8 ways the Media does not understand gun onwership

Favorited.

I'd like to add my 4 things that Collegiates do not understand about gun ownership.

1. 'You'd only want a gun to hurt people.'

I'd like a gun because I don't want people to be hurt. A loaded gun is intimidating to heroes and villains alike. Would you honestly take your chances unarmed with a spree shooter or would you much rather have someone on your own side shooting back at him? Also, shooting guns is just plain fun and a great stress reliever. It's therapeutic to even just lay out a group of targets once a month and take your time hitting them one by one.

2. 'Having a gun means that you're some sort of hardcore badass, especially an assault weapon.'

Rule number one of being a badass: If you have to proclaim or show off your status as a badass, then you are not a badass. Rule number two: badassery is independent of armament. Now that's gone, I'll just add that Assault Weapon is a legal definition of guns that commit no other offense than look scary to the uninformed. Having a weapon does not mean that I know how to fight or that I am willing to fight. In my case, I wouldn't have a weapon unless I was prepared for all the consequences that may come.

3. 'Gun owners are redneck militia Bible-thumping bigots who hate anyone different from them.'

The 99% of remaining gun owners are embarrassed by those guys and hate that stereotype. Look at me: College-educated, Leftist, trilingual, European, scholarly, gun nut. I don't appreciate being lumped in with domestic terrorists.

4. 'Gun ownership is rare.'

Most of my classmates are from California, New York, New Jersey, and generally big cities. Once you leave cities in restrictive states, the norm is to own a gun. Even in suburban Virginia, at least one gun is fairly common, even if the people in question don't shoot much or even have ammo.

With regards to the picture in #8, there are many who are doing their best to fit into the stereotype.

Very humorous and unfortunately very true list.

The link in the original post is completely dead.

If anything, that alone is tiresome rather than refreshing.

9. Less Lethal doesn't always stop an attack.

Some people say that gun owners want to kill people because there are less lethal alternatives to use, such as a taser or pepper spray. If you study wound mechanics, and read the FBI reports on use of lethal force, you'll find that pain doesn't always work. I've seen videos of naked people getting hit by a police taser and literally laughing and asking for more. Someone with heavy clothes getting hit by that $30 taser you bought at Cabelas? Please.

On the other hand, even with a gun, I've seen several articles that say "he could have shot him in the leg." Okay, Jack Bauer. Let's magically miss that femoral artery. There isn't a "less lethal" place to shoot someone.

The fact is, anywhere you shoot someone with a gun can potentially be fatal, and any failure to stop an attack can be fatal. Police officers use less lethal when backed by other officers who are prepared to use lethal force.

10. Both Sides with Guns is better than No Guns

The media wants you to believe that if both sides have guns, then it will lead to shootouts in the street every other night. They ignore the fact that even though millions carry, shootouts like you'd see in Die Hard are very rare. However, if I compare a 5'10 muscular man to a 5'2 petite woman, if I were in the woman's shoes I'd rather be on equal terms with my attacker. With no gun, you're comparing 180 pounds of muscle to 115 pounds of skin and bone. With guns, you're comparing a Ruger to a Smith and Wesson. Much better odds for our young heroine.

Pretty neat. Straight forward and courteous to the opposition.

10. Both Sides with Guns is better than No Guns

The media wants you to believe that if both sides have guns, then it will lead to shootouts in the street every other night. They ignore the fact that even though millions carry, shootouts like you'd see in Die Hard are very rare. However, if I compare a 5'10 muscular man to a 5'2 petite woman, if I were in the woman's shoes I'd rather be on equal terms with my attacker. With no gun, you're comparing 180 pounds of muscle to 115 pounds of skin and bone. With guns, you're comparing a Ruger to a Smith and Wesson. Much better odds for our young heroine.

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I voice the well reasoned argument against that line of thinking whenever I feel the need to. Maybe I just like saying "God made Man, Sam Colt made them equal" a lot. Dunno.

While I understand the sentiment of the one-liner "God made man, Samuel Colt made them equal", think about it from the perspective of an anti, who doesn't understand the vinnete above. They could take it to mean:

"Well, I am an unathletic individual, so if I want to win a fight, I have to have a gun. So if I get a gun, I can draw on people that are bigger than me and say 'I'm equal now, dirtwad!'"

However, when put into larger context, and you compare a 5'2 petite woman to a 5'10 large or athletic male, it becomes a lot harder for the anti to argue that my goal is for the 5'2 petite woman to get an ego. I think part of it is the situation, and part of it is distancing myself from the issue - it's not that I want an equalizer to improve my status, it's that I believe everyone should have an equalizer because many thugs are big.

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I guess I should have also added onto my #9 how "duty to retreat" doesn't work if you're not a strong runner. I may not be able to outrun a bullet, but I probably can't outrun most muggers, either. What I can do is point a gun at them and say "back off" and then defend myself before they get into melee range with a knife.

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On his "guns save lives", I'd also emphasize that when you get into a knife fight, people get hurt. If you draw and the perp backs down, the gun didn't just save your life, it saved both by preventing the confrontation. If that doesn't work and you have to shoot him, well at least you saved yours.

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The last point is that any time someone commits a killing that the media believes is wrong, they suddenly jump on self defense laws. "He claimed self defense, therefore self defense is evil!" Duh they're going to claim self defense, even if it's not! That means the police and prosecuters need to determine if it was legitimately defense or if he's just claiming it. It doesn't mean that I don't have the right to defend myself.

I read the New Yorker piece too. The arguement that makes me angry is that guns of our time didn't exist during the founding father's time (semi-automatics). They seem to think that that would have changed their feelings on modern firearms and try and get a foothold to regulate. Guns were the most deadly weapons know to exist during that time. They gave the people access to the most technologically advanced piece of weapontry known. That to me says a lot.

A coworker of mine showed me an article a while back, that I can't find right now but probably could at home, which was written about this dangerous device that will lead to the devastation of cities. He asked me what device I thought it was talking about, and I thought it was the atomic bomb. Turns out it was the catapult. Our weapons today are always dangerous.

I read the New Yorker piece too. The arguement that makes me angry is that guns of our time didn't exist during the founding father's time (semi-automatics). They seem to think that that would have changed their feelings on modern firearms and try and get a foothold to regulate. Guns were the most deadly weapons know to exist during that time. They gave the people access to the most technologically advanced piece of weapontry known. That to me says a lot.

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Most of the people who want to ban guns want to ban all guns. It also does not factor in that firearms were used for the same purposes back then (sport, hunt, defense, criminal acts), and that if I'm limited to a lever action .357 for HD, that still doesn't prevent Joe from getting an AR off the black market and shooting up a mall. Might make it harder, but doesn't prevent him.

A few more things about The New Yorker piece. It is absolutely one-sided. Also, the author seems to be trying to dramitize everything. She goes to a range and rents a Ruger Mark III Target. After firing 100 rounds, she goes to the bathroom to wash her hands. She recalls how a Mark III was used in a school shooting and says, "T. J. Lane had used a .22-calibre Mark III Target Rimfire pistol. For a long time, I let the water run." It is almost like she tries to paint the picture of washing blood off her hands. The parallel she tries to make with a porn shop and a gun shop is frankly quite offense too.

These kinds of articles are actually how I ended up splitting two factions in a book I'm working on and creating a conflict between them. They were originally one, but Faction B decided that they wanted a peaceful society with no army or weapons, while Faction A wanted the luxury of protection. After they split off, Faction B gets attacked and blames Faction A for not helping, quickly built up an army, and they've been at war ever since.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we just took all the pro-gun-rights folks and put them on the west half of the US and all the antis on the east half and see how crime ends up working out over the next year. I know we couldn't ACTUALLY do that, but as a psych major I'm curious.

The article in the New Yorker is gonna catch the author some heat in the professional community, most likely. Historians don't usually like it when one of their own spout off uninformed and ill-cited opinions. In other words, there's a reason why she had that published in a magazine, rather than a scholarly journal. She would have been torn to pieces in the latter.

ol' scratch said:

I read the New Yorker piece too. The arguement that makes me angry is that guns of our time didn't exist during the founding father's time (semi-automatics). They seem to think that that would have changed their feelings on modern firearms and try and get a foothold to regulate. Guns were the most deadly weapons know to exist during that time. They gave the people access to the most technologically advanced piece of weapontry known. That to me says a lot.

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This is always the best argument. For me at least.

The piece is a disgusting example of the loss of integrity within journalism. I also agree with the 8 points of the guns and ammo article. I find taking someone to the range for some fun always gets a smile and usually gets questions on how they can get a gun.

KNOW THY ENEMY
Keep friends close and enemies closer
and all that.

The link in opening post above is to Kyle Wintersteen, "8 Ways the Media Doesn’t Understand Gun Owners", Guns and Ammo, 26 Apr 2012, "fisking" Jill Lepore's New Yorker article and the talking points used by Lepore and other anti-gunners.

Unfortunately fer you'all, I am up early this morning, the paper has not arrived and my wife is asleep, so I got a lot of free time for idle fingers.

I remember reading the comments on James D. Wright's article on "The Demographics of Gun Control", The Nation, Nov. 1975, in which self-identified liberal sociologist Wright tried to explain to a liberal readership that gun owners were more diverse than urban liberal gun control advocates realized. Some of the responses were written with contempt, with pens dipped in venom. Wright was later selected by the Carter Administration to do a study on Guns, Crime and Violence in America, that later became the 1983 book Under the Gun in which he and co-authors Rossi and Daly ended up questioning the conventional liberal wisdom on gun control on just about every talking point.

More recently a self-identified liberal magazine editor visited my hometown and stayed at the convention center hotel during a gun show weekend. John R. MacArthur, "My compromise in the gun debate", The Providence Journal, July 5, 2000. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-63162862.html When it was reprinted locally it was entitled "A Northerner's fear and loathing in Kingsport" and is reprinted elsewhere as "GUN CULTURE NEEDS TO COMPROMISE". I thought it offered good insight into the opposition mind set.

But back to Wintersteen, "8 Ways the Media Doesn’t Understand Gun Owners"

"Shootings are caused by guns"

Yes, the antigunners are right! And the Happyland Arson--87 people murdered, was caused by gasoline and matches, and the oil lobby and the match makers still vend these instruments of death and make a profit, which is more important to them than lives lost to arson. Crime is always caused by a thing that can be scapegoated and banned--can't we comprehend that? Demon Rum, Reefer Madness, the Seduction of the Innocent by vile comic books, juvenile delinquency caused by 3 Stooges re-runs on TV. It's obvious. How have I resisted these decades of indoctrination? There is always a symbolic thing that can be banned to attain Utopia, but for the resistence of evil nay sayers who profit from trafficking the symbol.

"This is not an AK47"

"They are all AK47s" in the media sense that "We are all Tawana Brawleys".

When we point out that the TV talking heads in discussing the Cheney hunting accident showed #00 buckshot as an example of shotgun shot, while Cheney & Co. were bird hunting with #8 birdshot, that just shows how superior they are by being ignorant of guns and how we can't see the Big Picture. Besides how can we know anything until we have enlightened by our superiors in the media?

There is No 'Gun Show Loophole'

"To require a background check between such individuals would essentially end all private transactions" No. It would end private transactions at gun shows (often individuals selling or trading their used guns with collectors or licensed dealers), and put private transactions back on the streets--flea market, swap meet, corner bar, parking lot, yard sale--where they were taking place before gun shows were popularized.


The Collective Rights Argument Is Over

The Individual rights argument is over. 2A is an individual right. Case closed. What is not settled is the collective rights argument. In a "friend of the court brief" a number of military officers argued that the Second Amendment protects an individual "right of the people" to keep and bear arms and also supports the existence of voluntary military service (the collective militia right). Or the collective right is protected by protecting the individual right. In this view, 2A is two rights covered in one Amendment. Look at the First Amendment: freedom of speech, press, religion, etc. in one Amendment.

We're Winning Because Shooting Is Fun

Fun? Shooting four events in the military matches (modern and vintage each with rifle and pistol) I have two or maybe three guns fired with corrosive military surplus ammo that need a preliminary cleaning between set up for the next event, and by the end of the day, I have had so much fun, it takes this sixty-plus year-old body a day or two to recuperate.

Gun Ownership Is Not Declining

(No No No. Let them believe their own propaganda that gun ownership is declining: then the nati-gunners will declare victory and walk away.) Now, in spite of booming NICS BG checks for processing gun sales and carry permits, why does a smaller percentage of households admit to owning guns to official-sounding surveys? Waco? Dept. Homeland Security warnings? Media hatred for "gun nuts"?

Guns Save Lives

Not just a (one) study by Kleck. The study by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz details their National Self-Defense Survey, and in Table One they summarize ten other national surveys, and three state surveys, which project 764,000 to 3,600,000 defensive gun uses per year, with the vast majority non-shooting chase-offs.

The Brady Campaign Is Full of Lies

The gun control campaigners going back to the 1920s "up lifters" promoting a national version of the NY Sullivan Act of 1911 have used lies (or more kindly "hypotheticals" and exaggerations) to promote their vision. (See http://www.thegunzone.com/rkba/rkba-25.html H. L. Mencken, "The Uplifters Try It Again", Baltimore Sun, 30 Nov 1925. There is nothing new under the sun.)

Many urban anti-gunners, their parents and their grand parents have been steeped in this propaganda and have known nothing else. Kinda like a cult. Kinda like what they accuse us of being.

With regards to the picture in #8, as a more complete story comes out, George Zimmerman fits that stereotype less and less with each revelation.

Carl N. Brown said:

With regards to the picture in #8, as a more complete story comes out, George Zimmerman fits that stereotype less and less with each revelation.

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People are dropping their support of him as a poster child of the NRA? While those people maintain support, they are backing the Brady propaganda by fitting into the fictitious image that Brady tries to present.

You're enabling the opposition if you're willing to change their falsehood into truth.

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Neverwinter said:

People are dropping their support of him as a poster child of the NRA? While those people maintain support, they are backing the Brady propaganda by fitting into the fictitious image that Brady tries to present.

You're enabling the opposition if you're willing to change their falsehood into truth.

Sent using Tapatalk 2

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Don't be a troll!

To be fair i don't think the gun community has any sort of unerstanding of people who advocate gun control. For example slogans like "guns don't kill people, people kill people" completely miss their point. They oppose guns because of the negative things that they enable people to do. Not because they think guns have minds of their own and the ability to shoot at will. Another one i hear and read frequently is "gun control advocates want to take away our freedoms and control us". I doubt anybody who believes this has ever actually had a conversation with a gun control advocate. They believe the benefits of private gun ownership, as they see them, do not outweight the negatives. They also believe gun control could reduce the occurence of certain crimes. In regards to their motives its really just that simple. I'm not defending them but we shouldn't complain they refuse to listen to our points given how few of us will listen to theirs.

Should read, 8 ways and more the media seeks to undermine gun ownership.

To be fair i don't think the gun community has any sort of unerstanding of people who advocate gun control. For example slogans like "guns don't kill people, people kill people" completely miss their point. They oppose guns because of the negative things that they enable people to do. Not because they think guns have minds of their own and the ability to shoot at will. Another one i hear and read frequently is "gun control advocates want to take away our freedoms and control us". I doubt anybody who believes this has ever actually had a conversation with a gun control advocate. They believe the benefits of private gun ownership, as they see them, do not outweight the negatives. They also believe gun control could reduce the occurence of certain crimes. In regards to their motives its really just that simple. I'm not defending them but we shouldn't complain they refuse to listen to our points given how few of us will listen to theirs.

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There's a difference between Joe Anti and media anti. I think those in a position of getting the information of the anti cause out there (people doing studies, anti professors, politicians, media) are actually trying to lie to get rid of gun rights. I think Joe Anti believes those lies and follows your line of thinking.

One thing I've noticed, too, is that a lot of antis seem to be unable to take responsibility. One of my coworkers is an anti and uber left, but she said the difference between left and right is that left is about choice, while right is about responsibility.
It's not always true though (i.e. gun control takes away choice), but I do feel that antis try to pass along responsibility for their own safety to someone else. That is why they don't worry so much about whether or not they're armed.

Personally, the potential of an armed bad guy scares me a lot less knowing that I am armed. It scares an anti, because an anti is afraid of the responsibility of carrying, and they expect someone else (the police) to have the responsibility to protect them.