"Gun Owners are compensating for something"?

[whetrock]

Yeah I'm compensating for something, BEING HUMAN !!!!!! As a human being I have rather sorry claws and dull teeth making effective self defense and harvesting game a bit of a challenge. So I use my rather large cranial cavity and all of it's goodies to help me use technology to my advantage. As my dad used to tell me there is no fair fight and to use every resource I had available to win. I won't be fighting for sport but rather survival. I don't like "fist fighting" or fighting just to prove dominance nor do I like fighting in pure self defense but IMHO it's the only fight worth fighting.

 

[MachIVshooter]

I believe that Sam1911 gets the "Nailed It Award" for this thread.

Yes, he does.

Man's intelligence allows him to compensate for all the things he cannot do with his own physical capabilities. We can't run very fast, jump very high, fly, lift very heavy objects and many other things without the tools we build. So, as Sam illustrated concisely, we are ALL compensating, and no matter how rightious the naturalist granola crunchers think they may be, unless they're hermits who do not use ANY tools and live as apes, they are hypocrites, because even living in a community right out of the stone age, they would still be compensating.

 

[TNboy]

They can think what they like. I'm not a big guy, I'm 5'8" 150ish pounds. I was a wrestling standout in high school and I wrestled for a couple of years in college. It's been a long time since I was in a fight but I used to be able to handle myself pretty well even if the other guy was a lot bigger. All of that was a long time ago. I don't train anymore. I don't work out. I don't have the stamina that I once had, I'm not as quick as I once was. I had my heyday but I'm probably as good in a bar fight with a young guy is Al Bundy is on a football field. I would be delusional to think that I can do now what I could at 19. Here in the real world the possibility of getting attacked by multiple people who are bigger than myself is very real. Anyone who carries responsibly knows that they will use their gun as an absolute last resort. But if someone is coming at me with a knife, bat, etc. they are getting shot. I may only get one chance to shoot them. If taking them to the ground doesn't work then I'm screwed. If I shoot when the threat presents itself I have a better chance of living to tell about it. Just my $0.02.

 

[SharpsDressedMan]

Here is something to think about. I just kicked the idea around in my head today, and noticed that this topic was still active, and I think this applies....in a positive way. Through the years, I have always enjoyed a sense of confidence, belief in my own self and abilities. Self reliance, but a bit of a sense of duty, honor, etc, rolled in. I was told by my parents that I didn't have to follow the crowd, etc, and that I could be my own person. I butted heads with teachers, sometimes for fun, sometimes because I thought THEY were slacking, and keeping them on their toes as much as they did to us. Then I went into the working world. Wow! I worked for some great bosses, and by contrast, knew when I had fallen under some real idiots. Well, I didn't let them off easy, either. So, after laying all this background stuff, do you think that people of independent mind, those who don't follow the leader, free thinkers (who rely on logic, etc), might fall prey to the seduction of taking it one step further? I.E., looking at guns as one more way to achieve INDEPENDENCE? If one is comfortable and confident with guns, then one is free from oppression, be it personal social, or political. It is taking that free psyche one step further. Many people rely on others to protect them, but they are not really as free as those who can take care of themselves. Now, the downside to all of this, as type A, freemen often do, we offend and/or scare others who KNOW they are weaker, less self reliant, or just sophisticatedly "handicapped". They just don't "get it", when it comes to the subject of being armed as a DUTY, hand in hand with the concept of freedom.