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1 Renaissance_Man  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 9:24:15am

I find this column appalling. Particularly the following bits:

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.

That’s just revolting. 11,000 murders by gun is not an alarming number to you? I suppose compared to the joy of being with your beloved gun all the time, 11,000 dead men, women and children and countless more lives changed forever through injury and loss may seem trivial. Totally acceptable sacrifices. And seriously, you think the US is a diverse polyglot country but the UK, with ethnicities from all across the British Empire, and Western Europe are not? What a colossal handwave to try to excuse a totally unacceptable level of unnecessary bloodshed.

Say you’re in a shopping mall and somebody starts shooting. What do you do? If you run away, are you like a doctor who doesn’t respond when someone starts choking in a restaurant? If you’re wearing a gun, do you have an obligation to run towards the sound of the guns?

This guy gets uncomfortable with the aspersions cast upon him, like ‘gun nut’, ‘penis envy’ and so forth. Yet he thinks the very act of carrying a gun somehow endows him with superpowers, makes him a watchdog, a protector. And when there’s a conflict, he thinks he’ll now be able to run up, tell friend from foe, and engage in a firefight and kill the bad guys.

Well, this is a gun nut. This is a gun nut who suffers from magical thinking and addiction to his guns. His lack of self-awareness when carrying his guns makes him less safe, which is not only statistically borne out but evident from the rampant idiocy in his column. Yes, Mr Baum, the gun culture is the problem in this country. And it is specifically the gun culture of otherwise educated people like you who nonetheless are totally cool with sacrificing their fellow Americans to the guns they worship that is the biggest hindrance towards actually solving the problem.

2 Skip Intro  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 10:18:42am

re: #1 Renaissance_Man

This guy gets uncomfortable with the aspersions cast upon him, like ‘gun nut’, ‘penis envy’ and so forth.

This sounds like a guy who would beat off in a theater.

There’s a part of every gun guy that wants to carry a gun because you get to be with your gun all the time. I know that sounds weird, but not if you like guns, you like handling them. Most of the time you don’t get to. You take them out of the safe once or twice a year.

3 Political Atheist  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 10:49:09am

re: #2 Skip Intro

Falling back on insults like that is just not called for.

4 FemNaziBitch  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 11:39:36am

The only difference between this guy and the NRA drones is that he, at least, he is a gun nut because he finds guns are a lot of of fun. .

I don’t remember if it is the article, or the NPR segment.

I found the admission that he thinks it’s a fun tool and he actually loves to go to the range was refreshing.

Most of the NRA drones try to distance themselves from the idea that they are just boys with toys.

5 kirkspencer  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 11:59:59am

from the article:

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.

Yaknow, this would be a lot more impressive if it weren’t for the fact that of the murders where the relationship is known (stranger/not stranger), only 11% of murders are committed by strangers. Even if you label all “unkowns” as stranger, only 45% are done by strangers.

idiot.

6 Goosestepping Obama Tina Brown  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 12:08:23pm

I really appreciate his honesty. So many gun guys go off for hours about how they have guns for protection or because it’s a “right” (whatever that explanation is suppose to mean) or because the only reason we are not attacked by foreign invaders is because they all know a lot of people own handguns yadda yadda, blah blah. I really don’t have a problem with people owning guns at all, but please don’t insult my mild intelligence with your lack of self awareness. There is nothing wrong with saying you are a gun nut because the weapon, for whatever reason, makes you feel happy.

7 Skip Intro  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 12:59:40pm

re: #3 Political Atheist

Falling back on insults like that is just not called for.

Sorry you feel that way, but his comments are just plain weird to me. Saying you get physical pleasure because you get to handle your “gun” is pretty overt.

8 Dark_Falcon  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 1:12:59pm

re: #7 Skip Intro

Sorry you feel that way, but his comments are just plain weird to me. Saying you get physical pleasure because you get to handle your “gun” is pretty overt.

Even so, that sort of reference to masturbation is both extremely deprecating and a borderline accusation of sexual perversion. Talk like that ends debate, motives people to flame you, and generally turns the thread to shit.

Please don’t do it in the future.

9 Destro  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 2:54:49pm

re: #7 Skip Intro

Sorry you feel that way, but his comments are just plain weird to me. Saying you get physical pleasure because you get to handle your “gun” is pretty overt.

Pretty overt? It’s blatant. He supports a habit that kills 11,000 Americans (at least) in the USA and is trying to downplay that because we are inferior to Japanese or Germans but not as bad as Russians whatever the fuck that means (and I think it is alluding to racism - Japanese and Germans don’t have all these blacks and hispanics to ruin our statistics, etc).

10 Jimmah  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 2:55:56pm

Jesus Christ.

11 palomino  Sat, Mar 9, 2013 9:34:40pm

re: #8 Dark_Falcon

Even so, that sort of reference to masturbation is both extremely deprecating and a borderline accusation of sexual perversion. Talk like that ends debate, motives people to flame you, and generally turns the thread to shit.

Please don’t do it in the future.

Aww, come on, stop playing hall monitor.

A joke about masturbating is hardly over the line, unless you’re the church lady.

You really don’t think the following sounds a little creepy?

There’s a part of every gun guy that wants to carry a gun because you get to be with your gun all the time.

We all have hobbies, obsessions, even fetishes. Doesn’t mean we want to carry them around everywhere we go. I love to grill, barbecue, and smoke meats. But, even if carrrying around a 120 lb. smoker or grill were practical, I wouldn’t have any desire to be with it “all the time.”

12 Glenn Beck's Grand Unifying Theory of Obdicut  Sun, Mar 10, 2013 5:28:24am

re: #8 Dark_Falcon

Dude, gun as penis substitute is hardly breaking new ground. In fact, the guy himself brought it up.

I don’t think that guys handle their guns in a really sexual way, but there is something creepy about it, and that this guy thought talking about it was a good way of communicating to non-gun-owners that he and other gun owners are rational about guns is really bizarre.

13 Randall Gross  Sun, Mar 10, 2013 6:36:11am

I updinged this because this guy is a great sample of the mindset and it opened up a bit of discussion.

14 Romantic Heretic  Sun, Mar 10, 2013 6:57:00am
I think the right has a point there. We need to stop fearing capable, empowered, independent-thinking individuals.

What the fuck does that have to do with guns?

15 Local Media Monitor  Sun, Mar 10, 2013 1:14:24pm

re: #1 Renaissance_Man

And let’s not forget that 11,000 “gun murders” per year number hides the 78,622 nonfatal firearm injuries per year (in 2008), incidences where the victim doesn’t die but is often just as devastating for families and lives. Of that number, over 57,000 of the nonfatal shooting were from interpersonal violence. (From a report by the firearm and Injury at Penn State Univ.)


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