A short drive away, at the New Pittsburgh Courier newspaper, editor and publisher Rod Doss pondered how to tell gun enthusiasts about his belief that assault weapons should be banned.
“I don’t know that they would hear me,” Doss finally said. “Their culture is totally different. They’ve grown up around guns. It’s part of their life and their lifestyle. It’s second nature. Hunting, shooting, it’s the love of guns.”
You know, our culture is not really “totally different.” Other than the fact that I blog and shoot for fun, I’m a pretty typical suburban dweller. The only difference is that I am familiar and comfortable with guns. And why shouldn’t I be? I don’t intend to murder anyone with them.
Wilson, a Roanoke College political science professor, would like gun control advocates to know: “Gun owners are not idiots. Gun owners are not in favor of gun violence. Gun owners are in many ways like them, and would genuinely like to see gun violence reduced. Obviously they have a different solution. But they’re people too, just with different perspectives.”
“And what I would want gun owners to know is, the large majority of people in favor of gun control don’t really want to take all of your guns.”
I also get annoyed with this idea that we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads until confiscation is seriously proposed, as if no policy short of confiscation is anything to worry about. If you don’t confiscate my rifles, but still charge me a $200 dollar fine, and let’s not mince words here, it’s a fine, for owning them, and demand I register them, and demand anyone I sell to also pay the same fine, then screw you. It’s not confiscation, but is it not an infringement?
I appreciate this article from Eugene Volokh, comparing the people who suggest we (we being gun owners, and RKBA) have to “do something,” to someone who would ask adult responsible drinkers why they don’t do something about the social problems caused by alcohol. The reason we speak different languages is because we do not see ourselves as potential murderers. I think a big problem is that a lot of people do, and that’s their problem, not ours.
Speaking of the major differences or misunderstandings, note that the newspaper editor, Doss, perpetuates one of the ridiculous gun owner stereotypes.
Doss does not own a firearm: “I don’t feel a need for any. I personally don’t live in fear.”
The usual attempt to paint gun owners with the paranoid brush. I’d like to know if he has fire extinguishers and smoke detectors, and if he does….has he sought treatment for his obvious overreaction to an unlikely threat.
Yeah, from talking so a few anti-gunners, its all driving by fear. They can’t comprehend the gun as anything but death.
This guy sure shows his bias, even as he pretends to attempt to understand “both” sides:
I don’t mind the “bullets” idiocy, because it’s just a word and we all know what he means. But his so-called unity never existed. I never for a second thought anything must be done about “military designs”; my first reaction was another victim zone, wouldn’t have happened if those teachers with CCW had been allowed to carry in their school. I also never thought for a second that hoplohobes would do anything except use it as an excuse to push for more victim disarmament.
For him to even think gunnies thought the way he did, that guns were at fault, and to not comprehend that we might not think that way, shows how completely out of touch he is with our side. I have never meant a hoplophobe who understood that we gunnies might even have a different rational opinion; every last one of them thinks gunnies are irrational crazy insane berserkers, in spite of the lack of daily bloodbath. But just about every gunnie I know understands that hoplophobes do have a different rational opinion, regardless of how wrong we think it is. We don’t imagine that every hoplophobe wants to die or wants to be a victim, even if we think that is where their policies would lead.
Why can’t hoplophobes at least reciprocate that basic understanding? Why do they think that when there is another victim zone massacre that gunnies will think their way, but they aren’t even aware that we have our own rational thoughts?
This culture divide is one way.
“But just about every gunnie I know understands that hoplophobes do have a different rational opinion….”
I disagree; heck, you’re commenting on an article where the author shows he doesn’t understand us. How can he make a rational opinion based on ignorance?
My experience is the most hoplophobes don’t have rational opinions about this (you can certainly see this in their projection of motives etc. onto us) and therefore:
“Why can’t hoplophobes at least reciprocate that basic understanding? ”
The above implicit wish will never come true.