http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Features/The_Mustang_Range_Machine-Gun_Shoot
Some bad:
"It's possible that I just have a sixth sense for finding moder ates, but when it comes to issues of gun control, most of them understand it as a necessary compromise. They acknowledge that some bureaucratic oversight is a good thing. Most seem to support some form of registration and background check, and one range master tells me flat out that he's basically in favor of the Brady Bill, waiting period and all. This is not the lunatic fringe that provides for Michael Moore's mortgage payments. Such people surely do exist somewhere, maybe in lawless central Idaho, but being around these hobbyists makes one wonder just how much effort goes into finding crackpots to play that part."
Some good:
"Gun control is a complicated and emotional issue and an informed policy discussion is impossible in this space. But one thing seems certain to me: no one who's never shot a gun should be permitted to create gun-control policy."
Some great:
"The old shibboleth that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," with both its commonsensical appeal and its obvious flaws, was not trotted out in my presence, but a revealing variation was: "Guns aren't evil, evil is in your heart." Each time you fire a gun, you face for one moment your own secret capacity for violence:this is why we liberals, with our disbelief in evil, fear them. But each time you fire a gun safely, you have demonstrated that acknowledging such murderousness does not license it. "I think of shooting as an educational practice," that same cracked-goggles range master tells me. "You don't need to be scared of a gun," he continued, "but you need to respect it." It's like armed yoga.
Draconian gun-control—outright bans, say, instead of registration statutes—laws feel, to these men, like the most insulting kind of paternalism. It's the government telling them: Sorry, boys, but we don't believe you can settle your own seething dark."
All in all, a pretty good article.
Some bad:
"It's possible that I just have a sixth sense for finding moder ates, but when it comes to issues of gun control, most of them understand it as a necessary compromise. They acknowledge that some bureaucratic oversight is a good thing. Most seem to support some form of registration and background check, and one range master tells me flat out that he's basically in favor of the Brady Bill, waiting period and all. This is not the lunatic fringe that provides for Michael Moore's mortgage payments. Such people surely do exist somewhere, maybe in lawless central Idaho, but being around these hobbyists makes one wonder just how much effort goes into finding crackpots to play that part."
Some good:
"Gun control is a complicated and emotional issue and an informed policy discussion is impossible in this space. But one thing seems certain to me: no one who's never shot a gun should be permitted to create gun-control policy."
Some great:
"The old shibboleth that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," with both its commonsensical appeal and its obvious flaws, was not trotted out in my presence, but a revealing variation was: "Guns aren't evil, evil is in your heart." Each time you fire a gun, you face for one moment your own secret capacity for violence:this is why we liberals, with our disbelief in evil, fear them. But each time you fire a gun safely, you have demonstrated that acknowledging such murderousness does not license it. "I think of shooting as an educational practice," that same cracked-goggles range master tells me. "You don't need to be scared of a gun," he continued, "but you need to respect it." It's like armed yoga.
Draconian gun-control—outright bans, say, instead of registration statutes—laws feel, to these men, like the most insulting kind of paternalism. It's the government telling them: Sorry, boys, but we don't believe you can settle your own seething dark."
All in all, a pretty good article.
