Monday, June 7, 2021

Guns a danger to their owners most of all

     Don’t buy a gun.
     Or do — it’s your choice. I don’t want you to immediately clutch at yourself and collapse to the floor, writhing and moaning how wronged you are. I’m so tired of that. Grow up. My saying “Don’t buy a gun” isn’t a command from the ooo-scary, all-powerful media.
     Rather, it’s just a suggestion. From me. A friendly suggestion. Please don’t buy a gun. Why? They’re dangerous, for starters. And apparently confusing, because the reasons that people typically offer for buying guns — to protect themselves and guard their families — are actually the top reasons not to buy a gun. Gun ownership imperils you and your family.
     How? There’s suicide, for starters. Two-thirds of gun deaths are self-inflicted. I don’t want to start throwing numbers at you, since people are flummoxed already. Be assured the odds of killing yourself leap when you buy a gun.
     Why isn’t this better known? Imagination trips people up. It’s far easier for men to imagine Freddy Krueger breaking through the door, while much harder to imagine themselves rashly deciding to end it all on some dark night of the soul.
     Guess which happens more often? It isn’t that you can’t kill yourself without a gun. Just that guns are such efficient killing machines. Three percent of those who attempt suicide with drugs succeed; 85 percent of those using a gun do.
     I know I’m applying rational thought to an area of emotion and frenzy. In the set piece fantasy of male power and safety, guns are a masturbatory aid. Why else would some guys get so worked up over them?
     Guns are part of the whole Republican fear junkie scramble. Not only the fear of somebody coming through the door. But fear that guns might get taken away, a terror that gun companies profit by stoking. A reader sent me a laughable letter from the National Rifle Association with “NOTICE OF GUN CONFISCATION” in huge letters on the envelope.


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9 comments:

  1. I've thought of buying a gun, and realized how useless that would be, plus I'd wind up one of those idiots who shoots herself in the foot. I'm a 74 year old woman and have been single for about 40 years out of the last 50, and lived alone in the south suburbs and now on the south side of the city. I try to be watchful and cautious when out at night and at home, but tend not to be fearful of something bad happening, although I know it could.

    It did once: My mom and I were held up at gunpoint around 1970. Had I a weapon, it would have been in my purse which the guy stole. I can't imagine things working out well for us if I tried to whip out a gun from my pocket to defend ourselves. It was cold so I was wearing a coat; if it was summer, I wouldn't have had an available pocket so there's that. It all seems pretty stupid to me.

    I don't know how much of gun peoples' thoughts are split between "I'm scared of everybody" and "look at me, I'm a big shot with a gun". I don't understand any of it.

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    1. The scenario you depict, Shari, is just the one that flicks across my mind when I contemplate arming myself. The bad guy is always going to have the element of surprise working in his favor and is far likely to take my gun away from me as to succumb to my fast draw. But now, according to the New Yorker, liberals too are now gunning up, for fear apparently not only of bad guys with guns, but so-called good guys with guns. It certainly makes no sense to me either.

      john

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    2. It's a combination of "I'm scared of and I hate everybody who isn't just like me" and "I hate those socialist-Marxist-communist-BLM-antifa-liberal pinkos and I wanna save Murrica and kill 'em all"...and "There are bad guys with guns everywhere, so I'll be a good guy with a gun and be a hee-row"...and finally "Look at me-me-me-you might be tough, but this gun makes me tougher.

      And then there's that whole macho-man substitute-for-a-small-penis thing.

      It was only a matter of time before the so-called "liberals" began arming themselves gainst creeping fascism and all those rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth, kill-a-Commie-for-Christ "good guys." Both sides are now escalating the arms race? Is anybody surprised? This will not end well

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  2. Wayne LaPierre and his NRA fellow travelers are only afraid that Americans will wake up to the scam and close the spigot on their cashflow. The perversion of the Second Amendment is the actual limitations on a right that "shall not be infringed". If we can limit ownership of heavy weapons of mass destruction, we could surely ban military assault weapons. There have been lines drawn, the issue is where we draw them going forward in our current national insanity. I suppose I had childhood dreams of being a war hero in a desperate battle somewhere but they ended in my teens with a friends death. Bob's dad was a new policeman. Bob was showing Pete his service revolver. The weapon discharged and Pete didn't survive the weekend.

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  3. I own firearms. properly stored and licensed . my sons and I enjoy target shooting . we go 2 or three times a year. I agree firearms as self protection are a sort of fallacy. but the idea that folks who are suicidal should affect whether or not citizens own guns is also fallacious. if people want to kill themselves who are we the rest of us to pass judgement or interfere. of course im locking up my guns so as not to be complicit. but if I want to kill myself one day, I think I should be able to efficiently.

    and it may not be after the next election but eventually its likely the government will seize more weapons. at least the ones owned illegally. maybe we'll wise up and repeal the second amendment one day. 400,000,000 million weapons in private hands. not good . I dont like it

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  4. More facts and logic you're so proficient at researching and putting into text that makes it so compelling and enjoyable to read. This one will probably be ignored by one minority.... Nut cases but you might have saved some lives today Neil.

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  5. Nothing that wretched NRA says or does, surprises me.

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  6. We need to repeal the 2nd amendment. Full stop.

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    1. the last time a constitutional amendment was passed was 30 years ago . it was originally proposed in 1789. the equal rights amendment originally proposed in 1923 and reintroduced in 1971 still hasn't been passed. repeal the second amendment? while I appreciate your candor Skippy very, very unlikely. MERICA!!!!!

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