3 Reasons I Went From Being A Gun Nut To Supporting Gun Control

[SecularMotion]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Go Vols (a host of the General Discussion forum).

I have a confession to make.

Once upon a time, I was a gun nut. I wasn't planning for the coming apocalypse or anything like that, but I owned a lot of weapons and ammunition for a guy living in a comfy house in central Houston. People could've easily mistaken me for a character from an episode of "Doomsday Preppers," except I didn't own a bunker. Yet.

I could field strip Glocks, 1911s, Kalashnikov style rifles, and AR15s almost with my eyes closed, and went shooting at various Houston area ranges weekly. I'd grown up around guns, and felt comfortable with them. I considered them a normal part of my life.

Then at some point I just lost interest in having a bedroom that looked like an armory, and I started to question why I owned so many weapons. Mind you, this change in attitude was not something that happened overnight, but eventually I started liquidating my large collection of firearms.

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/3-reasons-i-went-from-being-a-gun-nut-to-supporting-gun-control-7709731

[ileus]

1. I feel like I personally could have written this...

[Paladin]

2. K&R.

[Duckhunter935]

3. ????

[onehandle]

4. #2 is a carbon copy of my experience with gun culture.

2. Many Gun Owners Believe That They're Powerless Without Their Guns.

Paranoia. That's a word that sums this attitude up, and the deeper into gun culture I got, the deeper that paranoia seemed. I recall going to a gun show years back and visiting a table just in time to overhear the guy behind it complaining about liberals in "Jew York" not allowing handguns in the city, and how we were all going to be disarmed and herded into interment camps soon.

Pathetic, really.

[pinboy3niner]

5. I used many different weapons in the Army, including in combat, but never personally owned one

After Vietnam I felt naked without a weapon, especially with the insecurity and distrust associated with the PTSD I didn't know affected me until many years later.

But something told me that having a firearm wouldn't be a good idea, as much as I wanted one. Good thing, because I know I wouldn't be here now if I'd had a gun during my struggles with war trauma.

The guys with the arsenals? There, but for the grace of God...

[NightWatcher]

6. Damn, well written. I too have grown up and changed from a "nut"

And yes I still own a few and carry one in the car on trips and for work, but I haven't been to a range in years (living in Florida, the ranges are populated by nuts and dangerous people, See Zimmerman).

It's good to grow and evolve on issues. Too bad so many people are unable.

[aikoaiko]

7. Once upon a time I was an anti-gun nut.

Growing up in a NYC suburb in NJ you didn't see many guns in the hands of civilians. Police, yes. Military honor guards, yes. A few bolt actions in the homes of Sussex County hunters, yes. But in general, I grew up believing that guns were not ok in the hands of the average person. I really couldn't even tell you what the 2nd Amendment was at that time. I didn't own my first firearm (a .357 revolver) until my 30s.

Its not that I didn't enjoy shooting. At Boy Scout summer camps I hit the range for rifle shooting using the camp's Ruger 10/22s. For fun we did some skeet shooting with some side-by-side shotguns and silhouette shooting with 30-06s. But still, I didn't own any firearms and thought they were not a good idea in the hands of civilians.

My attitudes started to change when I went to school in the southwest. I saw more people carrying sidearms. Rifles and shotguns were in pick-up truck racks. My friends, who were described fairly as 'crunchy granola', had rifles and handguns. As I made friends with locals who lived out of town and had shotguns handy for dangerous animals or people. They talked about how they were responsible for protecting their livestock, pets, kids, etc from predators because police were not around and would take too long to arrive.

When the AWB came around, I thought, "Who would need one of those? They are just made to kill people in crimes." I thought they were machine guns. When the Columbine massacre happened, I was puzzled because I thought those weapons were banned. When the background check became law, I thought that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals. I was puzzled when that didn't happen.

3 reasons I went from being an anti-gun nut to being suspicious of gun control hegemony.

1. Learning more about the creation of the 2nd Amendment as a protection of a civil liberty.
I came to understand the 2nd Amendment as a way to ensure that the people will always have arms in their possession so that they could serve in a militia if needed. Serving in a militia wasn't the only reason the people's right to keep and bear arms was protected, but local militias was one reason to protect the RKBA. Moreover, US vs Miller makes it clear that if a weapon could be shown to have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia" then the people could keep and bear them. If Miller had been alive at the time of the trial and demonstrated that some short shotguns were used in warfare in WWI, the NFA (or parts of it) might have been ruled unconstitutional. The ability to keep and bear arms was a right to help the people protect themselves.

2. Some pro-gun control people lie.
My impression that the AWB was about machine guns was created by misleading news and activist videos showing machine guns when in reality the law dealt with semi-auto rifles. Another lie was that these so-called assault weapons were responsible for a majority of police deaths and that wasn't and isn't true. Also, the whole teflon-coated and Black Talon cop-killer bullets were complete fabrications.

3. I have reasons to keep and bear arms
The most important of these is self-defense, but I also enjoy recreational and competitive shooting. I doubt the unorganized militia will ever be called up, but I can be there if asked.

Today, I'm definitely on the pro-RKBA side of things, but recognize that some people have earned the distinction of permanently or temporarily losing the right and civil liberty to keep and bear arms. I'm all for NICS being expanded and allowing civilians to access it to conduct a background check before transferring a weapon just like FFLs. Most weapons bans are useless. For example, Connecticut actually had a state version of the federal AWB that expired, and the AR-15 Lanza used to massacre school children and their teachers was totally compliant with CT law. The same gun would have been compliant under the proposed AWB of 2013 with a different handgrip that cost a mere $35.

[LanternWaste]

8. I'm also suspicious of the imaginary...

"to being suspicious of gun control hegemony..."

I'm also suspicious of the imaginary attempting to legitimize itself through hyperbole and melodrama.

[aikoaiko]

9. How does the imaginary attempt anything if they are imaginary?

How does the imaginary attempt anything if they are imaginary?

How does the imaginary attempt anything if they are imaginary?

How does the imaginary attempt anything if they are imaginary?

How does the imaginary attempt anything if they are imaginary?

How does the imaginary attempt anything if they are imaginary?

Does repeating myself help me communicate?