[kenberg]

By coincidence I am reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I have seen the movie more than once, but had never read the book. Scout is the narrator, recalling her early life in a southern town in the 30s. For Christmas she, age 7, and her brother, age 11, get their wished for presents. Each receives an air rifle. It was understood that they would be shooting bluejays but, they are told, it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. So life was. I first shot a deer hunting rifle when I was out in the field with my cousin at his farm. I was maybe 8 or so. I remember it because the recoil damn near took my shoulder off.

Times have changed. Dylan may sing "I rode straightaway, to the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong". But Dylan inhabits a fantasy world. This is no longer the nineteenth century and we need to make adjustments to reality. It's way overdue to be addressing our Daniel Boone fantasies.

It's a pretty good book, by the way. Not great, but pretty good.

[billw55]

kenberg, on 2013-May-10, 06:22, said:

I first shot a deer hunting rifle when I was out in the field with my cousin at his farm. I was maybe 8 or so. I remember it because the recoil damn near took my shoulder off.

I would that venture that, unless your cousin was an adult, this is an example of gross negligence by your parents for allowing this.

[blackshoe]

My Dad grew up on a farm. As a kid, he hunted. Somewhere along the way, he decided to become a doctor. Somewhere along the way, he decided to quit hunting. He kept his guns, though - a .410 shotgun, a .22 rifle, and a very beautiful handmade hunting rifle built on a WWII 8 mm German Mauser action given to him by one of his patients in lieu of money the patient didn't have. When I was a kid, these were kept in the attic. When I was in college, Dad told me he was going to leave the Mauser to me when he died. However, I joined the Navy and went overseas, so my Dad gave it to my brother in law, who was at the time a hunter. He later sold the rifle because he was short of cash - a chronic problem because he drank too much. Really pissed me off. I don't hunt, but I like to shoot.

Yes, times have changed. That doesn't mean we no longer have, or should have, a right to keep and bear arms. Dismissing those who wish to maintain and exercise that right with comments like "Daniel Boone fantasies" is not the way to argue against them.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2013-May-10, 06:38, said:

I like to shoot.

Is that really a good justification for making life far more dangerous for so many people? I seriously doubt that the framers had such a mundane reason for including the 2nd Amendment.

I like to drive fast, and I know I'm not alone. Should we petition for a Constitutional amendment to prohibit speed limits?

[kenberg]

blackshoe, on 2013-May-10, 06:38, said:

My Dad grew up on a farm. As a kid, he hunted. Somewhere along the way, he decided to become a doctor. Somewhere along the way, he decided to quit hunting. He kept his guns, though - a .410 shotgun, a .22 rifle, and a very beautiful handmade hunting rifle built on a WWII 8 mm German Mauser action given to him by one of his patients in lieu of money the patient didn't have. When I was a kid, these were kept in the attic. When I was in college, Dad told me he was going to leave the Mauser to me when he died. However, I joined the Navy and went overseas, so my Dad gave it to my brother in law, who was at the time a hunter. He later sold the rifle because he was short of cash - a chronic problem because he drank too much. Really pissed me off. I don't hunt, but I like to shoot.

Yes, times have changed. That doesn't mean we no longer have, or should have, a right to keep and bear arms. Dismissing those who wish to maintain and exercise that right with comments like "Daniel Boone fantasies" is not the way to argue against them.

Fair enough, I should not lump everyone into one pot. Nonetheless, I have seen enough of fantasy indulgence to feel comfortable with saying that it quite broadly fits.
One example. A guy has a kid. The kid goes to a special school because he has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. When the kid was about ten, the father bought him a gun. Huh??? The mother put her foot down. I know the kid, he should not have a gun. The father is in many ways a good guy. He was a paratrooper, he is now a cop, I trusst him, but in this I think he just has a blind spot. Boys should have guns, he is a boy, he should have a gun. The logic is airtight, the conclusion is nuts. The guy got frustrated trying to teach his kid to ride a bike. Yeah. Firing a gun is easier.


I strongly suspect that you and I would agree on this. We might disagree, we probably do, on the extent to which such bad choices are the consequence of unexamined social myths. And I do mean myths. I realize that there are places on Earth that are hellholes. I don't live in such a place, and neither do most of the people who are so enthusiastic about gun rights. My personal safety is far more dependent on my judgment than it is on how near at hand a gun is.

I really did almost get an arrow through my head when I was a youngster running in a public park. I am not out to stop archers from pursuing their sport but really, setting up a range in a public park next to where kids are playing in the woods is not a good idea. Not even if the kids, perhaps, are not supposed to be playing in that part of the woods. I can't say I remember the details of what part of the park was officially allowed to us.


A good deal more restraint and sense is needed.

[ArtK78]

I work in Atlantic City, NJ, about 2 blocks from Resorts Casino, and three blocks from the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantic City is a resort town and a casino town. Yet my office is also located within a few blocks of the worst area of the city, in which rarely a week goes by without the report of some violent crime. While writing this post, I stopped to check on the actual statistics. It seems that the number of murders/manslaughters in 2013 in Atlantic City is projected to be 15 based on prior years' statistics. That is actually fewer than I would have guessed given the way crimes are played up in the media. But the total projected number of crimes is set at 1,608 - 849 violent crimes and 989 property crimes (there is some overlap). See http://www.cityratin...antic-city.html

The point is that it would never occur to me to carry a gun in my daily coming and going from AC. So far, I have been lucky enough never to have a personal experience with any crime in AC. One never knows when one's luck is going to change. There was an incident about a year ago when two Canadian tourists were attacked and killed in broad daylight on a busy street by a deranged homeless woman. A police officer was about 50 feet away, but it all happened so fast that he could not intervene in time.

With the possible exception of an incident just like the one I just mentioned, I just don't see how carrying a gun would be an advantage for me if I were unfortunate enough to become a crime victim here (or anywhere else, for that matter).

[Trinidad]

blackshoe, on 2013-May-10, 06:38, said:

I like to shoot.

And that is a good enough reason to be allowed to do that?

We all have things that we like to do that we are not allowed to, because they interfere with other people's happiness, safety or general well-being. That is called society. Many of these forbidden things are even objectively quite useful, or productive, yet they still are forbidden.

In the 60's people thought that the world would be a happy place if everybody would do what they liked (as long as they had flowers in their hair). I think we are past that stage by about 50 years.

Rik

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2013-May-10, 11:13, said:

Is that really a good justification for making life far more dangerous for so many people? I seriously doubt that the framers had such a mundane reason for including the 2nd Amendment.

I said I like to shoot. I didn't say I do it regularly any more. I also didn't say where or under what circumstances I like to shoot. When I was doing it regularly, I did it at a range. I don't think you can show any way in which my doing so made life "far more dangerous for so many people". This kind of BS rhetoric is what polarizes the discussion, so maybe you should knock it off.

Thomas Jefferson opined that people should go for daily walks — and that they should carry a gun (by which he meant rifle or shotgun) when doing so. While I think that daily walks are a good thing, I would not propose, in most parts of the country including where I live, to carry a gun with me. But I do think Jefferson's expressed opinion demonstrates that you're wrong about the framers' reasons for including the 2nd Amendment.

[Vampyr]

There are possible compromises. One that would work well is quite simple -- require that privately-owned guns be kept locked up in a bank safe deposit box or a locker at a gun club. Set a maximum on the number of days the gun can be signed out of this secure storage. Surely even the most gun-happy nut could not object to this.

[PassedOut]

Vampyr, on 2013-May-10, 18:14, said:

There are possible compromises. One that would work well is quite simple -- require that privately-owned guns be kept locked up in a bank safe deposit box or a locker at a gun club. Set a maximum on the number of days the gun can be signed out of this secure storage. Surely even the most gun-happy nut could not object to this.

Alas.

[Chas_P]

Vampyr, on 2013-May-10, 18:14, said:

There are possible compromises. One that would work well is quite simple -- require that privately-owned guns be kept locked up in a bank safe deposit box or a locker at a gun club. Set a maximum on the number of days the gun can be signed out of this secure storage. Surely even the most gun-happy nut could not object to this.

As Sam Goldwyn said.........."Gentlemen, include me out." I have several pistols. And I enjoy shooting them occasionally. I've never killed anything with any of them except some pop bottles and beer cans. And I'll just be damned if I'll surrender them to the gestapo to store for me until I want to go kill some more pop bottles and beer cans. The .357 magnum is in a drawer in my bedside table. Loaded. With hollow point rounds. I intend to keep it there.

[blackshoe]

Who's more nuts, the "gun nuts" or the "anti-gun nuts"? It's a shame the debate has to come down to this question, but since we on this side of the question are all, by the other side's definition, "nuts", rational discourse is not possible. I'm with Chas. Include me out.

[Trinidad]

I assume you don't consider yourself a nut. So, what is your reasoned objection to keeping your gun locked in a gun club?

You like to shoot, you get to shoot. Only in a way that is much safer to you, the people you love and everybody else. I am interested in hearing what I missed.

Rik

[mike777]

ArtK78, on 2013-May-10, 12:07, said:

I work in Atlantic City, NJ, about 2 blocks from Resorts Casino, and three blocks from the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantic City is a resort town and a casino town. Yet my office is also located within a few blocks of the worst area of the city, in which rarely a week goes by without the report of some violent crime. While writing this post, I stopped to check on the actual statistics. It seems that the number of murders/manslaughters in 2013 in Atlantic City is projected to be 15 based on prior years' statistics. That is actually fewer than I would have guessed given the way crimes are played up in the media. But the total projected number of crimes is set at 1,608 - 849 violent crimes and 989 property crimes (there is some overlap). See http://www.cityratin...antic-city.html

The point is that it would never occur to me to carry a gun in my daily coming and going from AC. So far, I have been lucky enough never to have a personal experience with any crime in AC. One never knows when one's luck is going to change. There was an incident about a year ago when two Canadian tourists were attacked and killed in broad daylight on a busy street by a deranged homeless woman. A police officer was about 50 feet away, but it all happened so fast that he could not intervene in time.

With the possible exception of an incident just like the one I just mentioned, I just don't see how carrying a gun would be an advantage for me if I were unfortunate enough to become a crime victim here (or anywhere else, for that matter).

excellent points art but is there room where you would allow someone else, to carry a gun...if not ok or do you prefer to ban everyone just so you feel safer.

If so ok...even if some disagree with you.

Given my mom was mugged twice on the south side of Chicago on the way to work(1960's) b ut you can get the current crime stats for roseland/pullman...I am betting that having some one close to you harmed may may a bit of difference

?With all of that said I respect your decision that is best for you and your loved ones.


I grant that as one who has never owned a gun I find it a bit weird to live on a block where the guns on my tiny short block is at least 300% of the population.
I live on a block half full of northerners.....and others. Many are hunters or grads from west point...etc/// fwiw there are also fully trained hunting/water dogs...yes, as I learned, that is important in a huntin dog.....but very very sweet dogs.

[kenberg]

Chas_P, on 2013-May-10, 20:44, said:

As Sam Goldwyn said.........."Gentlemen, include me out." I have several pistols. And I enjoy shooting them occasionally. I've never killed anything with any of them except some pop bottles and beer cans. And I'll just be damned if I'll surrender them to the gestapo to store for me until I want to go kill some more pop bottles and beer cans. The .357 magnum is in a drawer in my bedside table. Loaded. With hollow point rounds. I intend to keep it there.

And no doubt you will, Charles. I will brashly borrow your comments to address my thoughts on changing social views. as mentioned, in To Kill a Mockingbird an 11 year old boy and a 7 year old girl get air guns for Christmas. Their father explains that he would prefer they shoot at tin cans but realizes they will probably be shooting at birds. But they are not to kill a mockingbird, that would be a sin. Except for the rather poetic injunction about killing mockingbirds, I strongly suspect the description of 1930s life in a semi-rural area is about right. It matches pretty well with my own experience, although I grew up in St. Paul in the 40s and 50s. I think that in most places in the U.S. today, giving air guns to children with the fairly explicit understanding that they go out and shoot at bluejays with them would be seen as serious mis-parenting (see the comments, which I agree with, by billw above. Except I was on my cousin's farm for a week w/o my parents, but his point still stands).

A couple of years back we had a groundhog set up housekeeping in our backyard. A neighbor volunteered that her husband could come over with his 22 and take care of the problem. No, we said. The issue for us was not entirely that it would be illegal to do so where we live. Rather it just goes against my grain to go out in the back yard and fire a 22. Many years back, when a cat got some poisoned food and was dying a horrible death I borrowed a neighbor's 22 and put him out of his misery, but that was different. At any rate, we said no. The man has since left his wife for another woman and, much to the wife's distress, taken most of his guns with him. It's not clear to me whether it's the guns or the man that she misses most.

You shoot cans and bottles. You don't say where. But I would guess that the places, if any, where it is acceptable to do so are far fewer than was the case fifty years ago. Views change. At the university of Minnesota in the fifties, it was permissible to smoke in class. When I started graduate school in 1960, Prof. Art Milgram announced that there would be no smoking in his class. He felt the need to explain this rule, since he knew that this was unusual.

Views change. I think views on guns have changed a lot, and they will change more. You and I will be looking down from above (well, not really) at a world in which going out with a pistol and shooting pop bottles will certainly be against social acceptance and quite possibly against the law. As it probably already is in many places.

[Chas_P]

kenberg, on 2013-May-11, 06:31, said:

You shoot cans and bottles. You don't say where. But I would guess that the places, if any, where it is acceptable to do so are far fewer than was the case fifty years ago.

Views change. I think views on guns have changed a lot, and they will change more. You and I will be looking down from above (well, not really) at a world in which going out with a pistol and shooting pop bottles will certainly be against social acceptance and quite possibly against the law. As it probably already is in many places.

My younger son belongs to a 30-member hunting club which leases 1,000 acres on the Chattahoochee river up in the northern end of the county where we live. That's where we go shoot. Sometimes we shoot cans and bottles; sometimes we shoot paper targets; sometimes we take shotguns and shoot clay pigeons. Sometimes he goes up there and shoots a wild turkey. We ate one last Thanksgiving; it was tasty.

I agree with everyone here that giving a 22 caliber rifle to a 5 year-old, leaving it where it was readily accessible to the child unsupervised and with a live round in the chamber is absurd. Well actually I think that giving any firearm to a 5-year old is absurd. But proposing that the solution to this absurdity is to confiscate all the guns and lock them up at a gun club is analogous to proposing that you use a bulldozer to get the weeds out of your rose garden. And equally absurd in my opinion.

[Chas_P]

Trinidad, on 2013-May-10, 22:16, said:

I assume you don't consider yourself a nut. So, what is your reasoned objection to keeping your gun locked in a gun club?

You like to shoot, you get to shoot. Only in a way that is much safer to you, the people you love and everybody else. I am interested in hearing what I missed.

In 1978 my older son was a junior in high school. One night around 11:30 my front doorbell rang. It was three punks, one of whom had a beef with my son because he was dating a girl that HE liked. Their intent was for the three of them to get my son out of the house and do him bodily harm. I opened the door with the .357 in my hand; I didn't point it at anyone, but it was clearly visible. I didn't say one word. I didn't have to. They left and I haven't seen them since.

So there you have my reasoned objection.

[diana_eva]

Chas_P, on 2013-May-11, 10:44, said:

In 1978 my older son was a junior in high school. One night around 11:30 my front doorbell rang. It was three punks, one of whom had a beef with my son because he was dating a girl the HE liked. Their intent was for the three of them to get my son out of the house and do him bodily harm. I opened the door with the .357 in my hand; I didn't point it at anyone, but it was clearly visible. I didn't say one word. I didn't have to. They left and I haven't seen them since.

So there you have my reasoned objection.

Kids get into trouble all over the world, even where guns are not allowed yet people there somehow manage to sort things out. It's a poor example sorry - don't find it reasonable at all unless his mates were serial killers.

[barmar]

Chas_P, on 2013-May-10, 20:44, said:

The .357 magnum is in a drawer in my bedside table. Loaded. With hollow point rounds. I intend to keep it there.

Statistics show that guns kept like this are far more likely to hurt or kill a family member or get used for suicide than for personal protection from an intruder.

I sure hope there are no children in the house. Is the drawer locked?

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2013-May-10, 14:43, said:

I said I like to shoot. I didn't say I do it regularly any more. I also didn't say where or under what circumstances I like to shoot. When I was doing it regularly, I did it at a range. I don't think you can show any way in which my doing so made life "far more dangerous for so many people". This kind of BS rhetoric is what polarizes the discussion, so maybe you should knock it off.

You made your statement in the context of arguing against gun control.

It's possible to have gun control and still allow people to shoot at gun ranges; you don't need to have a gun in the home or the ability to carry a concealed weapon. Just as you can have highway speed limits while still allowing people to drive 100+ MPH on race tracks.