On Mar 25, 3:21*pm, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:25:48 -0700, whoyakidding's ghost





wrote:
On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:41:36 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:39:17 -0700, whoyakidding's ghost
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:38:25 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 08:22:01 -0700, whoyakidding's ghost
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:36:01 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Mar 2013 10:22:09 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Mar 2013 12:42:52 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 24 Mar 2013 01:23:46 -0500, "RogerN"
wrote:

"Gunner Asch" *wrote in message
news:nv1tk89fhm8cc5j9048ncoqlnb06374vnk@4 ax.com...

On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 22:14:43 -0400, wrote:

snip
*So you have an expensive hobby.. * I can see it if you are a target
shooter - but it's not target shooters that are causing the run on
ammo. It's nut-cases figuring they need enough ammo to run a private
or civil war for 4 years again.

Oh....like the US government, who bought 1.6 Billion rounds of ammo?
Enough to fight a war in Iraq for the next 26 yrs.

Gunner

Interesting:
http://www.mrconservative.com/2013/0...lets-and-targe...

Law enforcement training to kill civilians, DHS buying 1.6 Billion rounds,
DHS buying ~3,000 armored assault vehicles for use in the USA. *Why would
anyone be suspicious?

RogerN

With nut-cases hording guns and ammo the government mabee has reason
to be conserned??

It's -not- nutcases, clare, it's us normal people...

(Irony meter just pinned and bent the needle...)

It's all about perspective. Jim Carrey does a nice job laying it out..
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/043...and-with-jim-c...

Ohmigod, that's good. What's just as funny is the comments. He really
plucked some gun nutz' strings. Strings are what they have where
normal people have a sense of humor.

The gun nutz absolutely hate it when you tell them that you know what
they're thinking and it ain't pretty. I love that they're running up
the cost of their paranoia while claiming that they're merely sensible
people. Considering the appalling stats about consumer debt, it would
be useful to poll feverish ammo buyers and ask them what they gave up
in order to fund their purchase. You know it's going to be things like
making more than the minimum payment on their credit card, health
insurance, kids' dental work, etc. Then ask them if they consider
themselves responsible, as if the results would be any less than 100%
yes. It's ****ing amazing, but I guess we should be getting used to
that. I couldn't believe it when a majority thought that Iraq was at
the root of 9-11, or had WMD, and that invading them made sense.
Couldn't the idiots learn something from their mistaken notions? Of
course not, because here we are again with yet another example of
national stupidity being played out by largely the same group of
mental midgets. No matter how many times they're proven helpless at
logic, they continue to believe they're intelligent and sensible.

I think you're attaching too much importance to logic and sense. It's
a cultural divide, one we've always had but which has grown hardened
and shrill in recent decades.

Bill Keller just wrote an editorial about it, "States Gone Wild":

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/op...-gone-wild.htm....

Of course there's lots going on. I think if I had to pin it down to
one root cause it would be the trend towards every man for himself.
But in order for someone to think that their personal right to "feel"
safe should take precedence over society's right to promote genuine
safety, the thinker has to be illogical. You can see it whenever the
gun nutz are faced with _any_ restrictions, no matter how reasonable.
They say there's "no such thing" (idiotic). They cry "second
amendment" (wrong and stupid) and "gun grabber" (paranoia). As Clare
explained, US restrictions will never be as tough as they are in
Canada already. And yet that hasn't resulted in wholesale "grabbing."
This is very simple stuff that even the dim witted ought to be able to
understand. But they prefer to put whatever whim is in their head (and
or off a crazy blog) over common sense and responsibility. Ironically,
they frequently claim to be patriots at the same time they're
advocating revolution. Which brings me back to the lack of reason.
They're afraid of losing their ability to fight a possible war with
their duly elected government, so they call for starting the war
instead. In the worst cases, we actually have people claiming they'd
rather have revolution than restrict felons' right to own firearms, or
have reduced magazine size or universal background checks. Those sorts
of positions aren't just illogical, they're insane no matter the
culture.

One of the reasons I find it interesting to engage in arguments here
is just a matter of exploring their whole mndset. You know that I grew
up in rural towns (in Md. and Pa., not in NJ) where there were two
seasons: hunting season and trout season. *It was a rod or a gun, all
the time.

So I think I should be able to identify with their attitude. I
recognize what it is, but I don't identify with it. It was just taking
shape when I was last hunting and involved in serious target shooting.
This is something different. It's a cultural separation; each side
thinks it's part of a different country, almost.

It isn't gun owners versus non-owners. That FOX News poll conducted a
month or so ago makes that clear. The regulatory ideas I express here
are absolutely dead-center for typical gun owners in America. (They
don't believe it here of course; no matter. The numbers are there.
They just don't want to believe them.) It's easy to lose sight of that
when all the yelling is coming from the hard core.

But they are influential, and they've become the voice of gun owners
for those who are on the other side of the cultural divide. Many are
single-issue, so it lends political weight to their positions that is
out of proportion to their numbers. It's a real battle.

Their arguments and self-justifications are extreme nonsense, IMO.
They're so ideological that there is little chance for reason or facts
to get involved. Their minds are already made up, and that's the end
of it. To a lesser extent, that's also true of the anti-gun
extremists.

In the end, I don't think you should get wound up about logic or
facts. That isn't the battleground. It's pure tribalism, and there are
better ways to analyze it than trying to determine how crazy they are.
The tribalism has been described in such studies as Bill Bishop's _The
Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us
Apart_. There are some other good studies that address it. Without
having access to the original data, or enough interest to pursue it
systematically, I can only consider this all on a second-hand basis.

But that's what it is, IMO. It's the old rural/urban divide, which has
become more complex. Guns are a central issue. Tribal myth-making is
at the heart of it, with guns as talismans and tribal identifiers, and
you can kiss reason goodbye.

--
Ed Huntress- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Well said and well written.

Wish I could write that well.

TMT