Ammosexual fantasy vs real life
Ammosexual amateurs think a gun gives them superpowers. In reality, trained law enforcement only hit their target ca. 30% of the time on average at close range in an active shooter event. And that’s with training and regular practice. Unless you’re training regularly, you’re not going to protect yourself with a gun, and you’re likely to kill a bystander and/or just make yourself a target.
Don’t believe me? Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjZY3WiO9s
A friend has shared this WRAL News article with you.
https://wr.al/1NCox
Ten Bears
shoot the horse? man, this must be the cowboy way.
what works is calmly walk the horse past the rattlesnake. if you know how to ride, this is pretty easy and saves the cost of a new horse. no need even to shoot the snake.
if the horse does spook and you find yourself dangling by one foot from the stirrup you had no business being anywhere near a horse in the first place.
cyprod
scroll down just a little on the page you link. you will find a story about a woman who stopped a mass shooting by pulling her legal gun from her purse and shooting the shooter.
now, i personally don’t like the idea of people carrying around guns. but you are not going to convince the people you need to convince that in the right situation it’s better to be prepared as the boy scouts would say.
and it’s probably not a good idea to censor evidence or argument to the contrary.
since we’re here, i will mention that the Swiss seem to have an answer for this…oddly enough it is something like an actual “well ordered militia” soemthing that might give those who worry about such things some reason to not have to worry about “the government” taking away their guns, while still keeping the guns out of the hands of insane people and criminals.
well, that last is not quite certain. there are already enough loose guns in America that there is NO chance of keeping them out of the hands of anyone who wants one.
Swiss soldiers can keep their gear and guns at home but since 2007 all ammunition is locked up in armories.
Force
thanks for the reply. i am sure we could adapt the Swiss model to fir the American (political) situation. I am sure that if all american gun owners who wanted to be on the safe side of the law before the emrgence of the evil government they are afrais of) were required to register their guns and become a member of a locar “militia” (regulated lightly by the government), they could be persauded that that evil government they are afraid of could not take their gus away without tipping their hand. There are far too many “legal” guns out there for the government to confiscate even a tiny percentage before the “militias” could be “up in arms” as they say. I don’t think under these condition it would be too dangerous to allow them to keep a suitable home defense weapon with a reasonable amount of ammunition.
not completely safe of course, because most killings are in-home, accidental, or suicide. but we could hope that memebership in the “militia” would enable them to learn gun safety…and even watch Joel’s movie.
too long to nail down all the details in a blog, but you get the idea.
certainly better than calling them names and demading a “gun reform” that won’t happen in America, we being so addicted to our ammosexualty and all.
Coberly,
There would be no need to confiscate weapons if they were made illegal. So people could keep them at home. Family killers are just as deadly with a revolver. Also, home on the range works if identification and security requirements are defined and enforced. That would still leave Uncle Police State the problem of probable cause, but far better than now with open carry assault weapons. Also, the installed base could be whittled down over time with buybacks. What is the point of a man having a machine gun if they cannot take it out to a bar?
The social intimidation aspect of open carry assault weapons contributes to the hero worship aspect of mass murderer wannabes. I will skip the Freud and Jung descriptions of this complex social dynamic because they are old and this much neurosis wears them out.
Coberly,
BTW, I understand that anything that substantial to limit gun owners is entirely academic for now. Something will be done now – perhaps on background checks – but it will be minor.
Yes and a start . . . maybe.
Joel;
I was lazy one day at Edson Range, Camp Pendleton and decided to just shoot with the thought of hitting black on Able Baker targets (what they called them if I remember correctly). Fifty rounds equals 250 points hitting Black. I did not hit all Black that day or any other day I qualified.
I did qualify the one day I took my time. 191 with 41 rounds. They made a big deal over that as 190 was the minimum.
There is a lot of talk about laying down fire using the BAR as an example and the M1. There is some truth to the story if confronted with a direct onslaught. The M16 is rapid fire and light. The M14 is heavy and has to be modified to rapid fire. You can carry more M16 ammo as opposed to M14. Everything points to the M16 as being the better weapon in combat.
Again at Edsen Range, young Staff Sergeant told a story of his tour of duty for a year. One NV popped up from hiding and took off running. The squad opened up full automatic. He escaped. Many of us were armed with the M16. I preferred the M14. I could shoot through things and was accurate up to 500 yards. It is a matter of preference. My Scout Master taught me how to shoot with M1s.
If your victim or target is >15-20 feet away, chances are you are not going to hit them with a pistol even if it’s barrel is 5 inches and less so with a shorter barrel. It is a close in weapon and you have to be steady when they are firing back.
Joel is correct, your mind does not say squeeze off a round. It goes to rapid fire.
And chances are you will hurt or kill someone else.
run
don’t know if this still applies:
the army decided that in Korea, and even in WW2 the average soldier does not shoot at the enemy. so they revised their training to encourage shooting at the enemy. i assume it was effective as our guys seem to do better in shoot-outs than the other guys. meanwhile i don’t see most people taking careful aim at a moving target while being shot at himself. on the other hand a lot of people shooting a lot of bullets in the general direction of the enemy seems to act to at least encourage them to keep their distance.
meanwhile “ammosexual” is cute, once, for titillating the anti-gun crowd, but it just pisses off the pro-gun crowd. i know there are “ammosexuals” out there, but probably not the 30 million or so that don’t want you to take their guns.
back in the day you could rely on imflammatory rhetoric to whip the people up on both sides into shouting insanely at each other, then lead them quietly into the votng booth, count their votes, distribute the chips, and deal the next hand. nowadays you do have to worry about them shooting each other…which may or may not be the plan.
nothing more dangerous of course than standing up between them and saying “can’t we all just get along?”
true enough, and informative.
but maybe not much help. statistics dhow that you are safer in an airplane than in a car. statistics do not show that you have a great deal more control over your own safety in a car than in an airplane.[that is you do not drink. you drive carefully, you don’t lose your temper or try to beat the light, and you are not clincially insane…whichis not true of every driver, and less so of those who get into accidents.]
even if this is self delusion. it is also what the gun-owner believes. he may or may not know the statistics, but he believes in his own “control” as well as in having “something” in case one of those rare events comes upon him where his having a gun is the differenve between his life and death.
please note, nothing in this comment disagrees with the post or casts aspersions on the author.
just trying to point out that the gun problem is not likely to be solved by statistics or appeals to rationality. as i should know.
Shoot yourself in the foot, the buttock, or balls …
I never did buy into that story about how if a rattlesnake spooks your horse and he’s off at a dead run, you’re floppin’ around on the ground one foot in the stirrup getting your head kicked AND you’re gonna’ slip the holster thong, pull the pistol, cock it … and shoot the horse in a manner that it isn’t gonna’ crush you to death right there OR pin you till whenever someone finds you. Found someone pinned out of Burns not too long ago that hadn’t been seen in a hundred years.
Shoot the snake first. Better still, don’t be there. Which is beside the point. You’ve shown another facet of the myth that isn’t borne out by reality. Nice motorcycles.
Speakin’ a snakes, I hear California’s got ’em bad this year …
oops comment disappeared
short form: don’t shoot the horse. don’t even shoot the snake. if you can’t manage a horse in this situation you have no business being on a horse.
Keep gun violence in the home where it belongs :<)
That’s proof?
@lj,
“Proof [sic]?” Who said anything about proof?
Ah, I see you’re referring to the title of the video:
Proof that Concealed Carry permit holders live in a dream world”
Guess you’ll have to just watch the video and figure it out.
Little John
“Proof [sic]?” [sic?] has discovered who said that..by looking at the video.
but I think I would take the video as evidence at least..there being almost no such thing as proof in my universe. My own experience, with me at least, suggests that carrying, or even hoping to grab the gun on the nightstand if needed, is at least a long shot proposition, and the odds of it getting you killed instead are far less long. Nevertheless I would not take it upon myself to deny them their dreams.
Although, one time I encountered a man carrying a gun in the library and i spoke to him about it (not in a friendly tone). turned out he was an undercover cop. And he looked at me a long slow time and said, “didn’t I arrest you once?” He hadn’t. but it does suggest to me that carrying a gun does give people bad dreams.
“Proof that Concealed Carry permit holders live in a dream world”
They are living in a dream world. I had two coworkers that loved talking about their firearms to me. They figured since I was in the army I had a gun fetish as well. Neither one of these two completed their service contracts and only spent a year a piece in their service: one was a Marine and the other in the Navy. Neither could go to the restroom without being armed (luckily firearms were not allowed on the job, thought I am not sure they really complied). After every weekend it was some story about how they needed their gun to prevent the guy sitting in front of their house in their car from robing them or how they were stopped in a middle of a parking lot and the car that was waiting behind them to move was really a bunch of carjackers and they drove around their car because they knew my coworker was armed at the moment.
I got tired of it and told them they were the reason innocent people are killed. They had no respect for firearms and the potential harm they can cause.
Turtles
exactly. but as Ike said about Social Security deniers,”They are few, and they are stupid.” As it turns out they are not so few, but calling them and everyone else, including “America” itself, stupid is not going to solve the problem.
If you doubt me, try telling someone that something he said is stupid and watch what he does. Very often he sets out to prove that he really is stupid, even though that is not what you said.
By no means are all gun owners ammosexuals. Indeed most and certainly all I know are extremely safety oriented and most would support greater gun regulation. Then there are those whose ownership of guns is about the only thing that gives their lives meaning. In the last 3 weeks I have observed young, white men open carry holstered handguns into a gas station convenience story in rural Wisconsin and a Walgreen’s in rural Missouri. In both instances the men drove automobiles which probably cost less than their handguns and they were clearly the only dangerous people in the vicinity. Then there were the fat middle aged white men who carried their long guns to the Michigan State Capitol a couple of years ago. I really do not care to try and find common ground with these folks and society should not tolerate them. Unfortunately, they do vote in Republican primaries and the political hacks in the majority in Heller made a hash of the carefully crafted second amendment so even reasonable efforts to protect the public from these losers get struck down. I am waiting for the test case when Texas authorizes anyone over the age of 18 to drive around in a pickup with a 50 caliber machine gun in its bed— they will probably insist it be a Ford or Chevy although Toyota seems to be the choice everywhere else in the world. The Feds still limit private possession of machine guns but with the majority of clowns on SCOTUS now, I believe the Texas law would be upheld under the second and tenth amendments. This is not normal political discourse. As Biden put it “ it is a fight for the soul of America” and unless folks in the middle begin to assert themselves it is going to end badly,
Terry:
Those guys in Michigan were cuties, weren’t they? Since I used to live an hour or so minutes away from Lansing, we received rather early reporting of their baying between the state police in protest. Probably would have offered them breath-mints for bad breath, memberships to health clubs, and coupons for better clothing. A motley looking bunch in need of haircuts and a shave. And that was the best-looking protesters Michigan had to offer?
Highland Park, IL passed an ordinance banning assault style weapons. Another town did also. It went to 7th District COA and it was affirmed 2-1. Scalia left an opening for towns to do so.
Terry,
“…insist it be a Ford or Chevy although Toyota seems to be the choice everywhere else in the world…”
[No – not really – but otherwise agree.]
World Best Selling Pick Up 2021 preliminary data was led once again by large American style models. The Fiat Strada impresses by entering the leaderboard and jumping up to 10th place, while the Ram Pick-up regains second position.
The undiscussed market leader remains the Ford F-Series, which hit the milestone of 1 million sales in 2017. US and Canada represent 98% of total sales. In 2021, the Ford F-Series registered 877,720 units (14.3% market share).
In second place we have the Ram Pick-Up -up 1 spot- selling 649,297 units (10.6% share), overtaking the Chevrolet Silverado with 616,559 units sold (10% share).
In fourth place the king of the desert, the Toyota Hilux, with 529,080 sales (8.6% share). Differently from the previous three models, the Hilux sales are distributed over 140 different markets, dominating entire areas in Africa, South America, and the Middle East.
Following we have the Ford Ranger in fifth place with 367,507 sales (6% share) and the GMC Sierra with 316,512 units (5.2% share), followed by the Toyota Tacoma with 288,663 sales (4.7% share) and the Isuzu D-Max with 265,311 units (4.3% share) sold.
In ninth place we have the Great Wall Wingle 5 with 135,786 units (2.2% share) followed by the Fiat Strada entering the leaderboard by jumping 3 spots with 115,750 units sold (1.9% share)…
Of course demand from the US constitutes about half of the global sales for pickup trucks.
Ron:
What was the favorite for terrorists in the desert?? I thought it was Toyota. Indeed, one person recognized his old truck on the news.
Run,
Dunno. Not keeping up with terrorists myself. F-150 has been keeping up with the tech curve for light trucks. My 2011 model has an Ecoboost 6-banger. If one keeps vehicles as long as I do, then service availability matters greatly. Our F-150 is barley broken in yet. If one does not need to haul tandem axle trailers, then any truck will do, but no truck at all would be the best choice. I have a tandem axle trailer for landscaping and another for my 21′ bay boat.
Terry
I wonder how that sorts itself out on the ground. The first place I ran into open racism was in UP Michigan, despite living on Chicago SouthWest side. [apparently, “South Side means “black,” Southwest when I lived there meant you had to make do with hating Wops, Polaks, Irish, Chevrolets or White Sox, or that show off kid who dressed funny.
I have no doubt that racism exists in this country and strongly affects your chances of being killed by a cop. But from my white boy experience, it seems to me you are almost (this is not a mtter of statistics, but a kind of “without knowing if it is an honest coin your chances of winning if you call heads”)..you are almost as likely to get beat up, jailed, or even shot if you are white and don’t say “sir.”
As for there being no “left,” there is, but they cn’t get votes because “why throw your vote away?” Snd while the left has won my heart, they haven’t won my mind. They always shoot themselves in the foot by overreaching, and I can’t convince myself that some of the policies they “demand” are wise. Also I tend to get treated worse by Leftist college professors than I do by rightish farmers in small states..though I have to admit I am much more careful about the way i talk to farmers than the way i talk to professors.
i think voters in general don’t know who “represents” them. They tend to vote for whoever has the election jingle they like best. The R’s have mastered that art. The Dems just don’t deliver.
all of the above is just opinion, no claim is made as to wisdom or actual facts.
Ron
I think it’s fair to say that if they are in the desert, they are not terrorists, but freedom fighters in their own land. Or illegal combatants if America catches them. Or criminal traitor “aiding the enemy, with enhancd penalty for carrying explosives while commiting a crime against America by standing under a B-52 in the desert in Afghanistan,” if they happened to be an idealistic white boy caught “fighting” against the warlords when America declared war against the Taliban, who may or may not have had as much to do with 911 as Sadam.
Coberly,
The Syrian people had to war with two groups of terrorists. One was Daesh and the other was the Syrian government. I have no idea which owned the Toyota pickup trucks though.
Ron
I was thinking of the pickup trucks in Iraq. I have no idea what is going on in Syria.
Coberly,
The Iraqis also had Daesh terrorists, but after Saddam Hussein was deposed then the government was no longer a terrorist. However, the Shia and Sunni still have each other and the Kurds are still screwed.
Ron
another good reason to leave them alone. I once saw a man abusing his wife. I said something to him. She told me to butt out.
Terry
I agree though it is tedious for me to keep repeating it. Some people seem to think I am lying.
Perhaps it’s because I say an assault weapons ban is not going to get passed, or work if it does.
I have suggested that an adaptation of the Swiss model might get around the “well regulated militia” argument, and reassure the relativly sane gun owners that their guns are safe from “the government.”
Run
Scalia left an opening for towns? well there’s your answer then. Seriously.
As for the Michigan mob. i don’t worry much about haircuts. But I would have called that an insurrection and instruct the police to act accordingly.
Not like Napoleon (he used grapeshot I think. defiintely cannon though). We reserve that for black protesters and hippies (the haircuts, you know.)
I am glad you pointed that out Coberly— if the folks in Michigan or in rural Wisconsin and Missouri had been African Americans exercising their constitutional rights to open carry I am betting blood would have been shed. I have no illusions about changing the minds or finding compromise with these folks but I hope that enough Republicans will stop voting in general elections for the Republicans who cater to those folks. They do not have to vote for Democrats and they can vote for reasonable—almost but not quite an oxymoron— Republicans, but if the primary chosen GOP candidate is not going to represent them anyway, why vote for them? Trump only lost Wisconsin because 20,000 voters who voted for GOP candidates down ballot did not vote for Trump.
@Terry,
As a longtime Missouri resident, I’m sure what you say it true, at least outside of St. Louis and Kansas City.
“They do not have to vote for Democrats and they can vote for reasonable—almost but not quite an oxymoron— Republicans”
Nowadays, the Democratic party *is* the party of moderate Republicans. The GOP is the party of right-wing extremism. There is no significant liberal or left party in the US, nonwithstanding the Fox News propaganda.
I am a little disturbed that commentators on the news are saying that having one entrance to a school means that kids can’t get out in case of fire or, you know, shooter. No it means all doors are locked from the inside. kids can get out, shooter cannot get in. if it takes more than one in door to let the kids in in the morning, those doors could be open with a mere teacher at the door making sure only kids come in. maybe not fool-proof, but about as safe as your house, which if you live in a bad neighborhood you run on the same principle. Since i and my children went to schools that operated on this system..long before there were shooters…i can say didn’t feel any more trapped than i did in any classroom. What worries me here, is that being this stupid, or dishonest, feeds into the paranoia salesmen on the other side.
Coberly,
Paranoia is the only commodity that keeps getting cheaper despite the inflation rate.
Ron
of course i have my own paranoia to worry about. But I hate it when the “like herding cats” Left all start singing the same dumb tune. They sound like Fox News.
Coberly,
Understood. However, when an intelligent well-informed discussion is not possible, then the hobgoblin of little minds is the only politically viable alternative. IOW, when consensus on compromise cannot yield consistency, then foolish consistency is still a little better than chaos in the political domain. It seems to work for the Republican Party. One need not like the status quo establishment to recognize its existence.
On a purely aesthetic level, then I am entirely with you on this. OTOH, existential reality cannot be denied its due.
Coberly,
My one bright hopeful year of political activism was 1967. At only age 18, then I had no idea.
Then came the assassinations of 1968 and the Democratic Party national convention in Chicago. In May 1969 I was drafted. By May 1971 I had returned from Vietnam and military service to a country that seemed foreign to me. The flower children had moved away to remote communes, replaced in the cities by doping boutique hippies. My g-g-g-generation had discovered leisure suits and disco. I picked up the doping, but stayed out of boutiques and discos hanging instead with a small group of artists and musicians and quasi-intellectual post-beats. We were all Jack Kerouac wannabes, except that I wanted to be Ferlinghetti instead.
I was raised Southern Baptist rather than Catholic, so when I encountered the Serenity Prayer of St Francis in the early 70’s its wisdom was both immediately recognizable and transformative. Good thing, since otherwise the election of Reagan in 1980 might have pushed me over the edge. After that then I was briefly hopeful in 2008, but quickly learned that black POTUS would not solve all our problems or even more than just a couple small ones. The election of Trump in 2016 might have been soul crushing if I had any remaining heart and soul invested in US politics, but it was just more cruel irony instead.
yeah, but sometimes foolish consistency looks like conspiracy. me being paranoid and all.
Ron
I was a little older than you at the time, but saw and felt the same way you did/do. Don’t think I wanted to be Kerouac or Ferlinghetti, but ended up more like ol’ dan tucker,
Coberly,
Yeah – understood.
Met Springsteen for about six seconds once on Grace Street in Richmond, VA, back in about 1971-72 when he was front man for Steel Mill, a bar band from Jersey. Never met Pete Seeger, or Bob Seeger either for that matter. Woodie Guthrie and Huddie Ledbetter were more my cup of tea and I gather likely yours too, but I never met either of them. I also met Billy Ray Cyrus at the airport in Reno for about six seconds, but did not know who he was at the time. We both agreed that we liked Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix better than country music. Turned out that my youngest girl had a crush on Billy Ray before she switched to gay.
My wife and I recently watched Forest Gump again. We can only hope that box of chocolates last a while longer and remain curious to see what we will get.