Are you considering purchasing a gun?

I have to say I've also thought a lot about leaving New York City and moving somewhere much less densely populated (but still liberal).

I'd leave the country if it was an option, but that's generally been true regardless of President. I have no particular allegiance to the US as an institution.

Another thing that gives me pause about the gun thing is that it seems like it takes a lot of practice to really be able to use it effectively, like it's a big commitment. I suppose there's the deterrent effect and maybe that's more important. OTOH I also have a feeling I'd be a decent shot based on my sharp eyesight, icewater blood and skill at laser tag and virtuacop, lol.

Decided a while back I would rather be killed for my beliefs than kill for them. No.

I will never leave California

When I consider a gun as a functional tool, I do not foresee having any use for its functionality. It would be like me buying an arc welder, even though I have no need for it and no training in using it.

Don't live in the USA, therefore no need of a gun.

... not sure how you would go about it here anyway.

I am not buying a gun but I thought about it.

more specifically i don't think the calculus of "owning a gun is a risk to your family" v. "owning a gun to protect your family" has come down on the side of owning a gun yet. and i'm not worried that they're going to close down the gun stores any time soon so i can afford to wait and see.

Do you guys who are considering getting guns already have other weapons? Or a scary dog?

childless friends were pushing me to get a gun in light of trump america they were like "you need to get guns and then teach your children how to use them and respect them" i'm just like "my kids are 5 and 3 i am not getting guns and teaching them how to use them until society breaks down and we're wandering the wasteland trying to avoid cannibal scavengers"

havent considered getting a gun but wouldnt mind living and working abroad it broadens the mind doesnt it

childless friends' parenting advice = the most worthless advice ever

xp at that it'll be too late though won't it?

Honestly I feel like if the USA, aka the most powerful nation on earth by far, becomes so bad that I need to emigrate, it's hard to imagine where I'd feel confident in my safety.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, 22 November 2016 18:20 (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i mean congrats on that power thing but yknow it is not really the only line on the spectrum of life is shit/good nahmsayin

don't live in the u.s. therefore no need for a gun. when i lived in a ground floor apartment by home defence was a claw-hammer next to the bed.

also literally most first world countries are safer than the u.s. lol

I had a brief moment of "maybe a gun isn't an incredibly stupid idea" immediately post-election

not for my own protection, but to spread out the demographic. right now, gun ownership as a percentage of the populace is actually relatively low, but the number of people with a shitload of guns is high. so any effort to get gun owners to push for accountability is hijacked by wackjobs -- and gun marketing and ownership orgs don't care because they're working off the same money pool and more guns sold is success. if a bunch of responsible people who were for regulation were the bulk of gun owners, it might have a chance.

but none of that shit is happening, it's a blue sky argument, and demographically I look a lot more like the guy who flipped his shit and shot two cops along what is basically my route to work... and I'm not owning a gun

i didnt want to say it that baldly but yes lol xp

thread needed for tough love to panicking americans whom we nevertheless adore

havent considered getting a gun but wouldnt mind living and working abroad it broadens the mind doesnt it

otm

taking sides: getting a gun so that in the event of neo-nazis arriving at your door you can threaten them with your gun and/or try to kill enough of them to make your escape before the rest of them show up,
vs
living abroad

a couple years ago, I took a gun class with some friends -- it was one of those groupon things -- and I thought it'd be cool, but it freaked me the fuck out, so, no.

thread needed for tough love to panicking americans whom we nevertheless adore

there's a lot of hysteria going around atm. you should see how much the jews are freaking the fuck out. if i didn't know better looking at my timeline i'd think it's 1936.

A gun class. Shouldn't snigger but..

you learn about safety best practices, different types of guns, the mechanics of the gun, how to clean and maintain them, how to use them, and how the real and only purpose for guns is killing things.

you should see how much the jews are freaking the fuck out. if i didn't know better looking at my timeline i'd think it's 1936.

yeah I'm getting a bit irritated at this point. I think this may be the first time my wife has felt her family is specifically under threat because of anti-semitism, whereas I'm a little more sanguine about things, and it's weird seeing her freak out and post ADL "Never is NOW" memes

xp

xxp well they make you take a class to drive a car and those things aren't even meant to kill people

oh aren't they

, whereas I'm a little more sanguine about things,

literally got accused yesterday of being "sanguine" by a normally level-headed friend

i just disarmed u with this cup of coffee. and a gun. and a car.

sarah, was it an NRA class, or something else? Just wondering about your experience. Last time I looked into classes, everything local to me was NRA-affiliated, which is another reason I've held off.

the more sanguine they are

*sunglasses*

the easier they bleed YYYAAAAAAOOOOWWW

No but a friend is taking us to a shooting range next week to learn how. This is mostly because my wife wants to and I know she's much more interested in owning a gun than I am.

youre gonna end up with a gun then def Jordan the same happened me with a fireside poker/brush set and we dont even have a fire! you just cant argue with the little woman!

xp - not NRA sponsored. I think the guy was a home security consultant?

my workplace is a lot further from the city center than my home and it's a few miles away from a national guard training facility, which also does a lot of training for law enforcement officers. it's also just off an interstate highway exit two stops down from the state patrol hq.

so basically if i go out to lunch in the immediate area there's a high likelihood i'll see people in fatigues, if not a handful of officers carrying guns sitting around eating lunch. and it still freaks me out! there's a shooting range on the edge of that suburb, probably because they get traffic from people wanting to go shooting off-hours when they're in town, and it's right behind a pediatrician's office. this shit never ceases to freak me out when i think about it

would never consider having a gun esp with a child in the house. a big fuck no to that.

i just disarmed u with this cup of coffee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hReFx1kjuIE

My best friend is a cop, I could easily get qualified on the police range in no time. I've fired rifles and shotguns before (everything from a .22 to a .460 to a .30-.30) but the only handguns I've ever fired were pellet guns.

i definitely feel less comfortable living in a major east coast city than i used to, though i'm not sure what reasonably could happen to justify that fear

Not in the USA, no need. The concept of carrying or even owning a gun is utterly alien to me. And I realize that's a very privileged way to feel about this.

grew up with guns

some family members own over a dozen firearms, some are military veterans

i was in the lunchroom yesterday and this topic came up, and i said they owned guns and people, in an act of kindness i guess, said sure to protect yourself

then i said, well not just that but for fun you know? killed the vibe. dead silence in the entire room. no pun intended

i assume people will react the same here

i guess its cultural. while i think shooting and hunting can be fun, i think there isn't enough regulation and the process to acquire any firearm is too lenient

i have a specific way i would like to see put in place but it will never happen

but know that even veterans, when out of practice, make mistakes handling a firearm. what makes you think any of you should just simply be able to buy one "for protection"

learn how to handle a gun before you even think about buying one

how the real and only purpose for guns is killing things.

bingo! the crazy thing is how many people owning or considering owing guns right now have no intention of hunting, either for subsistence or recreation, but only imagine using their gun(s) to kill or maim other humans.

Raised a hunter in the Michigan suburbs, took hunter's safety when I was 12, got a single-shot over/under small shotgun/rifle for my birthday that year, and a .22 squirrel rifle within the next year. Haven't fired them in maybe 24 years, and pretty much they've sat in my dad's gun closet/safe since the HW Bush era.

But I'm a big white dude who lives in an apartment in the residential area of a PacNW city, and my view of risk is demographically skewed. My domestic protection is a goodsize axe handle stored behind a bedroom door.

i am basically as anti-gun a person as you might find, i definitely do not agree that owning a gun makes one safer under usual conditions (i tend to think that the ability to think correctly when in crisis-mode is a quality most gun owners assume they have when few actually do) but since the election and kind of abandoning my assumptions about the future, my views are evolving. i think at the very least im starting to understand the appeal of gun ownership

specifically, the class was on handguns, and handguns are for killing people, whereas rifles are often used for hunting animals. I guess, technically, one could use a handgun to put down a suffering animal, but the thought of saying, "Fuck, your cat got hit by a car, brb gonna get my .45" I dunno, maybe where I grew up, but living in a city, it sounds ridic.

kingfish, ya. the same people in my family that own a gun have an axe or even a good bat for protection

all their firearms are sealed and not loaded, as is the law

by the time you get it, load it, you are dead already

One of the bits about pistol ownership that always sticks in my head is that I remember something Robert Evans(the younger one) wrote, about how many shots cops take and miss, and these are people who are professionally required to put in regular range time.

I've shot handguns at gun ranges over the years, not a total noob but not super experienced either

I've been considering buying one since the election

I guess it has come to this: a recognition that our society is revealing its latent potential for fascism very openly now, and with that a fear of others and a desire to protect myself from racist mobs / the security state

but: a family member died from gun-related violence and I don't want that pattern to click into place for me too and that's just more likely than some valiant heroics on my part

so . . . I'm not sure it's a good idea to sign on for the proliferation of guns in a society already deeply fucked by their over-proliferation

i guess its cultural. while i think shooting and hunting can be fun, i think there isn't enough regulation and the process to acquire any firearm is too lenient

Yeah; firearms are for taking a bunch of pumkins and bottles and beat-up cats in the Gorge or the desert or 4-square miles of empty farmland and blasting at shit like once a year or two, then you secure everything and lock 'em in your offsite storage locker and forget about them for 12 months.

I passed a guy at the grocery store in civilian clothes who had a Glock on his hip and extra magazines on the back of his belt, the first time I've seen someone out of uniform carrying that I can recall - maybe a civilian but he also looked like a 5'9" thumb so maybe a cop?

A sudden attack from an unexpected quarter would find them totally unprepared.

nah shit's performative

both absolutely otm

I'd see people open carrying a lot when I lived near Idaho and my first thought was always how easy it would be for me to take their gun away when they weren't paying attention.

I wonder if they got kind of a rush the first time they went outside with a holstered weapon, even though it's pretty well-accepted in their communities.

Once while living in Arizona, I saw some guy ride up to a 7-11 on a bike and he had what looked like a .357 sticking out of his pants waistband. I couldn't believe it didn't fall out while he was riding.

I'll bet the cashier at the 7-11 really loved seeing that guy walk through the door.