Mike,

Sorry for the delayed response, my life is constant chaos lately. You’re right that way too many 400 lb mall ninjas scream incessantly about how they would have done everything perfectly. The, uh, “misguided young men carrying rifles in Chipotle” (being charitable here) are what a lot of people think of when they imagine gun owners.

And hey man, don’t worry about not being SF. Neither was I, I’m just a regular Joe who stayed in long enough to get sent to war. It’s not your fault WW3 didn’t break out while you were in. So, thanks for your service!

Thanks for the response Chris and I understand that feeling as my wife is more on the Antigun side (funny how things workout).

I think it is all based upon fear. Fear about their children or them selves being gunned down but also fear in regards to many of pro gun / pro carry ninja types who talk a huge amount of shit and make sound like they will go in blasting and let god sort out the pieces. We both know it is the ones that talk the most shit that do the least. One of our guys refused to jump out of the helicopter on his first rescue but that fucker talked such a good game that you thought he was 8 ft. Tall and bullet proof prior to the call for swimmer in the water!

Problem with general public is that they see this shit being spouted off by every obese, arm chair navy seal wannabe about how they woulda done things differently. They would shoot the guy non life threatening and have him zip tied waiting for the police while he was drinking a beer enjoying the attentions of grateful adults that he just saved.

It takes someone to show them about firearms and that they are safe if handled in a correctly but in many places who is going to show them. I do not go to gun shops because I know about firearms and they still act like a dick to me let alone a woman who wants to understand more. Lol yea think how that conversation might go? Lol

You mentioned that you expect her have basic understanding of the topic but maybe she had what she thought was and had no previous exposure. Her coming here is a big step if she unsure about firearms and even more so if she is anti-guns. You would be surprised the bad info people have around firearms or this issue regardless if you listen to fox or msnbc. The Media seems to more interested in pushing their beliefs / agenda than providing info in a reasonable and respectful way and if they educated more then perhaps they would not make these sweeping generalizations about guns.

On a different note, thanks for the thanks for your service comment but it always makes me uncomfortable! Why you ask? Because I signed up for 4 years just to get the hell away from home and have some adventure and then perhaps college. As it turned out I went in and was injured in training accident and then discharged at the 4 year mark. Had great voc rehab with va for college but cannot say tons about med care overall. Yea the thanks for your service just makes me feel like it should be reserved for someone who went in after 9/11 and who was all into it. I enjoyed half of it and went to a bunch of different places and met lots of people, did and saw things best forgotten about and knew some really great guys and some total shit birds whom I could not stand. Lol lol no i was not special forces like so many people out there seem to be but then again I cannot put 10 rounds in the black while standing unsupported! Just a slacker i guess. Lol

Thanks again for the blog and I have enjoyed the books so enjoy the royalties. Lol

Mike

Mike,

I did come off as insulting and antagonistic toward Ivy, and did assume he/she is anti-gun. Guilty as charged.

I also understand if someone has negative feelings toward guns in schools. However, I feel that those negative feelings are based purely on emotion rather than logic. I can calmly debate anyone who presents rational arguments. In Ivy’s case, I just got pissed because he/she made grand, sweeping pronouncements about the “real truth”, while obviously having zero understanding of any of it.

If I went onto a doctor’s blog and told him “You don’t know anything about health care, so listen to me!” even though I don’t know crap about health care, I would rightly be mocked, insulted and shouted down. What amazed me about Ivy was his/her absolute confidence with his/her beliefs, since they were backed by no training, experience or understanding at all. And yes, I see a LOT of that on the anti-gun side.

So I guess I just got mad. That’s not an excuse, it’s just what happened. If Ivy comes back, I’m more than willing to apologize. And I don’t think anyone is going to unload on you for pointing out my lack of courtesy. But I do think it’s reasonable for me to expect commenters to have at least a basic understanding of the topic being discussed.

Thanks for commenting, and for your service, and I hope you participate in more discussions here.

Have read your blog and book and by and large I agree with most of it but I really have to say that I think you are way off base in how you responded to ivy’s post. I know this sounds harsh but I am surprised you were so us vs them in your response.

I am all for sharing your opinion and disagreeing with someone but your being so sarcastic and belittling did nothing to change her mind as all you did was essentially tell her she was stupid for having these beliefs and you did not approach it from the standpoint of helping her see your point. You just hammered her.

I do not think all of her assumptions are ridiculous and that some are of real concern and need to be dealt with as such. I am on the fence my self about many of these same questions and yes I do like guns, ex-military etc so how do I fit in. No I do not generally tell people I like firearms and my position on these things but once they find out I am ex military they make that assumption. Lol. I understand about being touchy on this.

People need to dial down propaganda on both sides and listen to what the others say. I will be honest that I have family members who scare the hell outta me around firearms and have seen many at the range I would be reluctant to give a firearm to. There are others who are anti-gun that I know would run into a burning building to save me or my child or some they did not know.

Please be the blog that is about valuing opinions even if we do not agree and the one that will listen and be willing to discuss it.

On a side note, if she is at your site your assumption that she is an anti- gun person could be off base! Just sayin.

Ok, I will wait now for everyone to unload on me. Lol

Mike-

Paul,

Okay, I have a little more time now, although I still won’t be able to go into great detail in my response. I apologize for that in advance. Here are my main points:

1) The 2nd Amendment does not apply only to organized militias. At the time the 2A was written, every male citizen was assumed to be a member of the militia. The famed Minutemen who fought the Revolutionary War were regular citizens who took up personal arms. At the time the 2A was written, individual ownership of weapons was common and was one of the reasons the colonists succeeded in defeating the British. The framers specifically stated they wanted personal ownership of weapons in order to prevent the type of tyranny so common in Europe. Individuals in the colonies/America had always owned weapons, had successfully won a war with those weapons and wrote numerous supporting documents explaining why individuals should be able to own weapons; it logically follows that the Bill of Rights simply recognized a right to own weapons which was already believed to be in existence. This isn’t just my opinion. The Supreme Court has also affirmed the individual right to own weapons.

2) Regarding your comment “to arm all the teachers in America”, that is not what I support nor what anyone else has ever proposed. The fact that you perceive it this way is a testament to how effective some of the anti-gun rhetoric has been. Nobody wants to force every teacher, or any teacher, to carry a weapon against their will. The proposal is to allow those teachers who want to carry the opportunity to do so, if they undergo training and a background check.

3) The huge number of teachers in America does not automatically mean one of them would carry out a massacre because the teacher cohort is very large. There’s a logical fallacy in believing that once a certain group of people reaches a certain population, one of them is guaranteed to commit a mass murder. Unless we have statistics showing at least one mass murderer has come from every large career field, there’s no reason to assume at least one armed teacher will mass murder her students.
And the fact is, nothing prevents a teacher from carrying a weapon into a school now. Any teacher, if they were a “nutter”, could easily bring a gun to class and kill multiple students. The current ban on armed teachers doesn’t actually prevent anything; if bans like that worked, then we’d never have school shootings, because those are also banned.

4) Regarding America using so much of the world’s resources, I’m not really able to comment on that. I don’t know if you’re statistics are correct, although I imagine China and Russia also use quite a bit. I do not believe that our right to own weapons equals a threat, so to speak, that the rest of the world should keep letting us use as many resources as we want. For all the hysteria about America invading Iraq (as one example) just to take its oil, there has been little attention paid to the fact that we didn’t take any Iraqi oil at all. My 2A rights do not mean I plan to dominate the world. And many people who support the 2A vehemently oppose American intervention in foreign affairs except when absolutely necessary.

5) I really like your example of the oppressed Irish peasants “waving scythes at cannon”. That is exactly what the 2A was designed to avoid.

Again, sorry for the late response, and I hope to hear back from you. Thanks,

Chris