GenderLife Forum: The Information Exchange

Glinda, I agree with you. I have always believed the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (which actually predates the Second Amendment to the US Constitution) is especially important to women and minorities.

I will give an example of where it was a deciding factor in the safety of a community of Blacks in Florida. This occurred during the early part of the Twentieth Century. A group of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) decided to go burn out the community of Blacks. They made a very big mistake: The Blacks had guns. Needless to say, the KKK members paid dearly.

I will respectfully disagree. I have been involved in competitive shooting for years. Sometimes being the sole distaff member present, I have gotten into teasing matches with the other shooters. The most notable feature of these teasing matches has been nobody has ever gotten angry. In fact, the experience has always been mutually entertaining.

I have shot in rimfire rifle competitions, service rifle centerfire rifle matches, bullseye pistol matches, PPC matches (along with friends, who were LEO), and Speed Shooting Matches. The people, with whom I shoot, have been some of my best friends.

What a strange culture. We usually just go to the pub and have a chat over a beer. Anyhoo, guns, girls don't usually get very excited about them..do they?

Yeah, well, guns and alcohol don't mix well, that's true. If it is a culture of alcoholics, maybe guns should not be legal. Or maybe just women should own guns. Now THAT would be a brave new world.

One reason, I got interested in shooting, was:

When I was 12, I was knocked down and groped. That was very frightening. I have very little desire to ever have that happen again.

Also, I was interested in finding a sport, where I could compete in equal footing. Shooting is not a sport that depends on extreme strength. In fact, some of the best shots are actually women.

I don't enjoy going out drinking. If I have a drink, it is in the company of friends at one of our homes.

Well, I'm sorry that happened to you. I wonder though if owning a gun would change that now. What are you going to do..shoot 4 people dead?

Yes, I've owned lots of guns, including an illegal AK-47. I never once thought about them in terms of self defence.

It's the laws of your country, if it makes ou feel safer, then that's that.

Started shooting tin cans with a 22 rifle at age 5. Grew up with a red rider in my hands. Received a doube 12 guage shotgun and a buck knife for my 16th birthday. Was a rifle and shotgun junior instructor at summer camp that same year, where I was sharpshooting champion.

Not much activity like that since I transitioned, but I own some target rifles and I can shoot one inch groups at 100 yards with a 4x scope from benchrest. My spouse is an ex army shooting champion. I've seen him shoot one hole at 50 yards standing, with iron sights.

We don't hunt at all and we don't go shooting often. But we are born and bred country folks. It's in our blood.

Sorry but do you live in the uk ?

NO?


Then how can you say that we should have guns live here know here i dissagree with what you are saying coz if we had gun law over here id be dead thats for sure

Guns + poverty = bad combination.

That's basically all there is to it. That's why nations where there are few poor (Switzerland, for example: 1.25 murders per 100K people in 2006) can afford to have everyone having guns, while the poor nations with many guns are like Colombia (37 murders per 100K people in 2007).

There is risk fot a nation that right now has few poor and many guns in circulation, that the economy crumbles and in a few years the number of poor increases hugely (case in point: Russia, that went from a rate of 1.7 in the 60s, 3.2 in the 70s, 12.4 in the 80s during the fall of the Soviet Union, and now has a rate of 16.5, one of the highest in the world; during the last Soviet years, a large black market allowed for ample availability of guns).

If you fix for poverty rate (not average GDP, that tells us nothing), then you can have a curve that shows a very low slope. Basically, guns on their own, in a low-volatile society, were people's needs are met, there is little frutration, little tension and good education, are harmless.

I thought Michael Moore made a very valid point in "Bowling For Columbine" where he asserts that there is a dangerous interplay between gun ownership and the media in the US. The first and second amendments play off of each other in destructive ways that the founding fathers could not possibly have predicted. The media, in the interest of maximizing viewership and readership, glorify gun violence. They make major news stories out of crimes involving guns, and over report them. That creates a false sense of danger in the public's mind which is disproportionate to the actual treat. That causes people to feel a need to own guns. It also makes people think of guns as first and not last solution to a problem. More guns creates more incidents involving guns, which leads to more over-reporting of those crimes, thus creating a vicious cycle.