A deeper way to think about guns

[SecularMotion]

I grew up in a rural place, coal and timber country. People there hunted. Pretty much everybody owned guns. Until they shot their first buck, boys let their beards grow, as a tradition. Gun safety was a high school elective. When my aunt ran low on meat, my male cousins would go into the woods and shoot a couple of groundhogs. Guns were a tool where I came from.

I’d be lying, however, if I said that was all there was to it. Guns were also a kind of talisman of manhood, and, more deeply, an indulgence, not unlike the booze my uncles drank and the Winstons my mother compulsively smoked.

Sometimes, my cousins and their friends would let my sister and me tag along when they did target practice – a privilege, they all made clear, because guns were a guy thing. To varying degrees, just holding a weapon seemed to excite them. Something about the weight of that metal and the power behind that trigger would make even the nice, well-adjusted boys adjust their demeanor, and make the less-well-adjusted ones talk about it too much or burst into weird, high-pitched giggles. They liked those guns. Maybe too much, in some cases, and in ways that creeped my sister and me out.

What we get out of guns doesn’t get enough airtime, but it comes to my mind every time there’s another mass shooting like the one in Oregon, followed by another fruitless national fight. Years after I left what President Barack Obama once famously called the “guns and religion” belt of Pennsylvania, an astute Los Angeles psychologist put it to me this way: Yes, the right to carry a gun is a civil liberty, constitutionally protected. But whatever their other uses, firearms also are a lot like liquor and pornography and tobacco.

http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/shawn-hubler/article37844901.html

[hack89]

1. The "guns as a magical talisman" argument.

this the best you have?

[ileus]

2. Look ma we's be eatin' good whistle pig tonight, when pa comes in from the coal mines.

This first paragraph took a lot of googling that's for sure. Too bad none of it's true...

[flamin lib]

3. Just like cops and camo/military gear, just holding a gun changes what

happens inside your head. Been there, done that and had my gunz fixed.

[beevul]

5. Has occured to you, that your idiosynchracies may not be as generally shared as you think? N/T

[Straw Man]

7. Whose head?

... just holding a gun changes what

happens inside your head.

You are entitled to make that observation only about yourself. Perhaps the pronoun "my" would have been more accurate.

[flamin lib]

8. Nope, it's been clinically proven that simply holding a gun increases

testosterone levels in men. It's a physiological change that can't be changed by thought processes. Same is true for other weapons but guns are the preferred object of desire in the US.

[Straw Man]

9. Do tell.

Nope, it's been clinically proven that simply holding a gun increases

testosterone levels in men. It's a physiological change that can't be changed by thought processes. Same is true for other weapons but guns are the preferred object of desire in the US.

If elevated testosterone translates to automatic violent behavior, physicians across the country have a lot to answer for.

I'm willing to bet that the same thing happens when men pick up baseball bats. Unless they have pathologically poor impulse control, they don't proceed to bash people's heads in with them.

[flamin lib]

10. Apt name, Strawman.

I simply said that it has been clinically proven that merely holding a gun increases testosterone levels in men and testosterone being a very active hormone effects thought and reasoning processes, ergo, holding a gun changes how your head works.

[Straw Man]

11. Back-pedal much?

If you don't believe that this testosterone boost leads to some some negative outcome in behavior, then your post, like your action in destroying your guns, was pointless.

You can't have it both ways, no matter how much you'd like to.

[flamin lib]

12. *sigh* Ya just wanna' fight, don't ya'?

Okay, yes, holding a gun makes you more aggressive and more likely to escalate a situation. States with lax gun laws, hence more guns, exhibit a higher gun violence rate.

I'm done with this thread, I'll never convince you that your precious is a dangerous thing and you'll just keep pretending that I said something that I didn't.

No point in continuing, have the final word and declare victory in an argument of your own making.

[Straw Man]

13. What, I'm supposed to bow to your "superior wisdom"?

That's not the way this works.

Okay, yes, holding a gun makes you more aggressive and more likely to escalate a situation.

Which is another reason why you never draw a gun unless you are in imminent peril of death or serious bodily harm, at which time a testosterone rush is the least of your worries. An assailant has already escalated the situation to a point where you may need that testosterone.

States with lax gun laws, hence more guns, exhibit a higher gun violence rate.

Do all those states have exactly the same economic profile and other demographics? Is suicide included in the "gun violence" rate? Are we supposed to picture a man picking up a gun and becoming so pumped up with testosterone-fueled aggression that he blows his brains out? Or is it your contention that normally docile men are snapping under the testosterone load that their guns have stimulated and are committing crimes of violence that they otherwise would never have considered?

Yes, I think we're finished here.

[Eleanors38]

15. And Viagra's goddam expensive, and has side effects!...

Hunting deer 10 years ago, I had one in my sights at a mere 50 yards, but my fly went: POP! goes the weasel, and my other "piece" flopped out like a rapidly-inflating Mae West designed for a Blue Whale (yes, Martha, they make 'em for old whales undergoing rehab after an alcohol-induced beaching). Well the damned deer busted me, and took off running. Fortunately, since it was only 50 yards away, he stumbled over my member, fell into a ravine and died of a broken neck. Saved a $1.35 on a .270 round by getting my deer the old-fashioned way.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

4. Another for your...

...collection...

[Travis_0004]

6. I actually agree with secularmotion for once

-Yes, the right to carry a gun is a civil liberty, constitutionally protected.

[hack89]

14. Says the movement that depends on cartoons. nt