[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Fwd: [at-l] Gun story
Firearm education is not hard to find. Many camps offer programs to teach gun safety. I can vouch that some of the instructors are not knowledgable, and education often never reaches the people who need it. In some cases children are the victims of growing up in homes of the overenthusiastic hunter, sometimes they just never have the opputunity to learn. That is what scares me the most. I grew up in a house where gun safety was drilled into our brains. I learned how to fire a gun when I was 8 yrs old. Pointing out people under 25 as being irresposible is a rash statement and a harsh stereotype, I'm 18, the age to teach shotgun and riflery according to BSA is 21, most likely I'll be teaching those courses in a few years. Ignorant people, of all ages, are the people we need to be fearful of, not those under the age of 25.
Alexis
Jim and/or Ginny Owen <spiriteagle99@hotmail.com> wrote: Phil Heffington wrote:
>My favorite story about using firemarms for protection is from a
>Reader's Digest, if I remember correctly, from about 20 years ago.
>Seems some convict had escaped from a prison in Tennessee and was
>reported to be in a certain area and was "armed and dangerous".
Phil -
MY favorite self-defense story came from my (at the time) 66 year old
mother. It involved her Social Security check and the fact that her mailbox
was in the first floor vestibule of the apartment building that she lived
in. After the first time she found someone waiting in the vestibule on the
first of the month (when the check showed up in the mailbox) she started
carrying a gun when she went to get the mail. At least twice during her
first year on Social Security, she used that gun to back down some @#%^&*#
who thought she'd be an easy mark.
The Readers Digest story ignores the fact that there are upwards of two
million crimes (robbery, rape, murder, etc) prevented each year by ordinary
citizens who have a gun handy. For over 50 years there's been a feature in
the NRA monthly magazine that presents 15 to 20 incidents (each month) where
people used a gun of one sort or another to prevent death, injury or
robbery. All of those incidents come directly out of the newspapers. But
those who fear guns and gun owners tend to ignore those stories.
>Unfortunately there is no real unified theory of psychology for gun
>owners.
Maybe not in the circles you run in. I'm assuming you're a college
professor - possibly psychology? There have been a number of studies, most
of them 15 years or more ago. Getting funding for that kind of study now is
extremely difficult because it's not politically correct. One study, for
example, was a correlation of political attitude and the willingness to
"pull the trigger". It was a DOD study and the results of that one were
buried VERY deep by the "politically correct" crowd.
>They pretty much run the gamut of sane and crazy, responsible and
>irresponsible, just like the general population.
Not really. Being an irresponsible gun owner will get you in jail sooner or
later. "Legal" gun owners, as a group, are the most "sane" (although you
might want to define that term, please), responsible and law abiding segment
of the population. It's a VERY SMALL group of gun owners, and mostly either
criminals or those under the age of 25, who can be called "irresponsible".
And that's to some large degree because they haven't been taught what their
grandfathers were taught about gun safety and usage. Crazy Plum's
recollection of NRA taught safety classes in school coincides with my
memories - only those classes aren't taught anymore -- and the kids are
growing up ignorant and fearful.
You might best pray that we never need those kids to defend this country
cause it's hard to defend anything when you're more afraid of your own gun
than you are of the enemy. That kind of fear WILL get you killed - and it's
the kind of fear that most of today's kids are being fed as a matter of
course.
>I only know that when I'm around people who start talking about protecting
>themselves, by almost any means, I start to get nervous. I know there are
>exceptions but I figure I have at least as good a chance of talking myself
>out of a situation than I do in getting out of it with a firearm.
The Readers Digest article also ignores the fact that, for a lot of people,
having a gun in their hand doesn't mean they're "armed". Personal
experience - a holdup where I didn't have enough money to make the man
happy. So he told me he was gonna kill me - and then pulled the trigger.
Not something you're gonna talk your way out of. No - I didn't die - nor
did I take a bullet - I took the gun away from him. Back then, I didn't
need a gun to be "armed" - and he wasn't "armed" even though he had the gun.
But it wasn't words that got the job done.
>It is sorta like something I believe someone on this list said one time,
>"It's pretty hard to come out the winner in a knife fight without losing a
>lot of blood."
Yep - and it's as true now as when I first said it. But I don't take a
knife to a gunfight either :-))
>Not having any experience in actually shooting another
>person I figure I would hesitate just a fraction of a second longer than
>the other guy with a gun and I would end up being the one dead.
Good reason for not carrying. And I wouldn't wish the shooting experience
on you either - but there's a lot more to self defense than just whipping a
gun out and spraying lead. There's a whole psychology to it - including how
far you can talk before the gun becomes the only thing between you and major
injury or death. Sometimes the talk works - sometimes it doesn't.
>There are only two kinds of guy toters, the ones who know what they're
>doing, and the one's who don't. Both of them scare me.
The ones who don't know what they're doing scare the hell out of me too.
Usually it's an amateur who bought a gun and didn't bother to put in the
time to learn how to use it - and just as importantly, how NOT to use it.
They're the ones who brag about it, show off their toys, sometimes even play
with them in public. My cure for them is a 2x4 upside the head and removal
of the offending object.
The guys who DO know how to use a gun are people you should thank, because
they make the world you live in a little safer. I've rarely seen one of
them even talk about guns except with others who understand the subject.
Except - when they're "poking" someone.
But then - maybe I lead a sheltered life :-)
Walk softly,
Jim
_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
_______________________________________________
AT-L mailing list
AT-L@mailman.backcountry.net
http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/at-l
Cogito Ergo Sum -Rene Descartes
---------------------------------
Do You Yahoo!?
Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctionsfor all of your holiday gifts!
--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
text/plain (text body -- kept)
text/html
---