Liberals need to understand Gun Guys

[cdstraw]

http://www.theatlantic.com/national...als-need-to-understand-about-gun-guys/273736/

This is a good article from an admitted liberal, who also enjoys guns. His points are reasoned and articulate. I plan on getting his book. It may help in understanding the bridge between pro and anti.

My .02.

 

[44man]

he understands a lot about us. maybe he can help talk to the real liberal sob's out there and explain that we are not all a bunch of gun nuts running amuck. but then again we need to watch our backs, i think.

 

[MDFF2008]

Articles like these are huge considering the source they are running in.

 

[vin]

He was on Tom Gresham's show this past week. Sounds like a good guy and hopefully a huge help.

 

[pitbull]

nice. some things that I kind of disagree with. but he is on the right path.

 

[sfchoffman]

A liberal with common sense.......! Absurd

 

[Multifaceted]

Not a bad article at all, especially from the Atlantic.

 

[Knuckle66]

I'm impressed, it's a good article maybe since he's a liberal he'll land on some MSM morning shows and can get the word out.

 

[TxAggie]

Very nice, I really like this part (Think Frosh, O'Malley, Bloomburg)

"I honestly think the people in Whole Foods -- their eyes saw it and their brain didn't. They may have thought I was some kind of cop, even though I really don't look like it. But in the Mexican store, they didn't know what to expect. In Mexico, no one gets to carry a gun. Which is kind of crazy, given what's going on down there. That's a good example -- you've got innocents being slaughtered down there, but they can't defend themselves. It's always the people who live in nice neighborhoods who want gun control."


And this:

"Our homicide rate is a quarter of Russia's. We're high compared to Western Europe. We're high compared to Japan. But as I'm always trying to tell people -- we're not all Japanese in this country. We're not all British. We're an incredibly complicated, polyglot country with an incredible amount of personal freedom. It's a miracle we get along as well as we do. There were 11,000 gun murders last year. In a country of 330 million people, as complicated as we are and as free as we are, that may not be an alarming number."

I've held this view but thought it might seem callous and kooky, glad to know someone else feels this way.

And this is just beautiful, especially coming from a Lib

"I was writing a piece in West Berlin in 1979 and a guy said to me, "You're an American. You think every problem has to have a solution." We have this impulse in the U.S. to do something. We have no national church, so the only way we can express our public morality is to say there ought to be a law. It's antithetical to the American can-do character to say there are certain things we just can't do much about."

 

[Mooseman]

I guess this goes to show you, not all liberals are bad.

 

[Afrikeber]

He came across in an articulate manner without most of the bias and fallacy we have been subjected to in other liberal minded articles. Do I agree with everything he says? NO....but he's trying to understand us at least.

 

[Justin B.C.]

I thought it was well written and had some pretty good points.

 

[LiberalClassic]

The last three questions were the best, unfortunately those are the points that anti-gunners refuse to accept. I've never had any luck finding a way to help liberals appreciate gun ownership, they have an extreme utopian view that is resistant to reason. They think that guns cause violence, and that only the state should have the power to use force; it's a fundamental rejection of self-defense. Voting them out is the only option that works.

 

[MotoJ]

The last three questions were the best, unfortunately those are the points that anti-gunners refuse to accept. I've never had any luck finding a way to help liberals appreciate gun ownership, they have an extreme utopian view that is resistant to reason. They think that guns cause violence, and that only the state should have the power to use force; it's a fundamental rejection of self-defense. Voting them out is the only option that works.

Unfortunately this seems to be the only real option. The liberal antis will not be educated. I just got finished listening to the Dan Rodricks Mid-Day Show on WYPR (or rather, I listened to part of it, and had to turn it off part way through, before my arteries exploded).

He and his female guest, a liberal meda critic, Sheri parks, were lamenting how difficult it will be getting guns banned by the feds, and how listening to all the white male middle-aged gun toting wack-jobs protesting in Annapolis was so frustrating, because said nut-jobs just can't see reason, and they have no empathy over murdered children, etc., as if we don't really believe Sandy Hook was a horrible, horrible event, and we can't really fathom how much pain the families are in, we just want our guns/fetish objects.

Point is, they really believe we are some other sort of humans, that we don't feel things like they do, and that we must be managed as if we were some kind of mental deficients that don't know any better.

They can't be reasoned with, and they won't even attempt to see our side- they barely believe we are human.

And if they manage to ban all guns for citizens and they are trampled by the government or victimized by armed criminals, they'll blame it on lack of adequate community outreach programs and poor pre-school education or some shit. It will never occur to them they gave away their own method of defense. They don't want that responsibility anyway.

 

[BerettaTMC]

The word "liberal" sure has changed in recent years. "Liberal" used to mean a broad interpretation of our rights. Liberal organizations (like the ACLU) were preoccupied defining rights that were not explicitly identified in the Constitution. Somewhere along the line, "Liberal" has come full circle to mean a totalitarian...authoritarian state of mind where only the "elite" determine what is best for the "plebians" under their dominion. NYC Mayor Bloomberg has determined that more than 20oz of sugar water is bad for the "plebians"....so he banned that. Obama, Feinstein and O'Malley have determined that we don't need "assault" weapons (and ironically, the people knowing the least about firearms are the ones defining what is an "assault weapon").

The flip side of all this, is that my conservatism has grown into libertarianism. I have grown tired and angry at these dictators (politicians) over-regulating our daily lives. People around this country need to wake up and look around them and realize that collectively we are electing these dictators...and that we need to get them out of power before it is too late....

 

[Brooklyn]

http://www.theatlantic.com/national...als-need-to-understand-about-gun-guys/273736/

This is a good article from an admitted liberal, who also enjoys guns. His points are reasoned and articulate. I plan on getting his book. It may help in understanding the bridge between pro and anti.

My .02.

Starts sane and then drifts into psychobabble..

Did you know that the problem is all us white guys are loosing out in today's society.. And that guns give us self respect and patriotism. Or maybe its the other way around....

Whatever else us true he's a lefty alright... and projecting.

With friends like these ....

 

[Second Amendment]

Starts sane and then drifts into psychobabble..

Did you know that the problem is all us white guys are loosing out in today's society.. And that guns give us self respect and patriotism. Or maybe its the other way around....

Whatever else us true he's a lefty alright... and projecting.

With friends like these ....

You are just a bitter clinger.

 

[circadia]

I don't know where he got his "11,000 gun murders last year" number from. The most recent FBI Crime Report is 2011, showing 8,500 gun murders. And the preliminary report for 2012 says murder was down 1.7% from 2011. Great article, though.

 

[Hopalong]

As a pro-gun liberal, I love this article. (Yes, I'm largely a liberal. I pretty much refuse to talk about anything other than guns or Second Amendment related topics here because I'm tired of getting flamed for it.)

Remember folks, the gun control mindset is a subset of the liberal mindset. It's not all inclusive. We're not all bad or full of psychobabble.

Remember, that if we want them to understand us, we have to take time to understand them too. It works both ways.

I'll certainly be sharing it with all of my non-pro-gun liberal friends and asking for their opinions.

EDIT:

I don't know where he got his "11,000 gun murders last year" number from. The most recent FBI Crime Report is 2011, showing 8,500 gun murders. And the preliminary report for 2012 says murder was down 1.7% from 2011. Great article, though.

The CDC stats for firearm homicides in the same timeframe are closer to 11,000. I consider the FBI and CDC stats to be the upper and lower bounds of "reality".

 

[circadia]

As a pro-gun liberal, I love this article. (Yes, I'm largely a liberal. I pretty much refuse to talk about anything other than guns or Second Amendment related topics here because I'm tired of getting flamed for it.)

Remember folks, the gun control mindset is a subset of the liberal mindset. It's not all inclusive. We're not all bad or full of psychobabble.

Remember, that if we want them to understand us, we have to take time to understand them too. It works both ways.

I'll certainly be sharing it with all of my non-pro-gun liberal friends and asking for their opinions.

Can I flame you just for stating that you're a liberal? Just kidding.