Grim linked to a story about grandparents arriving to take custody of their grandson, but being prevented from doing so until they had given up some gun rights - and the judge was quite explicit about this.
I work among these human service people who disparage gun ownership and gun owners. They put forth bad reasoning about European gun ownership and homicide, or curious statistics about gun death that are circular, but my conclusion after years of knowing them is that this is not what really worries them. If they come from big cities, they are sometimes really worried about black people with guns but won't say that (though they come remarkably close unintentionally when speaking privately). But in NH, they are usually worried about white people from another culture.
It's pretty basic. People who own guns are not from our culture. They come from over the mountain. The people over the mountain are dangerous. They want to enslave us and take our food. They are stupid and cannot be reasoned with. Beware.
They have absolutely no insight into how often their public comments reveal what they are thinking. I used to think like that myself, and I hear them saying now what I said then. They believe that only dangerous people want to own guns (though they admit that most gun owners aren't very dangerous), and they believe that having a gun nearby activates violence and makes everyone more dangerous, and the two effects are additive.
3 comments:
There are many people who shouldn't own certain types of guns. I'm one of them. A handgun in my hands would not be a good thing. It's not because I'm a dangerous person but because I have a tremor in my hands. Fine motor control is not my strong suit.
However, I'd do fine with a shotgun that didn't require a lot of hand strength to operate and for inside my home defense only. Now all I've got to do is convince my sons-in-law of that... so they'll take me shopping.
I similarly have poor fine-motor skills and always have. If I owned a gun I would be likely to take out a picture window or the refrigerator. There would have to be riots approaching before my family would be safer with me holding a gun.
It's slithering critters I worry about more than those with legs... except alligators. I've never wanted a gun to defend me against other people. While I think (and hope) that I could shoot someone threatening my children or grandchildren, I'm not sure that I could shoot someone who threatened only me. I take other measures against those people -- locks, alarms, basic vigilance, etc.
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