On guns and liberals

[mcroft]

immlass wrote about a local response to gun ownership that seemed overly het-up.

When I lived in Houston, I listened to KPFT, a station whose parent was originally started by pacifists during WWII (yes, there were some). KPFT used to do things like make enemies out of the Klan (who bombed their tower off the air) and my favorite local bar (who thought they were high-handed idiots).

On one sunny summer afternoon, some KPFT interview show was interviewing a woman who ran a rape-crisis hotline training center. Trainees would come to her facility to be trained in how to cope with women who called in to talk to someone about being raped. The facility was in rural Alabama and the woman happened to be a lesbian.

Some part of what she did (either with or for other women) offended her neighbors. She was threatened and the police were not helpful. Someone dumped a dead dog at her mailbox.

"Do you think something might actually happen?" asked the host.

"Oh, yes," replied the woman. "We've had people shoot onto our property."

"Oh, my God!," said the interviewer. "Do you at least have guns of your own?"

"Of course we do!" said the woman, almost indignant that the question would be asked.

And that, my friends, is the difference between southern liberals and northern liberals. Gun ownership is not abstract. It is about protecting ourselves from those who don't care that we're doing something legal that don't like.

Comments

[gentlyepigrams]

My experience is that gun ownership attitudes are significantly different between (urban) Yankees and (suburban/rural) Southerners/Westerners. Keep in mind that by Eastern seabord standards, there's almost no such thing as an urban area east of the Mississippi. Houston, for instance, doesn't have the urban density of an east-coast city for all that it's one of the most populated metro areas in the country. I haven't done the statistical research, but I did say that it was an opinion. YMMV, in particular for self-selection. Geography is not destiny, though: the most "pro-gun" person I've ever met, and I use that term advisedly because I object to it, was born and raised in the New York City metro area.

I'm a firm believer in proper gun care and storage, which does not include allowing children free access to guns. I also have a personal story about an improperly-stored gun that doesn't end up with anybody dead, but convinced me that I would only own a gun if I could take care of it and keep in practice. I'm not willing to tell other people not to own or use guns because I don't want to do the work myself, though.