Are you considering purchasing a gun?

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.

Beat-up cars, rather. Cats presumably wouldn't like participating in this.

I was like, you've already punched the shit out of those poor cats, why are you shooting them, too? Rude.

was out shooting with a sniper and he didnt even need to be in a tactical shooting position to hit a few bullseye with an assault rifle

scary but that's why he was special forces

exactly, kingfish

Recently my father moved into assisted living and I had to take custody of his large gun collection. If money for his care runs low, I'll be forced to sell them to a dealer. I'd rather keep them out of circulation. They don't make me feel safer and I don't think putting them back on the market would make anyone else safer.

So far axes, clawhammers and the classic baseball bat.

I'm really curious about other weapons because I'd assume most people considering a gun but worried about endangering themselves and their family would get other things first. But is there a likelihood that your attacker will also have a gun, so a baseball bat won't be much comfort?

Crossbows? Things you can throw?

If some people use an empty gun to scare, are there people with fake grenades and fake rocket launchers?

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

― The Doug Walters of Crime (Tom D.), Tuesday, November 22, 2016 10:36 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, November 22, 2016 11:33 AM (thirty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm guessing you both live in developed countries because there are places in the world that aren't the USA where the inhabitants would argue that they need guns.

is there anyone on ilx who lives in "the third world"?

I think darragh is the closest

does China qualify

whatver, it just seemed like a weird thing to say. "gotta make sure to raz the USA here"

*deleted a bad "Poster X lives in [US state name redacted]" joke*

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Crossbows, shall not be infringed

come at me xp

A crossbow bolt or bodkin arrow can penetrate modern standard-issue body armor, right

irish by birth mayoman by the grace of god

dicktown new jersey
blue ball pennsylvania
etc

My father's old handgun is somewhere in my mother's house (she's mentioned wanting to get rid of it, but whenever I talk to her she hasn't followed up on other things she means to do). My attitude on guns are that IF you are going to have any, 1) get yourself well and thoroughly trained, and 2) practice strict firearms safety.

In the last couple of weeks I have thought about emigrating to Germany. Not to the point of looking up the requirements, but thinking "Well, I could relearn German, and I could probably live for a while on my savings...."

whatver, it just seemed like a weird thing to say. "gotta make sure to raz the USA here"

Not at all, just stating a fact.

I'm not about to pull a Frederik and tell people in the USA how to live their lives.

i'm guessing you both live in developed countries because there are places in the world that aren't the USA where the inhabitants would argue that they need guns.

― a but (brimstead), Tuesday, November 22, 2016 9:16 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Define "developed". The Netherlands scoring way high on #trump2016wheredoImove lists on Reddit etc makes me smdh. This is a deeply racist, moronic country that will have it's own Trump moment very likely next March when Wilders will be the biggest party in the country. Every single day it gets worse and worse. This is too why I pay attention to brexit and Trump: we will be next. Bigotry's rise has a global appeal. Trump's rise, on the world scale, isn't an isolated thing.

My non-white s/o is on the receiving end of so much blatant racism that we are seriously looking where to go, where live our life and have a future without racism when we can financially afford a move. My deepest fear is that no such place exists, anywhere. And I truly would go anywhere to be with her in a place where racism isn't this explicit. For I am sick to my stomach of it, But I don't know man..

Only thing is: guns, yeah, owning or carrying, it doesn't exist here. Alien concept. But that doesn't make it better here than in other "developed" countries or other...

is there anyone on ilx who lives in "the third world"?

― harold melvin and the bluetones (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, November 22, 2016 2:17 PM (forty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think darragh is the closest

― iatee, Tuesday, November 22, 2016 2:18 PM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gree hee hee

Are you really comfortable to use "third world" (or even "developed world") in such a throwaway way in 2016? I'm not.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

that's for self-reported gun ownership i believe

whatver, it just seemed like a weird thing to say. "gotta make sure to raz the USA here"

Not at all, just stating a fact.

― The Doug Walters of Crime (Tom D.), Tuesday, November 22, 2016 12:47 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol god i am dense.. sorry Tom, and LBI, the context is quite obvious now

[/not sarcastic, sincere]

I'm considering purchasing one of these:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ef/Love_gun_cover.jpg

Slightly more seriously, as I wrote here - Reveal Your Uncool Conservative Beliefs Here

- I can kind of understand people who don't strictly speaking *need* a gun, but who like having them nonetheless. One might just think they're interesting objects.

Definitely not something I'll ever be interested in - and not just because I share the concerns of other ilx0rz with small kids. Guns just fundamentally don't "go" with my lifestyle and culture and neighborhood and worldview.

But I don't automatically assume gun owners/enthusiasts are right-wingnuts, tea partiers, survivalists, or bloodthirsty maniacs.

Thread has this stuck in my head

Hey kids!
You want a soundtrack that's gonna make you feel tense?
Let you express your frustration?
Make ya scared, wanna, wanna run out and buy a gun?

may as well raise my unrealistic idea again:

wish we could just ban personal gun ownership and then allow people to rent them at shooting ranges, secure property with deer and other animals, etc. that would help to eliminate the recreational argument that people make to justify owning guns even though it results in so many people dying unnecessarily each year.

alternative is to allow gun ownership but heavily restrict ammunition ownership (i.e. only available at gun ranges or something)

or, limited amount each year for hunting, something like that