would be a rolling block or muzzle loader. I own a sks but have shot it to find accurate reloads. I never cared for AR15s but don't mind gun owners using them. It's their hobby and they are not bothering anyone.

To me, those that want to restrict gun ownership also support or will not resist those that support disarming responsible gun owners. To them, when guns are gone, crime is gone. They don't address the problem of the criminals and negligent people who have or can own a firearm. Even then, these gun control people want to regulate ownership believing that the government will forever be lead by honest caring people. They also believe that the government is the dictating force and not the Citizenry. They don't address the proper solution that education in schools should be the 2nd Amendement and Responsibility. In this case it's proper gun use.

It's my opinion that - generally - the fathers in the past were more accepting of gun use. What was taught to use from the past generation that our freedom to use our bb gun came with responsibility. We could get our bb gun confiscated by "Dad" if we were not handle that bbgun responsibly. Moms on the otherhand - generally - would want the bb gun to disappear. Atleast, they would discourage their use. And in this case Moms run single family homes and more of the Government. The solution to me is that Dad's that shoot need to speak up.

As for divorce, I think Society has focused on being Happy in place of personally responsibility. Sure, our parents and grandparents believed in being Happy but the divorce rate is way higher now. Where I live, the divorce rate is high and I avoided dating any woman in the area and sought someone with better values. As a coworker explained to me, her wedding vow was "until death do you part" meant, until the happiness in the relationship died. If any of you reading this are parents, make sure your child experiences shooting a bbgun for fun. If she shoots more, the better so she'll like the sport. Otherwise, when you die, she'll just donate them your guns to the PD. That's what one neighbor did and a buddy in HS thinks his kids will probably do the same thing.

Interesting to see a forced political debate in a 6th grade class.

DustyGmt said:

don't think compromise is a good strategy.

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It's not. Never has been.
It's really kind of the ingrained isolationism with a lot of folks, in that it's none of their concern until it affects them personally. We see it all the time with all sorts of issues. Too many people just don't give a damn until the problems show up at their door.

Best strategy moving forward? At the rate we're going, probably distracting them with some endangered whales or malnourished pine trees or something.

GEM said:

There is a clear drop in support for gun control according to recent polls. What I mean is that the divide demonstrates that the antigun forces will focus on EBRs. I don't see them adopting the idea of buying guns to fight the forces they don't like. Yes, there are folks on the left and minority communities that are buying ARs. That is on the left's gun forums and by some of their groups. However, the major left politicians are still all for bans. Beto just reiterated his confiscation mantra in his campaign for TX Governor. But you are correct, the recent Politico article suggesting the Democrats need to alter their gun stance is evidence that there may be a change. Let's see if a major pol switches the rhetoric.

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I've been saying that the "antigun forces" are not synonymous with "the left." The antigunners, for the most part, are middle class suburbanites naively motivated by "feelings." They are political centrists, or even apolitical regarding issues other than guns. They have made an ad hoc alliance with the Democratic Party, but that may change as the Democrats realize that gun control is a losing issue for them. (It's pretty clear that the Democrats' stance on guns is one of the reasons they lost the support of their erstwhile blue-collar base.)

On the other hand, "the left" is neutral on guns and in some cases is even pro-gun. (Don't forget that Marx himself wrote that under no circumstances should the workers allow themselves to be disarmed.)

As for Beto, he can't be elected to any office in Texas (or nationally, for that matter) because of his asinine statement on confiscating guns. And now, his doubling down on that has to be rated as political malpractice of the highest order. He's a pariah but he doesn't realize it yet.