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My introduction :)

  
  

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Triplets
00:34 / 13.03.07
Or get one installed subdermally. Didn't you learn anything from Gibson?
 
 
HCE
00:51 / 13.03.07
Guns are so yesterday. Thumbs are the hot new thing. I have an extensive collection.
 
 
iamus
01:02 / 13.03.07
Modern useage of these drugs includes getting fucked up [...] but if you are approaching drugs from an even vaguely shamanic point of view you can see that's not what they are for.

Here you point out that the use of a thing is dependent on the user for definition. Where some use drugs for religious ceremony and exploration, some use them to get fucked up. 'What drugs are for' is here defined by how people use them.



Spot on. Drugs aren't for any one thing or the other. They're just a thing that exists.They're only for one thing or another based on observations of our interactions with them. We can tally up a list of pros and cons for each thing and decide from that their potential use, but that's all.

I reckon personally that at this point we could all do without guns, since I don't think they serve a proper useful purpose. I think they do more to impede our development nowadays than they do to help it. They've played their part in building societies that effect the world on a global scale, but whether that was worth all the shitty things they brought alongwith is something that's kind of up to us right at this moment..

I do think there's personality and art in guns. They say something pretty important about us, and they're so intimately tied in to who we are, and where we are historically that we can't possibly just ignore them. You can't pass them off as a universally bad thing because without them, well, you wouldn't even be here to discuss them.


The origins of a tool are less interesting to me than the potenitial applications. Nuclear fission can be seen as a bad thing for the atrocities it's enabled us to commit against one another, but any decent scientist or sci-fi author can think up any number of brilliant uses for it.

Haus is familiarly on point in saying that owning a gun puts you an loved ones at greater risk from gun related injury. That's a bloody certainty. It's whether you think the potential pros of keeping a gun outweigh the potential cons.
 
 
astrojax69
01:30 / 13.03.07
well scarlett 156, you've certainly given yourself some stuff to read! welcome to 'lith.

be interested in your writing, if you put some on the creation thread. [hey, shouldn't that be the 'evolution' thread? or are we all christian right fundamentalists and scarlett is here with her guns to rid us of the menace and play us sweet music afterwards?? ]

are you a good shot?
 
 
Ticker
01:31 / 13.03.07
ibis:

1. small gun safe for under the bed.

2. local gun taining courses. Call your PD department and they can refer you. The NRA and local ranges usually have women's classes.

3. Don't keep it if it scares you too much to learn how to use it. A brick is more useful if you're too afraid to operate a gun safely.

4. Keep pepper spray on the night table, keep the gun in the safe.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
01:34 / 13.03.07
Haus, the study you mention is an interesting one. Undoubtedly having a gun around will increase the odds of hurting yourself with it accidentally, when compared to not having one I think the divide by zero error would lead a calculator to think the odds are infinity to one.

I am curious what a more recent study would show, since there have been a variety of stricter gun control laws passed in the last 20 years (background checks to make sure criminals are not purchasing firearms being the one I think would impact a study like that the most). As far as I know in 1986 the NICS system was not in place, so there was no way to check if someone had just gotten out of prison before selling them a gun. I am not trying to dispute the results of the study, they are fairly straight forward. I do think, however, that if you sell someone who has committed a violent crime in the past a weapon there is a fair chance they will use it to commit another violent crime.

Of course that is one of the issues with gun control as a whole here. The criminals are going to break the law either way (that is kind of what makes them criminals) so making a specific firearm illegal isn't a deterrent to repeat offenders. If illegality of weapons solved the problem then fully automatic rifles wouldn't be used in drive by shootings anymore, they have been illegal for years.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
01:43 / 13.03.07
Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there.
 
 
ibis the being
02:34 / 13.03.07
I don't know how to use the gun. My father in law gave me a "dry run" lesson which centered around the idea that if you wrap two hands around it and fully extend your arms straight ahead you're probably going to hit the guy. I don't really have an interest in learning how to use it either. Logically the idea of shooting in self-defense makes sense, but I cannot get my mind around the idea of putting an exploding bullet into a person's body. I don't think I could do it and therefore I know I shouldn't have a gun. Most likely I will just put the thing in a closet and the bullets in another closet. But not tonight, as I've had a few and there's no safety on the fucker. I just wanted to share my first hand experience of how owning a gun really does not make a person feel safer. I know that the conventional [American] wisdom says becoming familiar with a weapon and learning how to use it does make it more likely to keep you safe... but frankly I think it's just a desensitization process to the incredibly mind-fucking notion of holding in your hand a small machine that shreds human bodies. And I don't particularly want to desensitize myself to that.
 
 
The Ghost of Tom Winter
05:43 / 13.03.07
I find guns undermine the idea of noble duels. I'm all about the switch blade and broken beer bottles.

I shot a gun once. I had a strange moment of existential terror when I realized I could kill myself or anyone else in that room with my finger and will. The force alone makes you feel so powerful. I hated it.
I suppose they might be useful if a rebellion of neo-fascist begin to take over your neighborhood. Other wise I'd rather just throw things and beat the solo invaders with sticks.
 
 
Sole Eater
06:41 / 13.03.07
Firearm ownership is a subjective thing. For me, the possession of firearms is a bifurcated pleasure. Because I live on a tiny island in tropical northen Australia, the threat of crocodiles is ever present when fishing, snorkelling, diving or camping. So I toddle along with a blaster to make the bad things disinclined to eat me. When indulging in water based activities, the powerhead is the weapon of choice. For camping, something with a little more range is indicated, i.e. centrefire rifle.

But the presence of a firearm is an anathema to others while camping. If they know it's there, everyone has to look and fondle it, especially the kids. Of course then its: "Look, there's a croc, shoot 'im, shoot 'im!" To which I have to be very firm and say "NO". Everyone looks at me as if I'M the threat then. "Because it's not bothering anyone, because it's a protected species and because it's a bloody $10,000 fine if I get caught," is the standard defence.

The shooting of ferals is a whole other ball game. A two hour boat trip to the mainland and it's "hello buffalo, hello piggy and hello donkey". The ability to reach out and touch something half a mile away is really quite empowering. And good for the environment too. Mutters: "good for environment, good for the environment".

I am also a big fan of the Japanese sword. Imagine the outcome if a loony got loose in a crowded shopping mall with one of them? They can't be unloaded either. But for me, they embody the skill and patience of the master craftsman, and the discipline and self awareness of the student who is trying to find The Way. There is something sooo beautiful in the way they gently curve towards the tip. And to wield one is to be aware of the centuries of tradition inherent in the design.

Yep, guns are nice, but swords are slicer.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
07:35 / 13.03.07
The shooting of ferals is a whole other ball game. A two hour boat trip to the mainland and it's "hello buffalo, hello piggy and hello donkey". The ability to reach out and touch something half a mile away is really quite empowering

You're referring to killing animals that aren't a threat to you as reaching out and touching them? Aren't they also not bothering anyone, like the crocodiles ~ a donkey sounds less likely to present that kind of threat ~ or is the main difference that they don't incur a fine?

I find it quite sad if you're saying you enjoy the empowerment you get from killing apparently harmless animals from a distance when they couldn't threaten you, for no apparent reason except to make yourself feel good. The idea that the gun is to protect yourself from predators seems to have been dropped in this situation.

But I might have read the post wrong.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:31 / 13.03.07
Imagine the outcome if a loony got loose in a crowded shopping mall with one of them?

Well, actually this happens fairly regularly in the UK, precisely because loonies tend not to have access to guns. Replica samurai swords are a handy fall-back position. They are also used by toughs who either do not want or cannot get guns. There have been an estimated 80 attacks with samurai swords in the UK since 2003, and a ban is under discussion now.

Generally, body counts from one person going mad in a public place with a samurai sword are much lower than the same situation with firearms, for a number of fairly obvious reasons: lack of formal training, limited range, inability to suppress longer-range pacification techniques, absence of ricochets. Generally, I'd rather see the more common usage in Britain of both guns and swords - gang fights - settled with swords than guns, because the risk to bystanders is less.

Which comes back to Elijah's point about automatic weapons being used in drive-bys. That's a very good example of the dangers of letting genies out of bottles in the first place. If you fill the market with automatic rifles, those automatic rifles will remain in circulation for a long time, even after they are made unavailable for purchase in federally licensed premises. Because one group has automatic rifles, other groups need to keep importing them, for reasons both pragmatic and status-related. Having a long border doesn't help, obviously. And that's back to capitalism, and the laws of supply and demand.

Likewise, although the Brady law certainly has implications for firearms purchase and use, the number of guns in circulation will have an inevitable effect on how successfully gun use is controlled. Example: I don't know how many guns you have, but let's assume that you own about a dozen, and these are stored at your home - gun rack in the garage, .45 in nightstand. If your house is burgled while you are out, and thus unable to defend it, some or all of those firearms can be removed, the serial numbers filed off and the weapons redistributed for cash or used for felonious purposes. Even without the serial numbers being filed off, there is a clear break between that serial number and the knowledge of who owns the gun. As there would be, in fact, if you sold that gun on to somebody without crossing state lines, which as I understand it is still legal under Brady, although it is probably regulated by the laws of your state.
 
 
Tsuga
09:15 / 13.03.07
MW: Aren't they also not bothering anyone, like the crocodiles ~ a donkey sounds less likely to present that kind of threat ~ or is the main difference that they don't incur a fine?
I think the species Sole Eater referred to as "ferals" are non-native animals that have escaped domestication and are sometimes extremely damaging to the environment; basically biological pollution (you could argue that about humans, really). I don't like the idea of killing these poor animals, but it's not as simple as them being defenseless or harmless.
 
 
Evil Scientist
09:33 / 13.03.07
So I toddle along with a blaster to make the bad things disinclined to eat me.

Although, technically, it won't disincline them to eat you. It's just that when they try to you have a way of stopping them that doesn't require bare-chested wrestling.

I'm not personally a fan of killing animals for no reason, or just for pleasure. To be honest, capping the occasional wild donkey is hardly going to make any impact on the overall population is it? It sounds more like a justification for killing for kicks.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:41 / 13.03.07
Gun-happy humans can be used to control an ecosystem, certianly. A chum of mine's family land is infested with elk, who breed out of control. Employing gamekeepers to regulate the population would be prohibitively expensive. Getting groups of management consultants down on team-building weekends where they blast away at the elk, conversely, is quite profitable.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
09:48 / 13.03.07
I think the species Sole Eater referred to as "ferals" are non-native animals that have escaped domestication and are sometimes extremely damaging to the environment; basically biological pollution (you could argue that about humans, really). I don't like the idea of killing these poor animals, but it's not as simple as them being defenseless or harmless.

Killing a donkey or a pig from half a mile away, for the apparent main purpose of feeling empowered as a human? I still don't see it as anything much but cruel, I'm afraid. The benefit to the environment sounded, even in the original post, like an attempt to justify the pleasure of the killing.
 
 
Evil Scientist
09:55 / 13.03.07
S'true. Culling animal populations does require some level of organisation though, rather than just hoping that random members of the public take potshots at passing donkeys.

An estate is a relatively limited area in which to control a population, when compared to Australia which is pretty massive. So whilst the impact of shotgun-toting middle-management types on an elk population will have some kind of limiting effect, I'm dubious about the effectiveness of lone hunters vrs feral animals within the Australian environment.

I suggest we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
 
 
Proinsias
12:30 / 13.03.07
So I toddle along with a blaster to make the bad things disinclined to eat me.

Although, technically, it won't disincline them to eat you. It's just that when they try to you have a way of stopping them that doesn't require bare-chested wrestling.

It may disincline them to eat you if you fire a random shot as opposed to shotting the animal.
 
 
Ticker
12:40 / 13.03.07
Most likely I will just put the thing in a closet and the bullets in another closet. But not tonight, as I've had a few and there's no safety on the fucker. I just wanted to share my first hand experience of how owning a gun really does not make a person feel safer. I know that the conventional [American] wisdom says becoming familiar with a weapon and learning how to use it does make it more likely to keep you safe... but frankly I think it's just a desensitization process to the incredibly mind-fucking notion of holding in your hand a small machine that shreds human bodies. And I don't particularly want to desensitize myself to that.

Again I would strongly urge you to get a small gun safe, not the closet. They don't cost as much as you think they do and they provide a huge a mount of safety. That or get the thing out of your home. I can go look up statistics if you prefer but a very large portion of home gun related injuries can be sourced to people storing them unwisely. It's not a shoe or an ugly family heirloom and shouldn't be stored irresponsibly. If you're not going to use it enough to be comfortable nor store it safely please consider returning it to the family member that gave it to you or giving it to another more comfortable family member. Even a locking document box is better than nothing.


It's not the greatest option ever but:

As an alternative to purchasing a gun safe in a rental living situation, consider acquiring a mini safe or mini vault. These small lock boxes, while entirely too small to accommodate long guns, are ideal for handguns. They offer a great degree of security from young or inquisitive children.

Theft protection is accomplished by bolting the mini safe to a piece of furniture such as a bed rail, nightstand, coffee table, bottom of a dining table, or other suitable place. Because they can be installed in a variety of positions, mini safes can be hidden from sight, yet still be available for instant access. Most feature quick opening locking mechanisms that rely upon a code being entered in order to function.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:10 / 13.03.07
Ibis, I think you should just get the thing out of the house.
 
 
HCE
13:11 / 13.03.07
Good lord, can the cops not take it off your hands?
 
 
Ticker
13:37 / 13.03.07
I should probably explain my position on guns with all my gun safe ranting...


There are a small handful of situations in which a gun is a useful tool. If you are unlikely to find yourself in one of these situations it follows that you are unlikely to require this tool. IMO guns are designed primarily as tools of injury and death and while the skill required to use them properly is impressive enough to warrant an Olympic sport that is not their intended purpose.

Cars kill a lot of people and animals accidentally while operating within their primary function as transportation. Sometimes this is due to pure uncontrollable circumstance and other times due to driver error. Not everyone who drives practices on a closed track to improve their skills and reflexes and so many barely pass their driver's exam.

Guns kill a lot of people and animals intentionally while operating within their primary function as weapons. Usually this is due to direct premeditated choice though frequently it is an accident. Again not everyone who owns a gun practices on a closed range to improve their skills and reflexes and, well wait you don't need to pass a skill test to own a gun now do you?

As a child I often slept, played, and lived right next to a loaded hand gun that was not inaccessible to me. Rather it was a lot like playing right next to a cobra and I strongly urge all adults who elect to live with handguns not to place their children or guests in this horror movie position. It's stressful and incredibly stupid when technology exists to allow safe and fairly fast access to stored guns via hand gun safes.

Yes I and my siblings survivied growing up with guns without physical injury. This was due primarily to intense conditioning that guns were lethal, unpredictable, and required serious handling only. I've been on ranges since I was a very small child and napped on pillows that had loaded hand guns underneath. This came with the price of growing up knowing people could kill you on the street, in school, in the store, etc. It is not a happy way to grow up nor do I believe appropriate for children not living on a frontier of civilization.

I am passingly competent with firearms of many sorts but I will never be comfortable with them for to do so is to forget that they take lives. Might be your enemies', might be your family's, might be your food animals', might be your own. Many of them are beautiful machines that I admire with a trained eye just as I admire their skilled use on a target range. Yet I never admire their use in the field because that's not where my attention belongs when someone is hurt or dying.

As an adult I live with guns in locked safe storage in my home and insist upon it. I am a caretaker of family heirlooms that require occassional tending and skill review.
 
 
Olulabelle
13:39 / 13.03.07
XK, that's extremely eloquently put.
 
 
spectre
14:05 / 13.03.07
I am actually far more worried about the zombies then I am about a civil war

I'm glad I'm not the only one, Elijah. Living in a major city, I know that when Z-day comes, I have a low probability of survival, even with the guns.

That said, the real reason I own guns, as mentioned by others here, is simply because I enjoy them. I live in an area where they are not only accepted, but even common. I use them safely and in accepted areas, and will teach anyone who asks as much gun safety as they can listen to. I enjoy their mechanisms of action, I enjoy the difficulty involved in their accurate use, I enjoy a social skeet-shooting outing, and I also enjoy the personal meditation time that long-range target shooting gives me. I enjoy archery and ultimate frisbee for many of the same reasons.

As far as self-defense goes, I am open to the concept, but I don;t anticipate it ever being a need. I have an unloaded shotgun in my closet, but I keep an axe handle under my bed. Guess which one I would grab if I heard a bump in the night?

Also, welcome, scarlett. Didn't expect this, did you?
 
 
Ticker
14:10 / 13.03.07
thanks Lula, it's a complex issue that I believe requires a great deal of thought. I grew up smack dab in the middle of the gun control debate. On one hand I don't believe everyone is entitled to own one just because and yet I can't say no one is entitled to own one either. For me it is a very situational issue.

I'd rather look at it without the tool and contemplate an individual's philosophy on the value of safety, self defense, and violence. It appears to me that as a society we are conflicted over the appropriate response to a range of potential situations.

If we agree no one ever has the right to kill another even in self defense than that would change the tool we elected to use (taser vs. gun). However there seems to be some major clinging to the idea that we do have the right to kill other people. I personally find this fascinating as so few of us have the experience of killing anything even our own food (plants as well as animals).

We undervalue life and death constantly in our removed from view food cycle and comfortable familiarity via entertainment's unreal mortality. Death and killing should be a huge moral issue for the individual and met with either profound appreciation or vehement abhorrence. This blase acceptance strikes me as bizarre.

Mind you, I haven't completely worked out my feelings on involuntary euthanasia.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:10 / 13.03.07
What do people feel about consensual gunplay within the context of a loving relationship?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:33 / 13.03.07
I think we'd probably have to workshop that.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
14:34 / 13.03.07
Fine, as long as your name's not Joan Vollmer.
 
 
Spaniel
14:38 / 13.03.07
On death and killing not being a huge moral issue, I am often struck (in a blow to the face kinda way) by how happy so many people I come into contact with are to discuss the death of indivduals, and even groups of people, as the necessary consequence of some favourable or "reasonable" course of action, or some unavoidable historical process. The casual way in which it is discussed as if the lives of people are unimportant or of no consequence. I'm thinking of discussions around the death penalty, the homeless, the environment, imigrants (foreigners generally), the list goes on and on...

It makes me sick.

Feeling misanthropic today
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:39 / 13.03.07
I enjoy a social skeet-shooting outing, and I also enjoy the personal meditation time that long-range target shooting gives me. I enjoy archery and ultimate frisbee for many of the same reasons.


Incidentally, it strikes me that anyone who could combine all four of these sports would be sitting on a goldmine.
 
 
grant
16:30 / 13.03.07
ibis: I don't really have an interest in learning how to use it either.

Then get it out of the house. Really. Why have a thing that 1. you don't know how to use and that 2. is meant to kill people?

Either learn how to use it, or get it out of the house.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
16:34 / 13.03.07
Distance Ultimate Frisbee Skeet will be the sport we play after THE WAR. Winners (survivors) will be allowed to go to The Island to live out their days away from the wasteland we have made of the earth.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
16:41 / 13.03.07
If we agree no one ever has the right to kill another even in self defense than that would change the tool we elected to use (taser vs. gun).

I am all for this as long as the other guy is following the same rules. I am of the opinion that when someone attempts to take the life of another person without provocation or for profit/jollies then they have made their lives forfeit as long as they remain a threat. This, of course, means that if you scare someone away with a gun you don't shoot them in the back while they run. The current self defense laws handle this sort of thing pretty well. Where I live if you get in a fight with someone and continue kicking them once they are down that can be considered attempted murder, because the danger to you has passed. You are no longer defending yourself, you are now the aggressor.

Firearms and radioactive spiders fall into the same category really, great power and great responsibility.
 
 
Quantum
17:42 / 13.03.07
Early one morning with time to kill
I borrowed Jeb's rifle and sat on the hill
I saw a lone rider crossing the plain
I drew a bread on him to practice my aim
My brother's rifle went off in my hand
A shot rang out across the land
The horse he kept running, the rider was dead
I hung my head, I hung my head

I set off running to wake from the dream
And my brother's rifle went into the stream
I kept on running into the salt lands
And that's where they found me, my head in my hands
The sheriff he asked me "Why had I run"
Then it came to me just what I had done
And all for no reason, just one piece of lead
I hung my head, I hung my head

Here in the courthouse, the whole town is there
I see the judge high up in his chair
"Explain to the courtroom what went through your mind
And we'll ask the jury what verdict they find"
I said "I felt the power of death over life
I orphaned his children, I widowed his wife
I beg their forgiveness, I wish I was dead"
I hung my head, I hung my head

Early one morning with time to kill
I see the gallows up on the hill
And out in the distance a trick of the brain
I see a lone rider crossing the plain
He's come to fetch me to see what they done
We'll ride together til Kingdom come
I pray for God's mercy for soon I'll be dead
I hung my head, I hung my head
 
 
Quantum
17:44 / 13.03.07
More Johnny Cash;

A young cowboy named Billy Joe grew restless on the farm
A boy filled with wonderlust who really meant no harm
He changed his clothes and shined his boots
And combed his dark hair down
And his mother cried as he walked out

(Chorus)
Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town

He laughed and kissed his mom
And said your Billy Joe's a man
I can shoot as quick and straight as anybody can
But I wouldn't shoot without a cause
I'd gun nobody down
But she cried again as he rode away

(Chorus)

He sang a song as on he rode
His guns hung at his hips
He rode into a cattle town
A smile upon his lips
He stopped and walked into a bar
And laid his money down
But his mother's words echoed again

(Chorus)

He drank his first strong liquor then to calm his shaking hand
And tried to tell himself he had become a man
A dusty cowpoke at his side began to laugh him down
And he heard again his mothers words

(Chorus)

Filled with rage then
Billy Joe reached for his gun to draw
But the stranger drew his gun and fired
Before he even saw
As Billy Joe fell to the floor
The crowd all gathered 'round
And wondered at his final words

(Chorus)
Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town
 
  

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