Sometimes, you feel like a nut
Via Volokh, Professor Bainbridge dismisses those who advocate armed self-defense as gun nuts. He later modifies it to the French (giggle) sounding fanciers, which will only enrage gun nuts further.
As a gun nut, I think the term gun nut is more appropriate. After all, AR15s can become quite habit forming. It’s a disease, I tell you.
June 13th, 2005 at 6:03 pm
He says gun nut like it’s some kind of bad thing.
Reminds me of Ted Nugent pointing out that, when he was growing up, being a survivalist was thought to be a good thing.
Bainbridge can use his cell phone when the SHTF, but I will stick with my Glock.
June 13th, 2005 at 6:09 pm
Not only that, but it’s totally inaccurate. The guy Bainbridge decried as a gun nut didn’t bring his gun to work, he merely wrested it away from the armed robber who did. Maybe he’s an “I don’t feel like being murdered today” nut, but there’s no indication he’s a gun nut.
June 13th, 2005 at 9:07 pm
Mmmmm…Holosight.
June 14th, 2005 at 10:39 am
Yeah, I love the libertarian instincts that guide you to your positions, but I have to agree that “nut” is appropriate to describe someone who enjoys carrying or even being around Implements of Mass Homicide.
June 14th, 2005 at 11:32 am
Joe, never pegged you for a hoplophobe. So, cops, soldiers, people with a desire to protect themselves/family, and hobbyists are all nuts? I’m nuts more because i buy too many. And several hundred thousand of your fellow tenneseans have handgun carry permits. Guess they must be nuts too?
Besides, my recollection is that “Implements of Mass Homicide” tend to be things like box cutters, poison kool-aid, airplanes, and ryder trucks loaded with fertilizer.
June 14th, 2005 at 11:45 am
Uncle, I want it to be clear that I stand firmly on the side of freedom..
My abhorrence to guns is very personal, not policy-driven. I don’t care that you and several hundred thousand others have them (well, actually I do care, but I can’t and won’t do anything about it), but I won’t touch the things.
And we could quibble over the qualifier “Mass” as you raise good points about the other implements, but I’d reckon that just the firearms and accessories pictured in this post, if used by a “good” hand (say, yours), could slaughter and maim a fair enough number of humans for me to reasonably label it a “mass.” That’s all.
June 14th, 2005 at 11:50 am
Again, you seem to have a fear of them that seems irraitional to me. The comparison to the other items was to point out that other things can be as dangerous (i could have mentioned cars).
And all my arms slaughter are little pieces of paper and the occasional beverage can. I don’t even hunt (I’m generally opposed to killing critters).
June 14th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
joe, guns are really pretty poor instruments for mass slaughter. Hitler’s SS started out shooting jews and soon found it needed something more efficient. In Burundi, the gunmen were there just to protect the guys doing the actual slaughter with machetes. American mass slaughters are much smaller than those examples – and since Al Capone was put out of business, I can think of just two where the victims were armed: Oklahoma City, where a truck bomb was used, and Waco, where the attackers were g-men with tanks and helicopters in addition to small arms. I do know of several attempted mass slaughters that were stopped when some good citizen used his own gun.
June 14th, 2005 at 9:36 pm
You are probably right about my fear being irrational. I can’t explain it, I just have it. I had several bad experiences as a younger person, and that, like bad experiences with anything as a young person, can affect a person’s continued outlook on that thing — even when said person attempts rational behavior in most respects.
Points well taken, SayUncle and markm. Enjoy your firearms, be good with them and (if it really does come to this) protect your fellow upstanding citizens, and otherwise blow the heck out of paper, cans, clay pigeons, and whatever other inanimate objects you can find to shoot at. That’s all a man can ask, I’d say.
June 15th, 2005 at 8:17 am
I can understand having a bad experience with firearms, that should make you cautious (which you should be any way).