My rant for the antis......who arent on this board.....so whatever.

[Monkeybear]

As far as I am conserned the media is not the news. ALL sources of news have their own agenda, a few are noble agendas but the vast majority are not. MSM wants sensationalism, and its sooo easy to sensationalise guns. Nothing is eaiser to build sensationalism upon than peoples fear. Enough about that(talking to myself, not you guys).

I think that most people view gun owners are being extremist. That video people are talking about (the one with the little girl shooting the full auto) shows the some extreme shooting. For most of us that seems like a whole lotta fun but for people without exposure to guns that is likely more scary than anything else. People blowing stuff up with machine guns is whats scary, the little girl just makes it more foreign to those without gun expierence. They are ignorant, that is all. They are afraid of what they dont understand. Its common.

No one sees the average shooter. Gun owners are just like regular people. Some live in blue states and voted for Kerry and some live in Texas and voted for Nader and some live in Alaska and voted for Bush. Many are responsible intelligent people who never shoot anyone or have a AD/ND in their entire life. Some shoot themseves in the leg within hours of owning a gun. Tragicly some leave their gun out where their kids find them. Guess which ones make the news. But then no one makes the news for being a good driver either.

I took my fiance' to the range the other day. It was her first time shooting. Her pulse was racing and you could see how hard she was breathing. She was scared and nervous just looking at the guns. In movies guns are tools of extreme violence and death. You shoot a gun, there is a huge bang and some dude flies eight feet backwards. Responsible guns owners are not in movies, just evil bad guys and the super cops who stop them. Wars are raged with guns. On the news people are killed with guns every day, and the Govt tells us we will all be safer if we just give them up. They are dangerous. Most non gun owners know very little about guns besides what the learn about them from movies and video games. So yeah, she was scared. After we shot I asked her what she thought and she said
"Its differnt"
I asked: from what?
"From what I thought it was gonna be, I think I want to go again"

Guns are dangerous and most people dont know a whole lot about them. Yeah yeah anything can be dangerous, I know I know a car is dangerous but the average amercian is probably in a car every single day. Knives and bats are dangerous but we have all held and knife and swung a bat. We know that unless you swing a bat at someone or steer you car into something they are safe. We know this because we have weilded them and they diddnt do anyting on their own, just what we made them do. When I took my fiance' to the range I put a gun in her hands and she shot it and it diddnt do anything that she diddnt make it do and that drove one well known fact into her mind, from pure expierence she understood that GUNS DONT KILL. This understanding is what made her cease to be afraid of guns and once she was free of her fear she was free of the influance that the sensationalist media had over her.

Guns are dangerous and that requires a great deal of responsibility. Their range of influence extends as far out as the bullets in the barrel will go. Sadly many amercians know very little about responsibility and so, in a way, are afraid of it. They blame guns for problems that have nothing to do with guns. Crime is not a result of gun ownership, a failing moral fiber is. The moral fiber of a community is the responsibility of the people that live there. Your son Johnny is not a criminal because he owns a gun but because you never taught him responsibility. Why be responsibile for your community or a responsible gun owner or make/teach Johnny to take responsibility for his action when you can just take away his guns. Then he cant hurt you right? Then you dont have to do anything right?

Owing a gun for self defence is a big responsibility and for alot of complacent amercians they would rather take away everyones guns than admit that they dont have what it takes. They project; since they cant see themselves safely owing a gun they think no one can.

I am not against people who dont own a gun or people who dont want one, just those who want to take away mine.

 

[Monkeybear]

over 100 reads and no one has agrees or dissagrees with me

oh well, guess my first rant wasnt all that good, Ill be more rantier next time

 

[Valkman]

A while back a guy here used a SKS to ambush to cop cars as they came to a domestic call, and he killed one of them before the other cop killed him. A few days later on the NBC local channel they ran a story about "that assault rifle" that was so full of mis- and non-information as to be totally useless. They cut to a woman (who I'd presumed at least looked into the facts) who said "and you don't even need a license to buy these!" Huh? I don't need a license to buy ANY weapon in NV, including my full-auto Uzi. Later the male anchor added "I can't believe you don't even have to register them". Vegas does have handgun registration. I wonder what they'd of said if they knew I've gotten them through the mail with my C&R!

It's pretty much the same as when I listened to channel 3 back in Sacramento - anytime they ran I story that I knew about they got it wrong. They don't even bother with the facts but just apply their own slant to it.

 

[ArmedAmerican]

Don't be too disapointed if you do not get a lot of replys to your post-- what you say is just not that controversial to other gun owners... "Fifty million people did not shoot anyone with their guns today" is just not "news" compared to "Third shooting at Denny's!" I am used to seeing gun owners portrayed as nuts and extremists, but I still don't like it... All I can do is use the internet and go on telling the truth. And by the way, I don't care much for partisan politics either-- In dangerous times, Americans need to focus more on their commonalities than their differences...

 

[Nitrogen]

Strange story:
I finally got through to a gay, ANTI-gun friend of mine from Berkeley by using the following analogy:

Most people's exposure to gay people are when the Gay Pride parades make it on the news. Ok, lots of those people are WEIRDOS, so when your average everyday Mr. and Mrs. America think gay people, they think of the weirdos they see at pride parades. They don't realise that for every wacko, there are hundreds of normal, unassuming gay people who arent' dressing in studded g-strings, dancing down the streets; they are mowing their lawns and going to work just liek the rest of us do.

The media blows gun owners out of proportion the same way. You only see the wackos on TV. You know that i'm not a wacko; and most gun owners arent. You'd never see the normal ones on TV, though.

The media is this way with almost anything. Only the most sensational examples of anything ever get attention, weather it's gun owners, homosexuals, war news, or the nightly murder count. It just doesn't draw ratings to pay attention to things that happen every day. :banghead:

 

[Zen21Tao]

As far as I am conserned the media is not the news. ALL sources of news have their own agenda, a few are noble agendas but the vast majority are not. MSM wants sensationalism, and its sooo easy to sensationalise guns.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh one day and (like him or not) he made a great point about the media. Prior to Watergate the media had “reporters” who job it was to simply “report” the news they observe. Then along came the notion of a “journalist” that went undercover to expose some dastardly deed. The desire to strive beyond being simply a “reporter” has become so ingrained in the field of media that degrees are now given out in “Journalism.” The result of all this is a media driven by the desire to make news rather than simply report it.

Most non gun owners know very little about guns besides what the learn about them from movies and video games.

I agree but would add that there are also a lot of gun owners that also know very little about guns. Many buy a gun for personal protection and once it is loaded is placed away somewhere hopes of never having to use it.

Guns are dangerous and most people dont know a whole lot about them. Yeah yeah anything can be dangerous, I know I know a car is dangerous but the average amercian is probably in a car every single day. Knives and bats are dangerous but we have all held and knife and swung a bat. We know that unless you swing a bat at someone or steer you car into something they are safe.

This analogy I feel 'could' be somewhat problematic and unfare. What makes a car seem “less dangerous” is that people through daily operations of the vehicle in a responsible manner become more skilled in its usage. The same should be the case with a gun. Someone that buys one should learn proper safety and take it to the range periodically and actually use it. I would go as far as to say that a car bought and hardly ever driven is for more dangerous to operate that a gun taken and used at the range every couple of weeks.

(Just some friendly nit-picking. Nothing too serious.)

 

[cracked butt]

over 100 reads and no one has agrees or dissagrees with me

What you said goes without saying, though it still needs to be said