I disagree
Update: I guess fug has deleted the post. It’s not there any more.
I personally do not trust gun nuts who do not hunt.
** Fugger – pissing off 95% of the firearms enthusiast world in one single post. **
I have heard lots of blah blah blah from gun nuts dogging on hunters, and some is justified. Most hunters do not do much to fight for 2nd amendment rights.
That is not the point of this post though. My point is that, frankly, if you are a gun nut who doesn’t hunt I equate you to a self proclaimed car nut who has never drove on the highway (“I am just into the backroads”, with the snobby nose turned up).
First of all, I don’t hunt. Haven’t since I was a teen. I, the big bad gun nut, just don’t much care for killing. I know how. I am capable of killing, cleaning and cooking nearly anything that crawls, walks or swims. Just don’t like it. I’m a pacifist of sorts. Heck, I’ve even admitted that:
I don’t even kill spiders; I escort them outside. This annoys the wife, who thinks all things with more than four legs should be eradicated from the planet.
Killing just ain’t my thang. I’m more a paper puncher. It’s relaxing and is kind of a Zen thing (yeah, there I go being a pacifist again).
Sorry, I don’t trust three types of lawful gun owners. 1) I don’t trust hunters who are otherwise unconcerned with gun rights (the Fudds). They don’t do much for gun rights. Just give them free, government land to hunt on and as long as no one wants to take their hunting rifles, they don’t care. John Kerry is a hunter. Remember guys, if they come for your hunting rifles, I can’t help you because it means they already have my evil black rifle. Actually, it means I’m dead.
2) I don’t trust machine gunners. Most are on the right side of gun rights. But they have an investment to protect. These guys have, for example, dropped up to $20,000 on a rifle that goes brand new for $600. If we try to push for repeal of the Hughes amendment, these guys may choose their investment over their rights. And they’re kind of snooty.
3) I don’t trust the die-hard NRA types. The NRA seems more concerned about retaining power and passing pro-gun laws when their goal ought to be repealing some of the bad laws already on the books.
Update: Of course, all gunnies should work together and I am not suggesting otherwise.
August 10th, 2006 at 2:27 am
Damn well said. How’d you get so smart so young?
August 10th, 2006 at 3:07 am
I have difficulty trusting a gun nut that hasn’t hunted before… for backup. Don’t want my second to puke at the smell of blood or hesistate when he sees eyes on the other side of his sights. Hunting teaches some good techniques that you don’t see elsewhere: it’s hard to learn what to expect from knife elsewhere, or to stalk attentive prey.
And, come on, a freezer full of good venison on the cheap? How can you refuse?!
As for politics… the term tends to breed strange bedfellows and short trysts. Might as well trust them as long as you have them on your side; it’s not like you can’t boot them later, or we can afford to alienate them now.
August 10th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Unc,
I’ve got to take exception to the machine gunner part of your otherwise excellent post.
I have had the good fortune to meet many Class III owners, and to a man found them to be exceptional defenders of Second Amendment rights. I’d wager the number who buy machine guns solely for investment are in the vast minority. I’d also wager that the VAST majority would wholeheartedly support repealing both Hughes *and* NFA ’34 – it would mean MANY more full-auto toys for them to purchase.
The investment part, I think, wouldn’t change too dramatically – remember, any current Class III weapon is, at a minimum, 20 years old. I doubt the value of a WWII-issue Thompson is going to change too dramatically, owing simply to the rarity. Ditto a 1960 M-16, for that matter.
What it *would* mean is that they could now purchase a REPRO Thompson from AutoOrdnance for ~ $1,000 and save wear and tear on the genuine article (similarly to my buying an AO1911 to save wear and tear on my WWI Colt).
The ones that would take it in the shorts the most would be the ones that dropped $3K on a POS Mac-10 – that price would plummet to ~ $300 if Cobray could roll out new FA guns tomorrow. Uzis command ~ $1500 for semi-auto and $5K for full-auto; you might see a 50% reduction in price.
I don’t think this mistrust is warranted.
And I’m not saying this simply because my longterm plans involve getting my green card and picking up a $3K POS Mac-10 in the future… 🙂
August 10th, 2006 at 10:13 am
I haven’t hunted since I was about 12, and after 20+ years in the Army, I don’t relish getting up at 0-dark thirty in the morning to go out in the cold with a gun. Or anything else for that matter.
I’ve never given any thought to “classism” in the gun community. I have run across folks who like their Glocks over Springfields, and many, many who poo-poo wheelguns, but I can give as good as I get. I figure it’s just part of the culture.
My dad was one of those gun owners (not even a hunter) who did not follow gun rights at all. He thought the AWB applied to machine guns (at least he knew what a real assault weapon was). He was dumbfounded when I told him guns similar to his M-1 carbine could fall into that category. All it needed was an evil plastic stock with pistol grip, etc.
It’s a sad fact that the majority of gun owners fall into the as long as no one wants to take their hunting rifles, they don’t care group.
August 10th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Whoops, must have turned it off when changing my blogs settings, my post is back up.
August 10th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Yeah, but do you eat meat? If so, then your not really a pacifist, someone else is just doing the killing for you. That would be sorta like escorting the little spider guy outside only to be knowingly tortured and killed slowly by a goofy cat when you could have simply dispatched the poor critter with a painless *whack*.
Now go buy a 1911 and get out and hunt.
And for the record, hunting doesn’t necessarily mean killing. Heck, I hunted last year and didn’t kill a thing. Didn’t see a thing. Just walked around in the woods with a rifle and a side arm for a couple of days. Quite peacefull really.
August 10th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Ben, it’d be more like sending the spider outside to be killed quickly. I don’t think meat processors torture, in fact I think there’s a law against it.
August 10th, 2006 at 11:02 am
There’s another side to the “gun nuts who don’t hunt” argument: in many parts of the country, it’s getting harder and harder to find places where one actually can hunt.
I grew up in Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks region, and my parents still live there. That part of the state has experienced tremendous growth in both population and development over the past quarter-century, and more and more areas are being closed off to hunting or any sort of firearms-related activity. Two wooded areas my father and I hunted regularly when I was a child were sold off, subdivided, and clear-cut to make way for vacation homes and condominiums. Another became part of a state park where hunting is prohibited. One of my favorite childhood fishing holes disappeared under tons of fill to make way for a highway bypass. You get the picture. Everywhere you look, somebody is running up condos or strip malls, bulldozing off the woods, paving everything over…
After a while, my father gave up hunting because he couldn’t find a place to hunt within a reasonable drive from the house. That was twenty years ago. And I haven’t been hunting since I was a teenager, for much the same reason.
August 10th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
I like guns, although I can’t really claim to be a gun nut. I like hunting, though I don’t really identify as a hunter, especially because I’m… really bad at it. Man, 2nd Amendment identity politics is tough.
August 10th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
BH, you like guns, therefore you’re a gun nut.
Just ask the Brady Bunch. =P
August 10th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
One thing that annoys me about hunters is how many of them have no regard for the right of landowners.
August 10th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
I’m a non-hunting gun nut. I’m not a pacifist and I’m not against hunting—but I’m vegan, go figure.
Great post.
August 10th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Vegan? That’s sorta like being a gun nut who doesn’t use bullets. No it’s not. But I suppose it’s Kydex then? Or is leather ok, you just don’t eat your holster?
August 11th, 2006 at 1:34 am
Where I live, if I wanted to hunt everybody and his bother requires a high dollar yearly lease. Fortunately, I could hunt on my own place, but before I bought it, I got out of the habit of hunting because I couldn’t find anywhere to do it anywhere close to where I lived or worked.