esrosedotblog

What University of Texas Campus Is Saying About Concealed Guns

The whole "open carry" thing about guns puzzles me.

I grew up around guns. Even if I did not participate I didn't see a problem as they were for hunting. Hill billies love their rifles and a handgun is for sport not for show.

My Dad has a few guns and tried to get me to be proficient but I just didn't have it in me. Sissies are gun averse by nature.

I do not naturally assume that a man's guns is a living metaphor for his genitals. It might help support his manhood in some cultural corners but that is another thing.

I suppose that is part of the whole desire to walk into normal places of business with a gun on your hip.

And so "cowboy".

Straight men are a puzzle to me most of the time but this is one of the most bizarre and confusing gestures.

Isn't it obvious to them that they are penis waving?

Yes, I suppose that it is part of the so-called culture of violence in America. It is also a step over the line of civility.

I have never seen an openly carried gun in my life. Nor have I seen one concealed as far as I know of.

I remember that when my Dad died his guns went to my cousin Jim but I decided that I would keep his revolver for some reason. I couldn't handle it. That gun burned in my thoughts the whole time that I had it.

Still a puzzle.

Maybe it is too many Matt Dillon movies. Perhaps it is fear. Could it be loathing? I like the penis waving example best. Of course.

Labels: gun control

We have become inured to horror.

The shootings just over the hill from us in San Bernadino are shocking in and of themselves but all the more so in the light of the rash of such incidents.

How Often Do Mass Shootings Occur? On Average, Every Day, Records Show

This is not routine. It is regular as a heartbeat. A dying heartbeat. More below at the *.

The resistance to gun control does not waver, however.

I know. It is not guns that kill people but.....you know the tag line.

This is the NRA and such organizations that somehow think that the right to bear arms means we can all carry concealed and open. We can use the weapons at our own discretion and worst of all that it is our right to shoot on sight if need be. Or something. I can't even phrase what these pin heads believe.

I grew up with guns. I did not take to them. A gay boy, a sissy boy. I didn't like the bang and I surely didn't like the emphasis on performance. There is an old 8mm film somewhere of my Dad taking me up on the mountain to practice shooting. It is so embarrassing. I am totally out of my element. He so wanted a hunter and a "normal" mountain boy.

Let me just say that my Dad and I worked all that out. He was a kind and gentle man and he loved his son. He just could not figure me out. But then, with time and life success, he became a proud father and we ended good friends. A blessing.

I do not know why I am not interested in guns or shooting. It is just not in my makeup to kill anything. I had a shit time in the Army but I was in the Quartermaster Corps (cooks and bottle washers), an officer, and no one expected me to be able to defend myself.

So I have had a life without guns.

I can say categorically that being gay has shielded me. Gay men are not interested in weapons for the most part. Well, perhaps for a backdrop to some military fantasy. And then, the uniforms!

But to believe I have gun rights? Why the fuck why?

I am not a pacifist. I am not naive enough to believe that the meek shall inherit the earth. I support cops and armies and armed guards. There are bad guys out there just asking for it.

But for me, I will depend on those better able to use guns for my protection. Meanwhile, I will hide under a desk or something.

What is going on here? I have no theories. I do know that anyone brought up with guns in their home should respect them and either go get training on how to live with them or get rid of them. I gave my Dad's guns to his best friend Jim and eventually I got rid of the revolver we kept to, what? Protect ourselves? I do not know. I gave that gun to one of my sons I think. Let him figure it out and work it through.

There is one thing for sure. Having a real gun, cold metal, and ammunition in your possession will sober you up on this question. And if you come to any solid answers about whether you should have that weapon or use it, let alone anyone else, let me know. I do not. The genie is out of the bottle and it cannot be put back in.

** On Guns, We’re Not Even Trying

Labels: gun control

Or is it repressed.

Whatever it is the NRA has tried to stifle the view that "open carry" practices might not be good for their on PR.

NRA Walks Away from Criticism of Open Carry Advocates

I grew up in a houseful of guns. My dad was a hunter. He taught me how to handle and respect guns.

But, today, I do not have a single gun in my house nor have I had one for many years. When my Dad died, one of the dilemmas was what to do with the guns. My cousin Jim took most of them and I saved a single shot 22 that I had used when I was a kid.

After awhile I couldn't stand to have the fucking thing around the house.

Visceral.

I don't know what happened to me to react this way to guns. The fact that they kill people so readily? That there is something immoral about it?

I don't think so. It is just not rational. It came to me a long time ago. Maybe part of my turn toward "left wing" thinking.

Besides, it is my experience that a lot of really nutty people have guns and I don't want to be part of that crowd. Please don't take offense. (grin here if I was using emoticons which sometimes I consider for the blog--try this :>)).

In the "nutty" category would be people who open carry in normal every day situations. Not hunting. Not on a target range. Not in a military or correction profession. Just folks. With guns. Right fucking there around their shoulders, in a holster. What the hell?

I am not sure what the law is in California. I don't think I have ever really seen anyone do this. But I sure don't like it.

I feel the same way about bowie knives too. What if people walked around with big billy club weapons in their hand.

The gun people just go way too far for my liking. Advocates usually do. This time it is the gunners.

It is not a complicated argument. Look at these guys. Enough said. Or shown.

Labels: gun control

LIVE EXAMPLES

This is what we need more of.

Jim Langevins Personal Quest on Guns

This is what the NRA hates. They will even boo and vilify victims. Really.

Langevin had a stray bullet sever his spinal cord when he was 16.

He is asking other Congress people to give up their guest passes for the SOTU speech to sit in the gallery as living testimony that guns kill and maim.

Accidents or intentional, the toll is grim.

More:

Newtown Survivor to Attend State of the Union Address

Labels: gun control

ASTONISHING

But it shouldn't be.

The ever paranoid NRA has an enemies list.

I was going to choose a few to make a point but I think that the list itself makes the point.

National Organizations With Anti-Gun Policies

There is, at the bottom a long list of celebrity names. Well known people who are NRA enemies.

How about a friends list? Would it be as long and as distinguished? I doubt it.

I bet this guy is an NRA friend. But not a celeb. A flaming asshole.

Labels: gun control

GUN CONTROL

Volunteer shows one of the best gun control approaches.

A little higher!

Labels: gun control

OK. ABOUT GUNS

What do I think?

Did anyone ask?

I have struggled some with this.

I grew up in a gun-house.

My Dad hunted along with all his friends. In our town, country more or less totally, most people had guns and hunted. The kids in school.

I don't recall how many guns in the house. Not too many, I think. A simple 22 one shot which was my Dad's but which he gave to me. A deer rifle. Maybe 2 of those, but I don't think so. One of them, at least, had a clip which held bullets but you had to cock the gun or something between each firing. Later, a pistol.

I was not a gun boy. Not interested. I played the cowboys and indian thing. I was pretty good at it. I was mostly averse to hunting and didn't want to kill anything. My Dad did instruct me on the care and keeping of guns. I took the 22 out for a walk every once in a while to hunt squirrels but I never really tried to shoot anything. I never was interested at all in target shooting.

Absolutely no hunting. I wouldn't even eat game meat. A rebellion I suppose. Also, according to friends' stories, a typical gay boy being a gay boy.

Later, in college I went to ROTC. Quartermaster. The least gun totin' Corps of all. All defensive, behind the lines unless the lines caught up with the cooks and the supply depots.

To be an officer one had to qualify on the rifle range. I couldn't hit shit.

I qualified because my friends pulling the targets "pencilled" me in. Meaning they punched the targets with their pencil to make holes where there weren't any.

I was never, ever even near a combat situation.

Later, much later, in life, when my Dad died, I got his guns.

I gave the deer rifle away immediately to my cousin Jim.

I kept the 22 rifle and the pistol and registered them in Boston. I kept them in our house.

Their presence burned in my head and heart. I was afraid of them. In the sense that if I was ever to need them, to use them, I would draw the fire of any intruder. I was convinced that I was better off un-armed than armed. With a firearm, I would draw fire. Without, not so much.

I still believe that.

Finally, I gave both weapons to one of my sons. I have no idea where they are now. Frankly I hope that they are gone.

I guess that personal and life experience tells me that weapons draw violence to them. In the hands of a hunter or a target shooter (why?) they may be one thing but in any other context they draw trouble.

When I was a kid, a cousin, hunting with some other guys, leaned on his gun and shot himself in the abdomen. Killed him. The gun slipped or something and went off. Dumb? Sure. But typical. You read about such accidents all the time.

When I had those guns in the house, it was after I had little kids around. Actually, there were no kids around. Just two adults. Males. Sort of trained to use the guns. But still, they called to me. I thought about them. I worried that someone would find them. Shit. I just had to get them out.

Now. What about other people having them?

I don't know.

That's right. I don't know.

I do actually believe that guns don't kill people, people do.

Yes. I bought the NRA party line in that respect.

I do not think there should be any automatic weapons out there. But there are. What to do?

Surely, they are also right when they claim that the people who are nutty will never surrender their guns. But what about the "good" people who think that they need to have them "for protection". Protection from who? What?

There is a whole spectrum of paranoia about this from the honest desire to have something in the house to ward against intruders to a belief that you need to have guns to protect yourself from the government. The socialists. The blacks. The browns. The unknowns.

So. How about a gun law?

More power to them.

The US takes a bad rap for having so many firearms. Like no other country has this problem. Tell that to any Palestinian or Russian or even in peaceful Norway to the young people felled by the crazy guy on that island.

It is just there. Inherent evil. How do you defang it?

I do not know.

I know that for me, it will continue to be no guns, no how, no way. And I will support people who will work on the problem like Obama wants to do.

The NRA who, at one time, was at least respectable, has gone over the bend. Spit flecked rhetoric.

The patriots? Watch out.

The ones I worry about are the Bachmans and Palins of the world. All hyped on fear and rhetoric and ready to charge ahead.

Labels: gun control, whack jobs

GUNS IN PEOPLE'S HOLSTERS KILL PEOPLE

Of course there is the other right winger pillar. Gun control. None.

Insurrection Timeline

Labels: gun control, republican whack jobs