BrokenPaw
Member
(Mods, bear with me; this is actually gun-related. Eventually. )
Something that happened yesterday made me think about the assumptions that people make about other people, based upon (potentially) uncorrelated criteria. Prejudices, if you will.
My next door neighbor (his is the closest house to me, and it's about 300 feet away over top of a hill, so I can't see him, and he can't see me) likes to work on exceptionally loud cars in his spare time. Sometimes that noise carries over the hill, and it's sort of annoying, but hey, I'm not the type to complain unless there's really a problem. But I'm planning on having a really big outdoor wedding on my property this summer, and I didn't want the ceremony to be interrupted by the enthusiastic revving of a big-block Chevy with straight pipes.
So I've been meaning to go talk to the guy, because I wanted to ask him if he'd mark his calendar, and keep quiet on that one particular day. I'd been hesitant about going over, because people pretty much keep to themselves in my neighborhood (I've lived there for 4+ years and had only met 2 of the other folks that live around there). I'm fairly shy, too, so going up to someone I don't know, on his own property, to ask him for a favor is a bit of an effort for me.
(Here's the gun-related part) So yesterday as I was driving home, I passed his driveway, and saw him out on his porch cleaning his rifle and shotgun. And my subconscious mind sort of decided that "shooters == good people". So I went over and talked to him, and he was really cool about the whole thing, and agreed to mark his calendar and keep the engines quiet on the big day.
Has anyone else ever had a reaction like this? The feeling, upon discovering that someone (you don't know) is a shooter, that they're more likely to be "good folks"?
-BP
Something that happened yesterday made me think about the assumptions that people make about other people, based upon (potentially) uncorrelated criteria. Prejudices, if you will.
My next door neighbor (his is the closest house to me, and it's about 300 feet away over top of a hill, so I can't see him, and he can't see me) likes to work on exceptionally loud cars in his spare time. Sometimes that noise carries over the hill, and it's sort of annoying, but hey, I'm not the type to complain unless there's really a problem. But I'm planning on having a really big outdoor wedding on my property this summer, and I didn't want the ceremony to be interrupted by the enthusiastic revving of a big-block Chevy with straight pipes.
So I've been meaning to go talk to the guy, because I wanted to ask him if he'd mark his calendar, and keep quiet on that one particular day. I'd been hesitant about going over, because people pretty much keep to themselves in my neighborhood (I've lived there for 4+ years and had only met 2 of the other folks that live around there). I'm fairly shy, too, so going up to someone I don't know, on his own property, to ask him for a favor is a bit of an effort for me.
(Here's the gun-related part) So yesterday as I was driving home, I passed his driveway, and saw him out on his porch cleaning his rifle and shotgun. And my subconscious mind sort of decided that "shooters == good people". So I went over and talked to him, and he was really cool about the whole thing, and agreed to mark his calendar and keep the engines quiet on the big day.
Has anyone else ever had a reaction like this? The feeling, upon discovering that someone (you don't know) is a shooter, that they're more likely to be "good folks"?
-BP