Trump admin bans Bump Stocks

[Belsnickel]

(03-27-2019, 07:09 AM)GMDino Wrote: Well, that's kinda scary.  That people can use a gun to make themselves "confident".  I mean if someone has been threatened and beaten and feels they can't defend themself and they need a weapon to "empower" themself I can see that.  It might make someone feel confident that they have "leveled" the playing field.

But I've been an overweight guy my entire life, never fired a gun either, and I'm pretty self-confident and have pretty good self-esteem because I base that on what I can do and don't pay attention to people who say I'm worth less than them because I can't do other things.  I don't worry that the next guy will be better than me (even if they are).

What SSF describes is what I find most wrong with the gun nuts: The guns define them and make them "better" than they would be without them.

I'm sure they are fun (I know guys who go to machine gun events and who love shooting any time) and I think in many cases they are even necessary.  I don't want to take anyone's guns away from them.  But I also don't think that someone should have one just to feel "empowered" in life.  Especially when so many men (mostly) feel so empowered they use their guns to settle disputes rather than handling them any other way.

I understand what you're saying. This is an issue with our society, though, not guns themselves. This is where my liberalness comes through. There are some huge differences between the types of people empowered by firearms, though. There are those for whom a small, concealed firearm is used to provide them some comfort in case of something happening. They aren't going out looking for trouble, they have it in case trouble comes to them. These are responsible and reasonable gun owners. There are those that keep them in their home, out of the reach of little hands, to give them piece of mind in case someone breaks in and they need to protect their family. These are responsible and reasonable gun owners. There are folks that take pride in being able to feed themselves and/or others. These are responsible and reasonable gun owners. There are those that go out on a weekend and outshoot their buddies and talk shit the whole time. These are (mostly) responsible and reasonable gun owners.

All of those examples are empowered in some way by their firearms. Now, this isn't to discount the group out there that aren't responsible or reasonable. They make up a small proportion of gun owners, though. The problem is that the narrative is to paint the majority like the minority, and this has a radicalizing effect. When I talk to fellow sportsmen about issues, you'd be amazed at how much we agree on a myriad of issues. But because of the narrative (which does come from both sides, mind you, the NRA is as much to blame for this as anyone) they are so concerned about "big government" they won't get behind these things.

There needs to be a reevaluation on the left over the gun issue. We need to stop letting New England and Californian Democrats run the show on these things.