Impenitent wrote:I just watched a documentary video of a 13 year old legally buying a rifle from a private buyer at a gun show.
13.
He walked up to the guy, and 7 minutes later he left with the rifle under his arm.
He's not allowed to buy beer; no cigarettes; he can't buy a scratchy lottery ticket; he can't legally have sex; he certainly can't vote. But he can legally buy a gun.
Surely no one thinks this is how it should be. Surely this can be prevented without anyone getting their knickers in a twist about Second Amendment rights.
And I'm sure this is not the only perversion of this infamous Amendment.
Wow. Just Unbelievable. There is a logic disconnect where it comes to gun worship.
Good stuff. I rarely share media with people on facebook, but now I've done it twice in one week*, and both are things I discovered because you posted them here.
*The other was the video of Colbert talking about how he met his wife. Slightly different subject.
When the comedians don't make jokes, just make factual statements about the way things are, that's when you know your country is in trouble.
Deja vu all over again.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.
So I have to go to dinner to celebrate a friend's birthday. This shouldn't be a burden, I wouldn't think, nor would it be applicable in a gun control thread, except I see potential problems involved with this.
My friend K has long been against guns. Her dad is a big gun enthusiast (and huge conservative), but she would counter his "pro-gun" rhetoric every time because she felt guns were unsafe. She visited Germany a few years ago, and voiced several times how much safer she felt walking the streets there than here, knowing that the streets weren't "full of people packin' heat". She was more anti-gun than I am.
However, my friend is very impressionable and her opinions and convictions (and moral choices, I'm afraid) tend to flex to the beliefs of the people around her. Recently, she has renewed a friendship with a woman we both knew years ago, and when they had a big falling out, they didn't speak for two years. Recently, though, S has been back in her life.
S is huge into guns. Her current husband (met while he taught her how to use guns) is a bodyguard to judges here in town, and ex-military. (Her previous husband, and the man she was married to when she started with the gun guy, was a Hindu pacifist). S and her husband are all about paranoia about the government, being well-armed, having stockpiles of supplies in case they have to defend themselves against the government, and creating safe zones in their house where high-powered rounds wouldn't pierce the walls. They live in a very affluent and calm area of the city, btw.
S is not my favorite person, ever, for lots of reasons. She has encouraged K to choose some pretty questionable behaviors, and has definitely encouraged her to embrace the gun culture. K now has several handguns, a "safe zone" in her house, and posts freely about how we are all safer if the good guys are armed. S will be at the birthday party with her gun-crazy husband.
That's not up to me, of course, and none of my business... K can have whomever she pleases at her birthday party. But my leaning-towards-guns husband will be there, too. I will be the only one at that table who is not into the whole "you have a right to blast the bad guys" mentality.
I'm not looking forward to dinner, and don't expect to enjoy myself too much. I am concerned that Mr. Anth might like it too much. And I am also concerned that I might let my opinions out of the box a little, when I really should probably just redirect that type of conversation if I can.
This is an emotional subject.
"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
You're not helping with the me keeping my mouth shut part.
Just, you know, sayin'.
"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Oh Anthy, I feel for you. I truly do. What an awful situation to be in.
I think the vigilante 'nuts' (yes, I think they are nuts) are just that--nuts. Do they really think, no matter what arsenal they amass, they are going to be able to overthrow the government should it 'come to get them'? Good grief. The NRA/gun lobby has addled their brain. Brainwashed. I'm not talking about someone who has a gun for duck/deer hunting, or even the person who may have a pistol. I'm talking about the nuts. If they feel like they are living in so much fear of their government, it's time for them to think about moving (but guess what? Most other countries wouldn't give them the 'freedom' to amass so much of that crap. They're welcome to move to (?? Afgahnistan ??) if that is how they want to live. Some statistics.
I read an article recently about a man who went to a historic hotel in the West and he was looking through their old guest books (from the 'Wild West' days) and even back then it stated that visitors had to check their guns with the local sheriff. What have we come to?
Frankly I see people who *need* to tote guns everywhere they go as terminally afraid and paranoid. They live in a world where they are always looking for 'others' and include fewer and fewer people in the 'us'. How will that help anything? How does that make us better people? Do we really want to live that way? Is that the world we want to live in?
I don't know your hubby Anthy, but maybe you can sit down with him before this party and have a frank discussion about your concerns ahead of time. Maybe let him know that it isn't so much his desire to own/use a gun for hunting/target practice, but the whole warped gun nuttery culture that makes you uncomfortable. Does it take people down a road to becoming the people they really want to be? I think too many people have taken this gun thing to the level of worshiping a false god. It's pretty sick (imo).
yovargas wrote:Is there a reason to expect guns and gun control to come up at a birthday party??
Well, guns shouldn't come up at a birthday party, of course. But in this crowd, it will. I've never been around S's husband without the subject coming up. It is sure to this time because K wants us to talk to S's husband about consulting on a "safe room" in our house, since K and her husband just had that done and think it is the right thing to do.
Gun CONTROL will not come up unless I open my mouth. I'm thinking SuperGlue.
Rose, thank you for your empathy! I agree with every bit of your post, most certainly including:
Frankly I see people who *need* to tote guns everywhere they go as terminally afraid and paranoid. They live in a world where they are always looking for 'others' and include fewer and fewer people in the 'us'. How will that help anything?
It won't. It really won't.
"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
anthriel wrote:Gun CONTROL will not come up unless I open my mouth. I'm thinking SuperGlue.
Large mouthfuls of delicious yet chewy food? Or an only slightly hysterical "Oh my god, can we please not talk about guns at the table!" occasionally works for me.
At the office, my line is "As a manager, I cannot participate in this conversation."
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.
If I had to talk gun control over food (a sure route to indigestion) I'd ask, in all sincerity, "So what can WE do about the high suicide rate among gun owners? The fact that 60% of gun deaths are suicides really disturbs me. Most gun purchasers aren't thinking that when they buy one... or maybe some of them are. What are YOU doing to protect all of your family members, and any of their friends who visit, who might pick up a gun and impulsively do the wrong thing? You know that you are MORE likely to die from violence if you have a gun in the home? What are you doing to keep yourself and your loved ones and their visitors safe? I'm really concerned about you. I feel so much safer in my own home without one of those deadly things lying around." I wouldn't say that all at once, I'd just say a sentence of it as a red herring each and every time they started talking states' rights or whatever.
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. ~ Albert Camus
RoseMorninStar wrote:Why are you going to this 'party'? Really. It sounds cultish.
It's my (honestly kind of previously) best friend, and the two "friends" she feels closest to (me and S) and their husbands, for her 42nd birthday. She travels a lot, is in town for one day, and it happens to be her birthday, so she wants us there. I've never missed her birthday in 12 years.
If she were in town a bit more on her birthday week, I would just take her out to lunch for her birthday, just her and me. But I can't do that. This is the only celebration of her birthday, it's ON her birthday, and she invited me.
narya, I think you bring up good points, but I'm just trying to visualize that sort of conversation at the table. I think it would... elicit a less than friendly reaction, as people's (also) emotional views on the subject come up. I think I may be better off with Frelga's idea of large mouthfuls of food, or perhaps the SuperGlue once again.
I just hope Mr. Anth doesn't end up finding soulmates at the meal. Jeesh.
Prim:
"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
RoseMorninStar wrote:Why are you going to this 'party'? Really. It sounds cultish.
We will bow before the gun god and his priests...
Hmmmmm.
"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
