So tomorrow I’ll submit my review of Dan Baum’s Gun Guys, A Road Trip. Just so you know it won’t be a whitewash, here’s an email from TTAG reader totenglocke: “In his interview with the WSJ, Baum blames all gun owners for violent crime and insists that law abiding gun owners must be held responsible for the crimes of a handful of people. This interview (and others that exist) show that Dan is most certainly NOT a gun rights advocate and is in fact a gun control advocate. He is merely playing the “I’m a gun owner and I support gun control” card and I’m assuming that TTAG is not aware of his anti-gun statements due to your promotion of his book It might be beneficial to take a deeper look into Mr. Baum and give readers a more thorough view of his agenda.” I am aware and I will. Meanwhile, this is funny . . .
We found a place at a long table in the deep shade with two sweaty brothers named Tom and John, who wore T-shirts that read “living with a german builds character!” and “i got schützenfaced at schützen-fest.” They were eager to explain to out-of-towners that just because Cincinnati looked dull and unsophisticated didn’t mean locals didn’t know how to rock out—within reason. “It’s like that book, The Millionaire Next Door. People here live below their means. But they party! The beer consumption, the sausage consumption—it’s off the charts. People here know how to party, but they don’t get out of hand!”
“Look! You got kids here! Families! But we don’t get out of hand!”
“Hitler, you know, didn’t want to fight in the west,” Tom said suddenly. “All he wanted was lebensraum for the German people.”
Margaret and I stared at him for a long moment. Where did that come from?
Maybe it was the heat, or the beer, or the racket of the guns. Margaret suddenly stood, cocked her head toward me, and casually said to them,
“Dan here? Jewish.” Then, to me: “Gotta pee.” And off she walked.
The brothers flew into a panic. “I’ve got a Jewish friend! Great guy!”
“They say the DA of Cincinnati is Jewish! Great guy!”
A shout went up; someone had shot off the last piece of the scepter. A hearty man in full deutsche garb plunked himself down next to me and thrust out his hand. “Mike Rademacher,” he said, with Babbitt-like vigor. He had a Vandyke beard that was starting to whiten and brown eyes that sparkled behind heavy glasses. His hat was so coated with cloisonné pins, and sported a gamsbart so enormous, that it was a miracle he could hold his head upright.
“That’s one hell of a hat,” I said.
TF is he talking about? I don’t aim for the head in BF4 unless i’m sniping and that’s all that’s exposed from behind a barrier. If running around and gunning, I aim for center mass and fire in short bursts or auto depending on the weapons controllability.
once you surrender your rights, good luck getting them back.
I think totenglocke is off the mark just a bit. I’ve read the book myself, and I’ve read the WSJ article, too. What Baum is getting at is that gun owners should be doing more to encourage each other to keep our own firearms from falling into the wrong hands. He’s not saying that ALL gun owners are responsible for violent crimes committed by a handful of people. Rather, his point is that, as gun-owners, we could be doing more to promote safe storage within our community so that criminals, crazies, and even kids, don’t have easy access to our firearms.
Haven’t read the book yet but I agree with the sentiment that people of the gun should do more to encourage proper gun use, storage etc. Gun ownership is the great right, but it is also a great responsibility and should be embraced as such.
This isn’t to say that things like letting the government dictate how you store your gun and paying visits to make certain are good…they aren’t for a host of reasons. Within the community however I do think we should be modeling best practices for new owners and people who don’t know what to think of guns and gun owners. If we are seen as people who take these powerful tools seriously we are more likely to win the hearts and minds of the great middle, the very people we need on our side.
Long story alert:
When I was a little kid my dad taught me about guns. He was a great guy and gun owner, the guns were in a safe and while he would let me see them whenever I asked I was never left alone with them. One time I went to a friends house (his parents weren’t home) and we went to the basement. There were a bunch of guns just out. I knew how to handle them responsibly and didn’t touch or play with them, but I just felt that this wasn’t right, and I still don’t. This isn’t to say the cops should have swept in and made arrests, but the guns should have been handled with more respect than that.
1
$2000 and no coffee grinder in the buttstock? Price is king…this puts it in SCAR or FN2000 territory, no thx.
Actually, it puts it in AR-15 territory. Pretty much.
I’m a Utah CFP Instructor, and I’m really pissed about this. Gov Herbert says, “I have yet to receive any credible evidence that Utah’s current permit process constitutes a hardship.”
I have taught more than a thousand people over the last 5 years, and occasionally someone would come to me that was in very real, very imminent danger. All these people (most of them women) have to do is:
– Find or schedule a class
– Get fingerprinted
– Get a passport photo made
– Photocopy their driver’s license
– Pay $46 to Utah
– Wait patiently for up to 60 days for the permit to arrive in the mail.
Gee, do you think if we wrote the scumbag a nicely-worded letter that he’d cease hostilities for 60 days until his intended target could get the permit in the mail?
Tell THEM that the permitting process isn’t a hardship.
And yes, this bill would not have been “true” Constitutional Carry. It was gutted early-on in the legislative session… but it is still a step in the right direction.
Local press has been claiming that “this bill would have effectively done away with carry permits,” which is also incredibly false.
This bill essentially just takes the open carry law and makes it so that you’re not a criminal if you put on a jacket.
Many people, like me, who want to be able to carry with a round in the chamber, who
want to be able to carry in schools or on buses, and who want to take advantage of reciprocity with other states. You’ll still have non-residents applying because they want the reciprocity that their own permits don’t have.
This bill did pass with a veto-proof majority, so hopefully they’ll have the balls to stand with their constituents and override the veto.
Wes
Wes, thanks for your good work.
You may want to try to talk some sense into the Utahans above who are satisfied with the status quo and are never exposed to the people who are obviously burdened by the permitting process.
To respond to MikeM: Any effort to police ourselves as far as who we sell to puts us in the position of a Goalie. When a shot goes in, thats when you are noticed. An extreme amount of effort on law abiders part can be blown to bits when a criminal who doesn’t give a merde will dump a gun at the right price to the wrong person. How many transactions have we turned down when it didn’t “seem” right. Adam Lansa kills his mother, steals the guns, and the reaction and call to action by gun grabbers are as if one of us did something wrong and now our “priviledges” will be revoked because of our irresponsibility. He and we are all part of the gun culture in the eyes of the priviledge givers. That is their trick, include the likes of Adam Lanza in with us and let the condemnation begin.
I appreciate that he encourages eating carrots and getting exercise.
As far as the ethics of hunting explosive deer, it’s better than letting them interbreed with the common white-tailed deer. Think of all the car accidents that would end tragically in flames if these are allowed to invade the native populations.
For a long time I was Extremely Liberal and Anti-Gun. I guess I saw the light eh.
Have always been pro-gun/pro self-defense. However, I started carrying regularly in the city (Phoenix) after some pervert started taking pics of my then-6-year-old daughter trying on clothes at a department store, and after being approached and asked, rather unpolitely, for money while at the self-serve car wash.
I started carrying while bowhunting in Southern Arizona about 10 years ago, after being asked, very unpolitely, for water, food and my truck keys by border crossers who were “just looking for a better life” in the United States.
I’ve always liked guns, never had a negative opinion of them. My family decided to buy a gun when I was 12 and I’ve been in love ever since.
Really. I dug it. His enthusiasm is… well, what his critics here are lacking! Nice.
Still a liberal but never anti gun. One February morning I was making my way across an icy parking lot. On crutches. In a body cast. 2 men appeared from nowhere, blocked my way, fists clenched, and demanded money. I recognized one from high school, and when I called him by name, the 2 left hurriedly. 35 years later I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy (weak muscles for life). I went from being gun indifferent to being pro gun for self preservation.
Wonder if he’s still go the hand imprints on his cheeks….?
Even when I was in college and thought of myself as a liberal I was still pro-gun
Maybe Cuomo doesn’t understand he’s not the King of New York.
Are you kidding me??? I mean seriously he is old enough to have taken civics in school right?? He is advocating tyranny plain and simple. Governor Cuomo if his statements stand correct is telling us the executive branch and the legislative branch can simply cut out the judicial branch out of expediency???
So tell me is this nut case trying to piss off every judge in NY while he is at it? He has managed to have the majority of counties against him, the Sheriffs are against him or scared to say anything, now the judges? Just hand him the nightlock and let him save some face….
I’m actually OK with settling for a GOP controlled legislature with a DNC white house.
Take a newbie shooting should get more traction if we want to preserve RKBA
I, uh, wow, that’s some, yeesh, yeah, that takes some balls.
I’m noticing a pattern recently with government saying asking the same people a second time or some other bureaucrat in a related organization counts as “legal recourse”, like some CCW permit appeals or the freaking drone programs. This SAFE Act just seems to be a case of Cuomo the 2 year old yelling, “No!” In other cases, like so much of the Patriot Act and the warrantless wiretapping case the Supreme Court ruled on, they do everything possible to keep individuals from having standing to bring a lawsuit. E.g. The USSC case got thrown out because the plantiffs couldn’t prove they’d been monitored because the Feds said that information was secret (Yay National Security cop-outs!).
Is this sort of legal shenaniganry a new tactic, or am I just more aware of it now?
I think Poor Ol’ Uncle Joe’s brain might be “mortally wounded”.
The only “weapons of war” on “America’s streets” are those in the hands of the police.
Technically, that seems to have happened in Tuscon. According to the various news reports I read, it only happened because a) one or more potential victims were on the ground at his feet and b) he dropped the fresh mag on the ground.
Not really sure how anyone can be anti-gun without rejecting certain realities to begin with.
Realities like:
1. Guns are just the apex weapon that our society has come up with. It used to be stones, spears, slings, swords, arrows, and now it’s bullets and guns. Throughout history both good and bad guys gravitate towards using the apex weapon of choice to do their deeds because of efficiency and expedience. And there are many other tools they employ to fit the desired outcome (ie. planes, gas, bombs, for terrorism, guns for mass shootings).
2. No matter where you are from or what class you were born into, guns have shaped the society you now live in. Every civilization on the planet that is developed has a standing army with guns. They also have law enforcement with guns. Guns promote order and peace, that is the purpose of any weapons in the hands of a “good guy”.
3. Law-abiding citizens with guns (or any other tool) are “good guys”.
4. Guns aren’t going anywhere. There are too many out there in the hands of bad guys that good guys need them for defensive purposes. The cat is out of the bag on that issue. You can’t take the guns back starting with the good guys. That’s completely stupid. Disarm the criminals first, then maybe, once we have 100 years of zero crime, can you even think about disarming the good guys. This is assuming we have a form of government that also has no weapons and we have world peace….
5. Any good guy that uses a gun to harm another is by default a criminal. No one wants guns in the hands of a criminal which is why we have things like laws and jail. That and all bad guys are enemies of good guy by definition. It’s a self-regulated system that really doesn’t need govt. assistance to let us know who the bad guys are or when good guys should be using for their own protection. In the end, good guys should have enough firepower to deter and fight off the bad guys. End of story.
So I really don’t see any sense at all in any law disarming the good guys and giving an advantage to the bad guys since that would mean the world you anti-gunners live in would cease to exist and the bad guys would take over. And I’ll not be a party to that outcome.
No surprise to me. If someone called me and asked if I have guns in the house, I’ll say no. I don’t know who you are or who you represent, and I don’t know how this information will be used (or abused) later on.