(June 13, 2016 at 11:35 pm)Esquilax Wrote:(June 13, 2016 at 9:36 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: My uncle took me out to teach me shooting at age nine. He taught me respect for the weapon, taught me to never point it at someone I didn't intend on killing. Taught me that every gun is loaded, taught me that I held the power of life and death in my hands -- "Boy, this will kill anyone on that end. Is that what you want to do?"
I'm not unusual in that regard. I know there are dipshits who use guns for compensation and swagger, but there's a hell of a lot of media bullshit in your verbiage, it seems to me.
Even here, advocating for gun rights, I don't own one myself, so it's not about chest-thumping or anything, your overbroad generalization aside. Poison the well all you want, but there's water down there too, your stereotypes notwithstanding.
Perhaps I was being too broad, when what I meant to do is point out the very different culture surrounding guns in the US as opposed to elsewhere. I didn't realize I still needed the caveat that I'm not trying to speak sweepingly about an entire group of people- I thought I'd been here long enough that it's clear I try to account for nuance in my positions- but I guess sometimes I do. Some Americans, not all.
That's sort of the problem with trying to politicize an object, I suppose: the act of doing so warps the culture around it so that a certain stripe of citizen, say, takes walking into a supermarket with an assault rifle strapped to them to be patriotic, rather than just sad. I've seen people walking around in shirts that joke about shooting advocates for gun control for being "pussies," I have this kind of right-wing person as an uncle now that I've married Luckie, I'm really not just plucking this stuff out of nowhere.
I'm sensitive to this sort of thing because I'm in the middle -- I think gun rights should be protected from extremists on the left, and I think the public should be protected from the extremists on the right. There's no avoiding politicizing this discussion, but there's very certainly a good goal in not alienating those who may see some but not all of one's points.
I think that treating individuals as individuals rather than [your favorite lump here] is probably a good idea; it works for me. I am able to avoid baseless assumptions (which I will admit being prone to at times because of garb or appearance), and if someone honestly disagrees with me I have a better chance of chaging his or her mind. That goes for all issues, not just this one.
Especially in a public forum, caveats are useful. They allow for nuance to inform the conversation.
