Anti Open Carry Article- Boston Globe
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General Geoff
Member
Wow, this guy puts that "it's for the children!" meme to ultimate repetition.
I think his problem is that his dad never took him shooting.
I think his problem is that his dad never took him shooting.
El Tejon
Member
The artice in question:
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Home / Globe / Opinion / Op-ed James Carroll
'Open carry' guns at our children's risk
Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By James Carroll
June 16, 2008
IMAGINE A child barely tall enough to reach the top drawer of the bedroom dresser. Imagine the child on tip-toes opening the drawer because the forbidden object is hidden there. The naughty thrill of reaching under the socks, the shock of actually touching the thing, finding it cold, as if on ice. Such is my memory of furtive encounters with my father's handgun. At the time, Dad was an FBI agent. Where he stowed his weapon when off-duty was absolutely out-of-bounds, which defined its appeal. Invading that drawer is my first remembered act of disobedience.
Even at age 4, I was hypnotized by a gun. The gun was a mystical object, with significance that far transcended any imagined use. Fear, but also consolation. Awe. Trembling. That the gun was my father's was a first clue to potency. Hidden away, yet the gun sent a pulse through the whole apartment, a psychological electromagnet around which my awareness swirled. Long before I tasted the temptations of sex, I yielded to an irresistible prurience by opening that drawer. Initiation into obscenity. Because primal disobedience is so defining, I found a sense of independent selfhood in relationship to a gun. Only later would I realize how very American that makes me.
What is it with Americans and guns? "The right to bear arms" is the constitutional dynamo sparking an electromagnetic pulse through every corner of politics. Meanwhile, in the nation's cities, a slow-motion massacre unfolds, with gunshots mercilessly cutting down a legion of the young. Yet in legislatures, bills designed to reduce gun violence are routinely killed by the all-powerful lobbying of the National Rifle Association. Presidential candidates are universally required to worship at the altar of the Second Amendment.
Now an "open carry" movement encourages gun owners to wear their weapons ostentatiously on their belts, "to make a firearm," in the words of a Los Angeles Times story last week, "as common an accessory as an iPod." Or, as one open carrier said, "Hey, we're normal people who carry guns."
Get used to it. In most states, there is no law against license-holders cradling a rifle on the street, or holstering a firearm on a hip, like Wyatt Earp. But since the close of the last frontier, gun display, except in movies, has been culturally taboo. The power of that prohibition is what stirred me at my father's dresser. "Open carry" aims to remove such visceral negativity, though the taboo amounts, in fact, to last ditch gun control. The "normalizing" of guns will inevitably normalize their use. From movies to legislation to political rhetoric - and now to "accessory" fashion: guns galore. And who, pray tell, will bear, not the arms, but the consequences?
In despair over unchecked gun-carnage in Chicago schools, Mayor Richard Daley asked, "Why is America turning its back on its children when it comes to gun violence?" The answer is buried deep in the national psyche, and I am a case in point. The gun is a totemic object, with meanings that drill far below surface arguments about self-defense, the sport of hunting, standing militias, or the intent of the Framers. Children die because these deeper meanings of the gun go unreckoned with.
Anthropologists suggest that the evolutionary mutation separating primates from humans was the invention of the weapon. Instead of merely gathering food, our forebears began to hunt for it, and "culture" followed. The hunt organized around a weapon, whether a wedge-shaped stone or a sharpened stick, led to cooperation, planning, sharing, communication, and even upright posture. But the use of weapons against fellow animals seems also to have imbued humans with a sense of shame, which spawned post-hunt rituals of sacrificial atonement, the genesis of religion. Only the weapon made it possible for humans to better beasts, but only shame enabled humans to moderate the weapon's use. Otherwise, the human species would have plunged quickly into self-eliminating extinction.
In the great American gun debate, some would forgo the primordial shame the weapon still generates. Hence the "open carry" movement. But given the gun-deaths of children, and the sponsoring gun-paralysis of politics, Americans should have more shame, not less. A gun is no iPod. Shame is the children's last protection.
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Someone really has Daddy issues!
Wasn't it a few years ago that the antis were whining and throwing girl fits over "hidden weapons"? Now they are whimpering that some carry weapons openly?
Memo to self: carry open more, make a liberal with daddy issues cry.
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Home / Globe / Opinion / Op-ed James Carroll
'Open carry' guns at our children's risk
Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By James Carroll
June 16, 2008
IMAGINE A child barely tall enough to reach the top drawer of the bedroom dresser. Imagine the child on tip-toes opening the drawer because the forbidden object is hidden there. The naughty thrill of reaching under the socks, the shock of actually touching the thing, finding it cold, as if on ice. Such is my memory of furtive encounters with my father's handgun. At the time, Dad was an FBI agent. Where he stowed his weapon when off-duty was absolutely out-of-bounds, which defined its appeal. Invading that drawer is my first remembered act of disobedience.
Even at age 4, I was hypnotized by a gun. The gun was a mystical object, with significance that far transcended any imagined use. Fear, but also consolation. Awe. Trembling. That the gun was my father's was a first clue to potency. Hidden away, yet the gun sent a pulse through the whole apartment, a psychological electromagnet around which my awareness swirled. Long before I tasted the temptations of sex, I yielded to an irresistible prurience by opening that drawer. Initiation into obscenity. Because primal disobedience is so defining, I found a sense of independent selfhood in relationship to a gun. Only later would I realize how very American that makes me.
What is it with Americans and guns? "The right to bear arms" is the constitutional dynamo sparking an electromagnetic pulse through every corner of politics. Meanwhile, in the nation's cities, a slow-motion massacre unfolds, with gunshots mercilessly cutting down a legion of the young. Yet in legislatures, bills designed to reduce gun violence are routinely killed by the all-powerful lobbying of the National Rifle Association. Presidential candidates are universally required to worship at the altar of the Second Amendment.
Now an "open carry" movement encourages gun owners to wear their weapons ostentatiously on their belts, "to make a firearm," in the words of a Los Angeles Times story last week, "as common an accessory as an iPod." Or, as one open carrier said, "Hey, we're normal people who carry guns."
Get used to it. In most states, there is no law against license-holders cradling a rifle on the street, or holstering a firearm on a hip, like Wyatt Earp. But since the close of the last frontier, gun display, except in movies, has been culturally taboo. The power of that prohibition is what stirred me at my father's dresser. "Open carry" aims to remove such visceral negativity, though the taboo amounts, in fact, to last ditch gun control. The "normalizing" of guns will inevitably normalize their use. From movies to legislation to political rhetoric - and now to "accessory" fashion: guns galore. And who, pray tell, will bear, not the arms, but the consequences?
In despair over unchecked gun-carnage in Chicago schools, Mayor Richard Daley asked, "Why is America turning its back on its children when it comes to gun violence?" The answer is buried deep in the national psyche, and I am a case in point. The gun is a totemic object, with meanings that drill far below surface arguments about self-defense, the sport of hunting, standing militias, or the intent of the Framers. Children die because these deeper meanings of the gun go unreckoned with.
Anthropologists suggest that the evolutionary mutation separating primates from humans was the invention of the weapon. Instead of merely gathering food, our forebears began to hunt for it, and "culture" followed. The hunt organized around a weapon, whether a wedge-shaped stone or a sharpened stick, led to cooperation, planning, sharing, communication, and even upright posture. But the use of weapons against fellow animals seems also to have imbued humans with a sense of shame, which spawned post-hunt rituals of sacrificial atonement, the genesis of religion. Only the weapon made it possible for humans to better beasts, but only shame enabled humans to moderate the weapon's use. Otherwise, the human species would have plunged quickly into self-eliminating extinction.
In the great American gun debate, some would forgo the primordial shame the weapon still generates. Hence the "open carry" movement. But given the gun-deaths of children, and the sponsoring gun-paralysis of politics, Americans should have more shame, not less. A gun is no iPod. Shame is the children's last protection.
*********************************************************
Someone really has Daddy issues!
Wasn't it a few years ago that the antis were whining and throwing girl fits over "hidden weapons"? Now they are whimpering that some carry weapons openly?
Memo to self: carry open more, make a liberal with daddy issues cry.
Rudy Kohn
Member
Typical pseudo-psychological drivel, capped off with a few glaring grammatical errors. I guess the Globe's standards have really fallen.
The obvious solution to gun violence in one of the most thoroughly controlled cities in America is more control. Yeah, whatever.
Just... wow.
The obvious solution to gun violence in one of the most thoroughly controlled cities in America is more control. Yeah, whatever.
Just... wow.
pharmer
Member
If you strip out the male, black and latino, 15-44Y/O demographic from the "gun violence" statistics, America is safer than just about ANY other "industrialized" country . Joe
General Geoff
Member
You could replicate the results by stripping out the male demographic that has income below the poverty level.
JesseL
Member
This author needs to get around more. Carrying a gun in my town has never been taboo (of course this was one of Wyatt Earp's old stomping grounds so maybe that helps
).It's interesting that the author sees open carry as a failure to be properly ashamed of being human
. I'll readily admit that I have absolutely no shame that I am a free, adult human; and among the most deadly creatures on earth to tangle with. I'm so uncouth that I'm not even ashamed over being unashamed.Heartless_Conservative
Member
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Still doesn't explain why, during the Great Depression, crime was not nearly at the levels we have now, despite circumstances far more dire than anything the "underprivliged" of today have to deal with. I do not believe that it is a coincidence that the #1 indicator of criminality is a lack of stable father figure.
Big45
member
I believe it has something to do with personal sovereignty, among other things. But that one is the biggie.
The most irritating story for a liberal:
"On Sunday, I went to church, read my Bible, and worshiped God with my family. Afterwards, my wife and I loaded up our SUV with guns and ammo and went on a date at the local range. On the way home, needing groceries and more ammo, we stopped at Wal-Mart - open carried the whole time. The End."
"On Sunday, I went to church, read my Bible, and worshiped God with my family. Afterwards, my wife and I loaded up our SUV with guns and ammo and went on a date at the local range. On the way home, needing groceries and more ammo, we stopped at Wal-Mart - open carried the whole time. The End."
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I doubt it; you'd be lumping in poor whites with poor blacks and poor hispanics.
According to most crime stats I've read (and anecdotal personal experience living in LA and Chicago), the blacks and hispanics run the gangs in the major cities, particularly in most anti-gun states. These gangs have a thing about killing each other, and the anti-gun crowd counts them as "child deaths". hah.
Your attempt at PC would only water down the result.
-T
Cosmoline
Member
To the extent firearms are the "forbidden fruit," open carry demystifies them. Many gun owners have long known that the best way to cure children of the fixation on finding hidden firearms is to let them shoot the things in a supervised environment.
TallPine
Member
We need to license and register journalists, and do a mental health background check on them before allowing them to buy a pen or a computer
wagoneer1019
Member
fbi agent leaving a un locked gun in the house with a child sounds like some one has been watching too much tv or did this happen way back when?
Sergeant Sabre
Member
From the article:
Just...wow.
Just...wow.
It worked for me - I was 6 when dad started the "demystification" process by teaching me how to safely unload a firearm. Repeat time and again ad nauseum until there was no "forbidden fruit" temptation left. Why? Because I could see the firearms all I wanted while under supervision until it eventually became kinda boring - but even if I had been tempted, I'd have been able to peek safely.Cosmoline said:
Sorry for him his dad sucks - and mine will always be awesome
MT GUNNY
Member
My father had a drawer that I liked to look in, Zippo lighters were cool,
Lo and behold I'm not an arsonist!
Lo and behold I'm not an arsonist!
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