I finally figured out what it is that irks the shit out of me about the "gun culture"

[varkam]

I know that this is going to attract flames, but that's okay. Call me what you will, as I assure you that I have been called worse.

I am not a gun person. I know a good deal about guns, I even like the *idea* of guns (for instance I like shootem up movies and video games), but I don't like guns in reality. I do not own a gun, nor do I ever want to own one. I respect the right for other people to own them - that's fine. I'm not a "gun grabber", I don't hate guns in general - I just hate the idea of them being in my life.

But the "gun culture" has always bothered me, and I finally just figured out what it was. Gun culture is a celebration of instruments of destruction that has conferred onto some of its participants a basic lack of respect for human life.

Don't get me wrong - I think that sometimes killing is unavoidable. I have a close friend who has killed someone in self-defense, and I don't think any less of them for it. But here's the thing - he doesn't cheer it. He doesn't celebrate it. He doesn't regard that moment in his life as a good moment. In a split-second, two lives were forever altered. To me, it seems, that does and should have some gravity to it. It shouldn't be something you cheer or celebrate. It should be something that you mourn, even if it was necessary.

That doesn't seem so, however, with some so enamored in gun culture. Maybe it is unfair to single out gun culture, maybe it is a property of short-sighted, immature individuals who think that killing is cool, that it will be just like it is in the movies, and they can't wait to plug their first bad guy.

God help us all should such individuals never find cause to evaluate their beliefs about death and killing prior to pulling the trigger.

[gravity]

1. You should go to a shooting range and talk to responsible gun owners

before making judgments

[varkam]

3. And you should read my post before making them.

Keyword: some.

I know gun owners who do have that respect for human life I'm talking about - I thought that would be inferred from my friend, but I guess I had to make it explicit for some.

[gravity]

7. I just think ones exposure to guns affect their attitudes

And I don't like the characterization that gun culture involves the disrespect for human life.

[varkam]

9. Strawman.

Where in my post does it say that gun culture necessarily involves a disrespect for human life? What I said was that it seems it confers onto some of its members a disrespect for human life.

Little bit of a difference, there.

[izquierdista]

8. Would he find any there?

:shrug:

[ZombieHorde]

2. "for instance I like shootem up movies and video games"

Check out Fallout 3. This game is on PS3, X-box, and PC.

Mad Max plus mutated creatures plus zombies plus excellent upgrading elements.

[varkam]

4. I do enjoy the Fallout series.

Though I tend to regard Fallout BOS and Tactics as sort of like the "Godfather 3" of the series - I just deny that they exist at all.

[Kermitt Gribble]

5. Good observation.

There are many responsible gun owners - I own 2 guns myself. There are just as many cowboy wannabees who are just itching to shoot someone. Many of the latter, unfortunately, seem to seek employment as security guards and even police officers.

[Synicus Maximus]

6. Killing is not cool

I have killed two people I know of. Yes it was during a war and they would have killed me if I had not killed them. It bothered me for a long time and still does from time to time. I think in our current culture the keeping of a means of protection, ie. a gun, is not a bad idea. But anyone who as you say is a "short-sighted, immature individuals who think that killing is cool, that it will be just like it is in the movies, and they can't wait to plug their first bad guy." Doesn't realize what it is like to take a life.

[varkam]

10. Thanks for your input, and welcome to DU

:toast:

[napi21]

11. The brush you use is way to wide! It's like saying "The Dem. culture".

Spend 5 minutes on DU and you'll soon realize there is no such thing as a Dem. Culture. There is not such thing as a "Gun Culture" either. I never even saw a REAL GUN until I met my husband in 1958. His entire immediate and extended family were hunters. None of us ever shot anything that we didn't use for food. We were married in 1963 and although we paid our rent, utilities and food bills, we never had any spare money. We werfe VERY HAPPY to have meat on our table for about 6 months of every year from the deer my husband had killoed in hunting season. I'm positive I could NEVER shoot a human for any reason, and although I can't speak for other people, I'm sure none of our family could either.

I'm most likely more disturbed than you are with the people who believe the answer to those they perceive as their fes should be dealt with by violence, and IMO, the chicken way is to use a gun.

There are different cultures in this world, but they are much narrower than you stated.

[MazeRat7]

12. Been there, I think we think many of the same things...

Being from TX and you from KY, the culture between the two states is not all that different where firearms are concerned. Somehow I've managed to find something "more" in my few friends that are what you classify as "gun nuts", than their guns. They actually are pretty cool folk, ignoring the fact that they like to talk about "guns" way to much for my taste.

In my honest opinion, I think a lot of what your asking about has to do with "self security" or "feeling insignificant". I really think it all comes back to fear. The classic example of a guy recently shooting a robber just north of me in Dallas. He went to the trouble of getting the license and carrying a concealed weapon because he feared for his safety.

Most normal folks do as well. Alas, I don't. I subscribe to the belief that our time in this life is limited, enjoy it by living a life without fear. So no, I don't give a rats ass if someone offs me tomorrow. I know I've had a good life and its had its downside, but I have enjoyed the ride.

Peace,
MZr7

[immoderate]

13. To me, it's "power at a distance."

I don't associate guns with killing. Never think of it. I don't think about them for personal defense either. Not ready when you need it.

It's fun to shoot at over-ripe fruit. I've never considered shooting anything more alive than that. Am I part of the "gun culture?"

--IMM

[randr]

14. What pisses me off about them

is that they are so smug and self righteous about defending their interpretation of one of the rights laid out in the Bill of Rights and at the same time deny others their own interpretations of any one or more of the additional rights granted by the Founding Fathers.
I want to pursue my own personal happiness without interference. Anything that I decide makes me happy without hurting anyone else.

[Cid_B]

36. A thought...

"Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind, it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate--and quickly." Robert Heinlein

[benEzra]

39. Who is "they"...

and what rights do you think I/we/they deny?



As someone pointed out upthread, there is no single flavor of "gun culture." There are Dems who own guns, repubs who own guns, Ph.D's who own guns, and high school dropouts who own guns, together comprising some 80 million adults and nearly 40% of U.S. households. Only half of U.S. gun owners registered to vote are registered repubs; the other half are Dems and indies.

Yes, there is some commonality---we tend to lean individualist rather than authoritarian, we tend to be more pro-4th-amendment than the population at large, perhaps a bit more mechanically inclined than average, but even there, those may be 60/40 things rather than 90/10 things.

Personally, I am pro-choice, pro-civil-unions, anti-NAFTA, pro-decriminalization/legalization of cannabinoids and club drugs (though I have never used them, I think wasting money and lives fighting drugs demonstrably less dangerous than alcohol is fundamentally stupid), anti-torture, anti-warrantless-searches, and anti-Surveillance Nation.

I'm also the evil "AK-47" owner the repubs who run the Brady Campaign warn you about, and I hold a NC CHL.

[rrneck]

15. I understand how you feel but I think

that most gun owners have been mischaracterized. I lived most of my life in the south where the per capita ratio of guns to citizens is probably the highest in the United States, (As well as the per capita ratio of idiots to citizens), and by and large gun owners are just people who own guns. That's not to say that there aren't those who have a lack of respect for human life, but I think that lack of respect was there before they ever got a gun. That's also not to say that the weapon may enhance that lack of respect in some people, but in almost half a century nobody I ever knew or met or for that matter even heard of seemed to acquire the callousness that you are describing from gun ownership. I'm not saying they're not there, I'm just saying that based on my experience, they are very, very rare.

I have heard a lot of gallows humor and macho bullshit. But I wouldn't confuse that with any predictor of what somebody would actually do given the opportunity to use a firearm on another person. Even if they have a lack of respect for life, they will probably have respect for the consequences of killing someone for no reason.

As for shoot 'em up movies and all that? They're fun all right, I think they have a greater impact on the phenomena you describe than the guns themselves. It has always been my position that if movies actually showed gun violence accurately including the consequences of that violence, people wouldn't be able to watch nearly as much of it. And people are exposed to violence in the media for years and years before they are ever able to own a firearm.

fixed typo

[catnhatnh]

16. A nice and reasoned post...

I disagree somewhat, but not totally. I support stronger gun control, but welcome you and your willingness to freely discuss the point.

[rrneck]

19. Thanks, how do you disagree?

[catnhatnh]

34. Because you deserve an answer tonight...

I have lived in a gun culture. I was military and had my own. I brought some home after...I choose to get rid of mine. Where I was born and raised we built a majority of all weapons ever built in our very small state. An uncle dropped a gun in a bar and killed a friend of his and mine...I drove for a scrap dealer, in one place I watched a matron wearing a hairnet clear a tractor-load of streetsweeper 12 gauges out into the streets...at Winchester, twice a week, I would haul away sawdust-30-40 cubic yards just in waste from stock grinding...

Picture dumpsters full of recievers...most broken as the law requires...just like all the other "scrap" was broken....

The real answer is this,I should never possess a firearm amd never should 90% of the people in this asylum we call America.That leaves 25 million or more who should. Call me nuts, but I think it is important to pick those folk out.

[rrneck]

38. Thank you for your answer after I had already gone to bed, I'm a

little embarrassed about that.

Your sentiments are justified and your attitude toward guns is the right one to have. They're damn dangerous and there are a lot of fools out there. While there are no perfect solutions or absolutes in human nature, my hope is that we are able to make the fools not fools anymore, that makes it a win win for everyone.

Again, thanks. Sorry about calling up bad memories.

[catnhatnh]

40. We appear about a half day off each other...

...and bad memories are I have are about a fool being allowed a permit...but more alarming is that in that town I could have gotten a permit just because of who I knew.

You say fool, but I read careless or angry...and either way can mean unneeded death. I can support gun ownership but only if the person allowed the weapon proves both knowledge of safety rules AND is evaluated for temperment.

Safetywise,I'm a prime candidate. In terms of temperment, not at all.

[rrneck]

41. Yours is one of the few

voices I have found that can bring a sort of integrity and candor to the debate that is sorely lacking.

You have seem to have achieved a victory that most people have never even contemplated - you understand yourself. Half the battle over gun violence (not to mention any number of other battles) would be won if we could just get people to do that.

I'm still trying to get my head around the entire issue and figure out a way to make the system work that will make everybody happy. It seems to be a difficult task. Your point about temperament is well taken. I daresay that there is not a single person anywhere who, at one time or another, is temperamentally able to get anywhere near a firearm - myself included. The idea of official temperamental evaluation starts to feel like a sort of "Brave New World" solution, but by way of carrots as opposed to sticks, effective health care including mental health care in this country might be a good step in the right direction. Plus, since anyone that has a history of mental health trouble is already precluded from firearms ownership, it would help flag those who need to be flagged. And of course those who may not be able to have a gun may still need to defend themselves and on and on and on it goes...

I clearly don't have a solution. But I'm working on it.

damn typos

[paulkienitz]

17. some hard evidence to support your intuition

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925373.800">Scientific study proves that gun owners are assholes

[rrneck]

18. Or does it prove that assholes are more likely to own guns...

and haul them around in cars? My premise being that people who, for whatever reason, are more prone to belligerent behavior likely started learning it well before their 21st birthday.

[Sex Pistol]

20. Your friend is more than likely alive today because of a gun,

and I can only imagine how he felt about it. It certainly is nothing to cheer about; nevertheless, people do have a tendency to cheer when good prevails over evil.

Having said that, a gun is nothing more than a tool. And like any other tool, it can help facilitate destruction in the hands of the wrong person.

Owning a gun is also like owning an insurance policy. You hope you never have to use it, but you may need it to deal with unexpected occurrences.

[aikoaiko]

21. Was your post prompted by a thread where people cheered a defensive shooting?

If so, you weren't the only one who was bothered. I wasn't one of those people, but I can understand why it might bother some people to hear about, for example, the death of a 17 year old thief who made the stupid, crimal, and dangerous mistake of robbing someone at gun point, and was gunned down in an act of self-defense.

And bothered even more by people who describe the dead criminal as less than human terms or cheer the shooting/shooter.

I know you're keenly sensitive to dehumanizing people (even people who commit horrendous crimes) and calls for extreme punishment. I can see your post in this thread in the same vein.

I don't think gun culture folks hold views about life that are that much different than other folks.

[mudesi]

22. Gun nuts are generally sociopaths (nm)

[cabluedem]

24. Agreed. nt

[cabluedem]

23. Goe to a gun show and chat some of these people up. Its a chilling experience. n/t

[aikoaiko]

26. I'm goin to gun show tomorrow. I'll give you a nice hug to rid you of that chill.

:hug:

[rrneck]

27. I've been to my share

of gun shows. I find them boring. There's always the guy that shows up in full military regalia (beret and all), and the guy in the suit pretending to be a collector. There's always a lot of harumph harumph about the second amendment and what they'd do if anybody made a move on them. I can spot them a mile away. One thing's for sure, they can be irritatingly dogmatic about THE LAW. What they never admit is they are equally aware of what the law would do them if they shot somebody unnecessarily. I wonder how easy it was to spot you as one of those kinds of people who would *gasp* post on a liberal website like DU?

[alarimer]

25. Like those subhumans in New Orleans talking about shooting people

"Just like shooting pheasants in South Dakota". The Nation has a piece on it this week. Plus there was a piece on Democracy Now with some audio from a Dutch film and it was just chilling.

[rrneck]

29. Can you steer me to

a few links? I'd like to have a look.

[1awake]

28. I'm a fan of shootem up movies and games to..

But in real life.. I have to agree with one of the posters above. Killing someone is not what it's portrayed in most movies and games. Right or wrong, the hardest part of it is not pulling the trigger (though thats difficult in itself), but living with yourself afterward, even when it is 100% justified. That goes for anyone.. soldiers, police, and even your average citizen.

I am a member of the so called "gun culture".. have been as far back as I can remember, and actually still own 3 firearms. But still.. did anyone take driver's ed? If you did, in your class did they show the slide show or movie where graphic images of people in car accidents? Maybe My class was weird. But I think anyone buying anything short of a shotgun or deer rifle should have to watch something like this, but in reference to gunshots. People need to see that shooting someone isn't cool or make you proud. They need to see what a 9mm can do to someone's head, let alone from something really packing. It's something so vastly different from what society has shown them.. they should be made aware before hand. Yes, teach them gun safety, but a dose of graphic reality will serve them more.

just my 2 cents.


~LK~

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. I have a gun, and I have a similar concern about "the gun culture"

The way I see it, there are a few reasons to take gun ownership to the next step and fixate on them:
a) you're a collector, analagous to a collector of stamps, and the mechanical aspects of the machine interest you. You perseverate on the relative value of one gun over another. Many fall into this category. To one degree or another, they consider their guns to be an investment. In fairness, I know a lot of guys who make a modest profit from this hobby. As an investor in stocks, I have no room to criticize them on the wisdom of that investing choice.
b) you're paranoid. I have a good friend who readily admits this and considers it a side affect of his Vietnam PTSD. He told me that he has (8) "1911" .45 caliber pistols, and fully understands that this is irrational.
c) you're a hunter for whom hunting is really not all that intrinsically linked to eating. The gun is not really a tool, it's a lifestyle purchase. He's like the Lamborghini buyer; it's not really about transportation. The food is given away to anyone willing to listen to the gripping and self-aggrandizing tale of its procurement.
d) you're scary.

True, many of them in the first three groups share the "The Christmas Story" wild wild west fantasy (No, I won't shoot my eye out, Mom), but I don't consider that cause for significant alarm.

I think there's a tendency here to overstate the relative size of group d.

[Cleita]

31. Back in the days when we had a draft, it seems to me that guys weren't

so gun happy. When everyone had to go into the military, they learned to use guns and they learned the purpose for them. Those who had to go into a war zone really got to learn what they were for. I'm not saying there should be a draft but maybe educating everyone on gun use and abuse could change the gun happy attitudes prevalent among the gun crazy yahoos who like to go around killing everything including humans at times and who really have no respect or clue about the true nature of guns.

[rrneck]

32. Yeah. What's that

old military adage? "Tracers work both ways". I recall one of those Ahnuld movies where the future Governor of California was running across a rooftop and taking fire from a bunch of bad guys with machine guns. True to form he never got hit because the bad guys in the movies are always bad shots. I remember thinking that I bet I could knock his big ass off that roof with something that shot four hundred rounds a minute.

If you've ever actually been shot at you think twice about shooting at somebody else.

[Touchdown]

33. There are target practicers, hunters, historians and then there's gun worshippers

I believe you're talking about the latter group. Please tell me if I'm wrong. I don't want to get shot.:P

[Orangeone]

35. what about the scaredy cats?

The gun nuts that are always worried about CRIME.

[krispos42]

37. Oh, thank god, a gun-related flamewar

At least I know where I stand in one of these!


These Warren threads... whew. Tiring.




Anyway... I think that, absent a real threat, all the talking and thinking that goes into the contemplation of taking a human life in self defense has the same flavor of a movie, a certain detachment from reality, that is common when talking about abstract concepts.

However, it is also true that if you're going to be able to kill somebody in self-defense, you have to be ready for it, which means... discussing possibilities, tactics, strategies, the effectiveness of various weapons and ammunition, etc., in an academic environment that is conductive to the free exchange of ideas.


It seems that what really bothers some anti-gun-culture people is the ease that which people that have thought about such things are willing to talk about them, and the amount of thought they've put into it.

I freely admit to having been in my fair share of discussions about this, both here on DU and in Real Life.

I've also been the guy at 1am in my underwear with a shotgun in one hand and a flashlight in the other investigating a suspicious noise downstairs and being acutely aware of everything thing I could not see.

It was definitely not fun. It was definitely not enjoyable. And I definitely keep that in mind whenever I'm in a discussion about this.

[Irreverend IX]

42. How many people do you think belong to this "gun culture?"

There are more than 80 million gun owners in this country. How many of them do you think are part of this culture that lacks respect for human life? By all accounts, the more "hardcore" gun owners are some of the most law-abiding members of society; the felony conviction rate for concealed carry permit holders in Florida, one of the few states that publishes this information, is a tiny fraction of the general population's.

What are you basing your assessment of the "gun culture" on? People on Internet forums ranting about how they're going to "kill all the blue helmets when the shit hits the fan?" People acting immature on the Net is nothing new, and in the real world it's rare enough for a law-abiding gun owner to kill people rashly that when it does happen it's national news (Joe Horn). You can find examples of people who believe the Matrix is real and that the moon landing was staged, but no one takes them to be harbingers of a nationwide cultural malady. Most gun crime in this country is linked to a criminal culture that is completely outside the culture of most gun owners.