Joline Guiterrez Krueger (courtesy facebook.com)

Last Labor Day, Albuquerque Tribune columnist Joline Gutierrez Krueger bought a Ruger SR9. She announced her purchase in a column filled with the usual “I was against guns but now I need one” rants, complete with OMGs, how did this happen to a liberal? and what’s gunna happen when you press the first button?. Still, The People of the Gun welcomed Ms. Krueger into the fold (including TTAG). The writer’s latest column on the subject reveals that she’s had second thoughts. She hasn’t touched her Ruger—despite the fact that her “crazy world” situation doesn’t seem to have been resolved. “Maybe I’m chicken,” she writes. “Maybe I just haven’t had time. But maybe something visceral happened when I held that gun and those brassy bullets.” Get ready, ’cause it goes WAY downhill from there . . .

Maybe Sandy Hook.

Maybe George Zimmerman.

Maybe Tera Chavez.

Maybe Hadiya Pendleton.

Maybe Sunni Reza, the 8-year-old Albuquerque girl shot and killed in the crossfire of a gang-related shooting in May.

Maybe Nehemiah Griego, the 15-year-old boy accused of gunning down his parents and his three younger siblings in their South Valley home.

Maybe Antoinette Tuff, the Georgia bookkeeper who saved the lives of potentially hundreds of elementary school children and police officers when she neutralized a mentally disturbed gunman, not with a weapon but with compassionate words, calmness and love.

Maybe because I just don’t understand a society that flocks to gun stores to stock up on weapons and bullets every time weapons and bullets are used in yet another American tragedy.

Maybe because I don’t understand a country where, as former President Clinton noted last week, it can be harder to vote than to obtain an assault weapon.

Maybe because National Rifle Association Vice President Wayne LaPierre and his paranoid fear-mongering scare me, but not for the reasons he might expect.

Maybe because I have seen so few situations where a gun made things safer.

Maybe because I just don’t have the stomach to be in this kind of fraternity.

Mostly, there is this: My youngest, who is special needs, got angry at an older brother recently and threatened to get my gun and shoot him.

Nope. Sorry. I’m going with chicken. Krueger is a coward.

If the writer needs a firearm—which she admits by both word and deed—she needs to stop griping, come to grips with her gun and get on with it. Training. Holster(s). Ammo. Home carry, too.

By opting out, Krueger’s abrogating her responsibility to defend herself and her loved ones. And that makes me wonder: are all gun control advocates cowards? We know they won’t face the truth: guns save life. They weasel and whine and prevaricate and change the subject and wave the bloody shirt and singularly refuse to argue the facts. They run away.

But maybe it’s more than that. Maybe they just don’t want to face anything scary. Maybe they don’t want to admit the possibility that the “crazy world” we all live in can never be safe. Maybe they’re scared that they can’t handle a firearm without freaking out. Maybe they’re wimps. I mean, how many of them have ever even fired a handgun? Rifle? Shotgun?

Your thoughts?

115 COMMENTS

  1. “Maybe because I just don’t understand a society that flocks to gun stores to stock up on weapons and bullets every time weapons and bullets are used in yet another American tragedy.”

    Perhaps the panic buying of weapons and bullets wouldn’t happen if grabbers didn’t try to ban them “every time weapons and bullets are used in yet another American tragedy.” You got your causal relationships all mixed up there, honey.

    • She is too obtuse to see the connection with the Gun Ban Lobby attempts to push its agenda at every “don’t let a crisis go to waste” opportunity.

    • In most cases they fear accidentally taking the life of a family member friend or person not actually a threat. And yes you can argue cars kill etc. etc. anything can be a weapon; however guns are designed to kill is the difference and they do not trust in themselves much less you with a gun. I myself don’t trust young policemen with guns but feel safe around most civilians with guns.

  2. I wonder if she performs the same kind of asinine mental calculations when she gets behind the wheel of her car.

  3. Generally, no. And we should avoid painting them as such (to do so is just as bad as the ‘insecure gun guy’ stereotype).

    There are, of course, cowardly gun control advocates just as there are insecure gun guys, but the disagreement is deeper than this.

    • There are different groups. The hoplophobs, Gun Banners and the naive. The later has the most hope of reaching. The Banners usually have an agenda. Hoplophobs need a different kind of help. There is also the group that don’t trust themselves or are prohibited and assume everyone else fits that assessment.

  4. That last bit about her special needs child says it all. I remember in the tenth grade, some autistic kid told some black kids that were making fun of him that he would bring his dad’s rifle to school and shoot them if they didn’t leave him alone. The principal took him aside and wagged his finger at him “you can’t say that!” This was right after Columbine.

    I have noticed that many parents with special needs children really lack the necessary boundaries. Guns are just one example, but they are a great one. This happens with inappropriate touching, staring, stealing, you name it there is a behavior. Just the other day my girlfriend’s father told me he wanted to take his autistic nephew deer hunting… the kid has smashed televisions in a rage over sponge bob and had public tantrums over getting his hair cut.

    I briefly worked for a company that provides residential and vocational services to people with varying degrees of autism and mental retardation and they all had special behavior plans, but it seems like there are people with a lower degree of disability or whose families are in denial, that fall through the cracks. No mentally ill, mentally disabled person should ever feel they have access to a firearm.

    Ms.Krueger should probably consider giving her “youngest” the care he really needs if he is having that kind of homicidal ideation and I certainly hope she has her firearm stored securely.

    • On the flip side, I know autistic people that are more sensible with firearms than so-called normal people. Autistic individuals can have the full spectrum of IQ and other aspects.

      • That is absolutely true, especially now that Asperger’s syndrome has been merged with Autism. There are more people than ever who qualify as autistic and it is not something that is fully understood. I have seen very extreme cases and very mild cases.

        Usually it becomes a mental health issue when there are other factors involved, such as congenital mental retardation or exposure to toxic substances, often in the womb. It is scary because these people seem to represent an ever increasing portion of our population and many of them must be considered prohibited persons… but certainly not everyone who could be called “autistic.”

  5. Choosing to live defenseless with whatever probability of extreme violence doesn’t make one a coward. No more than carrying a weapon makes me afraid of my own shadow.

    I respect her choice, as long as she respects mine.

    Maybe because I have seen so few situations where a gun made things safer.

    Isn’t it funny how many “victims” see the light, or not if they don’t survive.

  6. Best you turn your older son into the authorities for making a death threat. You are part of a very unstable family..

  7. “If the writer needs a firearm—which she admits by both word and deed—she needs to stop griping, come to grips with her gun and get on with it. Training. Holster(s). Ammo. Home carry, too.”
    ———-
    But Robert, that’s a lot of work .

    In short, most of the anti-rights types I have met are also LAZY. Sometimes physically but very often intellectually. Rather than take on the challenges of life in the real-world they prefer to hire someone else to get their hands dirty and I often see them refusing to spend even minimal time doing some “skull sweat” and figuring out the implications/ramifications of events around them.

    I see it in home maintenance, voting, local government, education, childcare, health care, and of course personal safety and I’m talking laziness and avoidance on things like basic home fire safety, let alone something like personal protection.

    The truly bizarre twist to this is that these types will then spend at least some time and energy trying to tear down those who do show some responsibility as though getting your hands dirty doing your own oil change, or carrying for self defense is somehow shameful.

    The behavior is similar in many respects to the way alcoholics like to act like everyone else has a problem and I find myself frequently suspecting that many of them are, on some deep level, embarrassed at abrogating their responsibilities.

  8. TO: All
    RE: Another Dumb Chick Buys a Gun

    This is nothing more, nor anything less, than the sort of twit twaddle we heard earlier from the other ignorant and proud of it, i.e., ‘stupid’, woman—Heidi Yewman—who bought a gun and was totally clueless about what to do with it.

    In other words, another ‘copy cat’ cretin.

    Regards,

    Chuck(le)
    P.S. Let’s ask her to load it, chamber a round, cock it—if it’s not some Glock-format—and sleep with it under her pillow.

    We might get ‘lucky’…..

    • This is nothing more nor anything less, than sort of twit twaddle than another twat like we heard earlier from the other ignorant and proud of it, i.e., ‘stupid’, woman Heidi Yewman—who bought a gun and was totally clueless about what to do with it. Here’s to hoping that they both contract AIDS. Cheers!

      FIFY

    • The actual quote is, “The meek shall inherit the Earth.” Pretty much the same meaning, though.

      At any rate, if they do inherit (any portion of) the Earth it will be through sheer dumb luck, not because they deserve it and worked for their own survival. It still eaves unanswered the question of what they will do with it once they have inherited it. Probably tool up to keep their little piece of hell safe.

      • Not really.

        The ‘meek’ does not equal the ‘weak’.

        You need lessons in Christianity.

        The meek are like sheep armed with AR-15s. They’re just not inclined to use such as readily as the ‘wolves’ are. But they ARE capable of using such. It’s just part of their Christian nature.

      • Please keep your panties in a wad; did you see quote marks in my OP?
        I am quite aware of the phrase and my usage of the word ‘weak’ was an intentional choice which is a call back to the subject’s moral weakness.
        But please feel free to inject your own agenda into the discussion

  9. Harder to vote than obtain an assualt weapon? She is as full of shit as Slick Willy Clinton. He is a convicted liar. If he had another daughter, it would look lick Shelley Zimmerman. I wonder how the investigations on his homes in various countries is going regarding his charity foundation. People should go to Haiti near Cap-Hatien and see the future slums this chump has built to support factories of foreign interests to provide them with cheap labor.

    • Actually, Slick Willie DOES have a daughter. And in my personal opinion, she looks worse that Zimmerman’s misses. And she’s rather thin, as opposed to that hippo Zimmerman is married to.

  10. Nothing they say phases me anymore. I just ignore them. Why spend the time on dime store psychoanalysis. There’s something going on with them, but I don’t pay it any mind until they actually act on their stupidity. Want to spew nonsense ? Go for it. Want to deprive me of my rights ? Now we have a problem. It’s a shame that they have Ll the bully pulpits, but it really doesn’t seem to be working for them so I don’t sweat it.

    • Give it til the end of the week and see how much you think it’s working for them. I’m concerned with the persistence of the anti-freedom movement. You’d have expected them to go back to their Farmville and so on after losing in Congress, but — and this with all the other problems on the administration’s table — they have focused a lot of time and effort on pushing this issue, even though they know, or should, that most people don’t support it and there’s precious little real world justification for their agenda. Why?

      • I think part of it is because you have people like Bloomberg lining the pockets of jackals like the Bradys and the Giffords. As they say, follow the money…

  11. I don’t really have a problem if she’s too scared to defend herself.

    I have a problem if she works to disallow those of us who aren’t too scared, the tools to do so.

  12. I went into reading Ms. Kreuger’s article thinking I would find it overly pious and distasteful, like most anti-gun articles. However, after reading the article and her follow-up comments, I actually think pretty highly of Ms. Kreuger. While extremely ignorant of firearms, she appears to be a pretty open-minded woman who knows she needs something better than a butter knife under her pillow but lacks the self-confidence to take the gun out of the safe. She is fighting the societal programming against gun ownership that she’s been bombarded with he whole life and I think she needs our support and guidance to help her make the right decision for her situation – not insults.

    • I think you are being overly complimentary of this woman who is clearly a liberal of great zeal. She would rather dismiss her son’s homicidal ideation and allow it to fester than be a responsible adult by establishing a home where she does not have to fear an outburst from her own unstable child. She could have a home where she can own a firearm without that overwhelming fear and paranoia that seems to define her existence.

      Just to be clear, we have no idea how old her “youngest” is. She does not appear to be a young woman. When I worked with mentally handicapped people, it was routine to meet 40 year old “consumers” who thought of themselves as children and referred to their vocation as “going to school.”

      However old this woman’s youngest child is, she is clearly a bleeding heart liberal who lives in perpetual fear of violence. She is a political activist who bought a gun knowing she would never use it and knowing she would put it within reach of an unstable young(?) man… not unlike one Nancy Lanza, in that last regard.

    • I agree, to a point. There is the possibility that being around the “culture” will help ease her fears as she gains familiarity with firearms. On the flipside, there is a better than even chance that she is like so many anti-gunners in that logic has no place their reality.

      • there is a better than even chance that she is like so many anti-gunners in that logic has no place their reality.”

        Bingo
        At her age there is only a miniscule chance that she can be de-programed

    • I suspect you are allowing for too much sincerity and honesty on her part. The whole thing sounds to me like a liberal journalist scam article to promote civilian disarmament, kind of like the one a while back about the lady who was going to go 30 days with her pistol but didn’t know how to load it and gave up in fear before the time expired.

      The best way to get published outside the liberal media complex on this subject, if you are an anti-gunner, is to pretend you are being “reasonable” on the subject and then reasonably panic half way through the experiment as any REASONABLE person would do.

  13. “Maybe because I don’t understand a country where, as former President Clinton noted last week, it can be harder to vote than to obtain an assault weapon.”

    where the eff is this again? last time I checked, you do NOT have to show ID to vote in New Mexico. Each and every time I make a FA purchase, I give the FFL all my personal info, submit to a background check, & fill a 4473. and to top it off, NFA “assault” weapons are quite a bit more costly & a little bit of a wait.

    Or maybe these anti-gun people have had trouble buying votes, and they think the gun “buy-backs” count as “obtaining assault weapons”, therefore her statement about voting being harder than obtaining AWs is true (through some twisted logic)

    Cowards? maybe. Misinformed? Definitely

    • Exactly, last time I checked it didn’t take 3-6 months from the time I decide to vote (on election day) to the time I press “Submit Ballot”. That’s what it takes to buy a gun (at least the first one and any subsequent handguns) in NJ.

      Of course, trying to convince someone who spews this garbage to actually go through the FID process wouldn’t work because they’d be proving themselves wrong, and they won’t allow that to happen.

  14. If she bought a gun a year ago and never bothered to familiarize herself with it, then she didn’t take her decision seriously. Is she really that conflicted or did she have this agenda from the start? Heidi Yewman without all fictional drama.

    • Just as liberals expect that guns are evil and will somehow go off all by themselves and shoot people they may have the opposite mindset that if you simply OWN a gun it will automatically defend you when the time comes, with no further action required on your part. (As long as you don’t ever make the mistake of standing in front of the barrel in the meantime, ever.) Since they are magical and scary things simply pointing them in the direction of the threat is obviously all that is necessary for the gun to kill it.

    • Wait I didn’t see the part about one year. A YEAR OF NOT SHOOTING, OR CLEANING A GUN? Holy crap I’m not able to go more than a month before I get irritable and short tempered. How do you just leave it there, not shooting it, or taking it to a class, or cleaning it, or taking it apart and putting it back together, or sitting with it while watching a gun-related movie…?

  15. Maybe she’s a freaking idiot. Maybe she likes to play Hamlet — to be or not to be, that is the question. Maybe it’s the wrong time of the month. Maybe she’s as dumb as a box of hammers. And maybe I don’t give a flying fvck one way or the other about this supercilious, solipsistic cow.

    • I remain awed by the light touch of your habitual understatement.

      It is remarkable, isn’t it, that with more than 500K people defending themselves each year with an item somewhat like her Ruger, Joline can only focus on a short list of nuts and gang-bangers. Because she identifies with them, perhaps, she seems to think if she goes to the range she’ll become them. Maybe she knows herself and maybe she’s right. Quite a peculiar public admission on her part, isn’t it, to as much as say she thinks she’s one stress away from going Aurora?

      • Quite a peculiar public admission on her part, isn’t it, to as much as say she thinks she’s one stress away from going Aurora?

        Actually, a the orange hair dye would bring out her eyes.

  16. It isn’t just anti-gun people. It’s EVERYBODY. I think there world breaks down into two groups of people: those who are aware of their vulnerability and those who choose to not be aware. That vulnerability could entail being the victim of a crime, or a car accident, or an accident at work, or a spouse leaving, or the death of a loved one. The bubble of invulnerability is a warm, cozy place to live. At least until it bursts and then it can be a cold, frightening place.

    I am a below knee amputee and I don’t go to gyms anymore, at least not during typical workout times. It tends to freak out the super-athletic and super-healthy that there are people out there just as determined to be healthy and active as they are, even though they are missing parts. I used to be surprised (and hurt, I’ll admit that) when these kinds of people reacted badly to my presence. Not anymore. And make no mistake, this isn’t my “perception” only; I’ve been asked to either put on long pants or leave at two local gyms. In both cases I went back to my workout and told them to call the F-ing cops if they wanted, but I was finishing before I left.

    There is NOTHING more threatening to most people than having their bubble of invulnerability broken. They will do almost anything to keep it protected and whole. I think the woman that did the whole Moms Demand Action thing is a great example of this. She simply cannot accept the vulnerability of her children and will do ANYTHING to eliminate it. People like her will try ANYTHING that helps them ignore the fact that sh$t happens.

    It doesn’t matter that we recognize she cannot eliminate her vulnerability, only mitigate it. Bad things sometimes happen to good people, and that’s just the way it is.

    • Something you said just connected with me. The MDA crowd should be made to spend a year volunteering at a VA hospital before they were allowed to utter one syllable in public.

  17. Acutually, I carry a gun -because- I’m a wimp. I’m no hardcore MMA, beefcake operator who does operations. I’m just a regular dude who was never very good at fisticuffs. I avoid trouble where ever and when ever I can. I practice situational awareness, and that has removed me from situations that developed into bad times for Bonzo’s. I don’t want trouble, I don’t want to hurt anyone.

    But, Dog forbid, if a bad thing arises, -I- plan to be the one breathing at the end.

    • Maybe a little dyslexic. The name of the movie was “Bedtime for Bonzo”, I think. But I agree with him – I carry because I do not have the training to fight hand-to-hand or the ability to run very far. Col. Colt (or in this case Sturm Ruger SR9c) makes me equal. Unlike the “lady” in question who is unfortunately wasting a very nice little pistol that someone else could be putting to good use.

  18. Yes, you are a coward. You decided you cannot take control of your life and protect yourself or your family which is why you depend on the government to do everything for you. Your that person that calls the police for someone playing music outside, because you’re to lazy to close a window. Its also why you listen to Bill Clinton, because as a liberal you’ve been trained to listen un-hesitantly to those in your group that speak the loudest with the best voice.

    You blame the gun for shootings but people for drunk driving accidents, despite the fact that a gun isn’t even sentient. You believe guns just “go off” because that’s what the media reports. You don’t bother to learn more because your socialist gods told you their scary.

    You don’t understand why people flock to gun stores when a shooting occurs because you lack the concept of responsibility (in case of the same happening to them) or even the mental process to comprehend that its fun to shoot. You don’t see gun saving lives because either A: It doesn’t escalate to a shooting therefore goes unknown or B: The media doesn’t report it. Because that’s what your idols told the media not to do.

    I can go on and on about this, but ill stop there because im sure ill somehow catch enough flame the way it is.

  19. “Maybe they just don’t want to face anything scary. ”

    Hell, I don’t want to face anything scary. But sometimes scary doesn’t care what you want. Then what are you going to do?

    • In her case she’s going to hope like hell there is a cop or some CCW individual near by who is willing to risk using THEIR weapon to protect her, then whine and whimper if she gets shot anyway. (And probably try to find someone to sue if she survives.)

  20. Being a history buff, I can say with near certainty that today’s gun control advocates are as brave or cowardly as the National-Socialists who took away the rights of Jews to own firearms in Germany in the 1930s.

    • Within 5 months of the Riechstag Fire brave Socialists, mostly the SA, were shooting unarmed protestors on the streets as well as torturing 10,000’s in their private concentration camps, in fact it was the only way to advance up through the SA ranks

    • For this liberal woman, buying the pistol & ammo was the easy part. Finding someone to take her to the range & train her in the safe handling and effective use of that firearm – that’s the rub. She’s probably already lost friends among the artsy-f@rtsy set for her act of heresy (liberals are so tolerant) so the likelihood of her getting the proper training is remote.

      She’ll probably turn the gun in to the po-po, recant her sin, and…..problem solved, conscience cleared. Yeah, that’ll solve everything.

  21. I do not think it is cowardice, merely one of the many faults in human nature. It is easier and more emotionally comforting to point fingers and blame someone/something else than accept responsibility for yourself and your actions. Kids lies to avoid getting in trouble for their misbehavior thinking it will be easier on them rather than admit they were misbehaving and accept the consequences. Same principle here.

  22. i doubt all gun grabbers are like this one. Fear is a positive and healthy emotion, it keeps us on our toes and alert for danger. Having a special needs child who threatens to use the gun sounds like a real danger to me. Now, there is no free lunch, you have to weigh the risk of having the gun vs. that of the risk of the child getting it (assuming appropriate precautions).

    That said, this is really an example of an irresponsible gun owner. Having a gun and not knowing how to use it safely is irresponsible. This is the worst possible choice, you have a gun, your child might get it, but you have no idea how to use it. Its all risk and no benefit.

    • Interesting observation – she has an SR9, she has taken no time or trouble to learn how to use it, but she really believes her “special needs” child can figure it out and kill his brother? She definitely has a low conception of what it takes to operate a semi-automatic pistol with TWO safeties on board. (Slide safety and Glock-style trigger.) And that leaves out the safety of either not leaving a round in the chamber or locking up the magazine separate from the pistol since the SR9 will not fire the round in the chamber if the magazine is not present. Since she obviously has no intention of ever using this pistol I can’t see any reason why she would want to keep it around loaded and ready to fire anyway. Unless his special needs status does not include him being significantly less intelligent than her (if that’s possible) it should not be difficult to make this weapon nearly impossible for him to fire either accidentally or purposefully.

      By the way, is it only me or does she look like Rosanne Barr’s sister?

  23. No, not all gun grabbers; there are always exceptions to rules about human behavior; (that’s one of the rules), but I digress; just see some of the behavior of some of the teachers at Sandy Hook. Courageous, but futile and rather pathetic, one person with a gun and ithe willingness to use it in defense of the helpless,; I wish I could have been there., anyway.

    We can say though that gun grabbers are delusional, in denial and some are outright insane. Others in power are mostly there for the power and it is easier to control people that are victims.

    Jeff Snyder had a book compiled with Second Amendment essays he had written over the years called “A nation of cowards”,. He wrote about how a large majority of Americans had turned away from responsibility to be the protectors of their communities and placed that on the shoulders of the police and military.

    He called those people cowards.

    I would agree with him; anyone that thinks it’s OK for the police to shoot and kill a human predator to keep him from hurting or killing another human being but is unwilling to pull the trigger themselves is, in my opinion, a coward.

    The only exception would be a true pacifist that would rather take the bullet intended for the murderer intent on killing them rather than let that bullet end the the life of that predator. ( Makes no sense to me, but I respect a person with that much conviction that they would put their life on the line to defend a belief.)

    • We may be missing the point that there are at least two kinds of Civilian Disarmament types – the useful idiots like this lady, who really believe that guns are bad, and the political operatives who have convinced them in order to promote their own brand of tyranny without armed response from the populace they intend to enslave. The useful idiots may well be easy to convince due to some level of personal cowardice, I would not ever make the mistake of thinking their political overlords are afraid to use whatever level of force or coercion they might find expedient. Remember, the argument is that civilians, “the people” cannot be trusted with guns, not that the government should not have them or the authority to use them.

  24. It appears that she hasn’t made a final decision. She is just apprehensive. I think many people forget how difficult it can be to get over the brainwashing that could have occurred (intentionally or unitentionally) when growing up in a family that doesn’t own a gun.

    Since she appears to be reading and responding to questions, why not go to her site and post some encouragement to take a class that can help ease soem of her fears. It was really tough for me and I suspect it will be even tougher for her. why not try to ease her into it instead of turn on her in a moments notice?

    • I really doubt she was ever serious about this. The only thing I would encourage her to do, since I don’t think she will EVER be psychologically capable of making good decisions about when and how to use a pistol for self defense, would be to take that pistol back where she bought it and sell it back, then get a bunch of t-shirts printed for her and her family that say, front and back, “Please don’t shoot us, we’re unarmed.”

  25. To me, a lot of the issues that cause controversy always seem to be rooted in the same central issue: Accountability.

    Yes, there are crazy gun guys that claim they’re gung ho about starting a revolution and setting the country straight based on half-truths that conspiracy theorist websites have given them, but they’re willing to be accountable for the defense of themselves and their families.

    It’s actually a big responsibility. For many of us, we don’t see it as an option. We’ve read reports of how quickly things turn bad in a home invasion, or in a random act of violence brought about by boredom, and while the majority of us never want to have to use that firearm to stop a threat, we wouldn’t be able to live with the idea that we had the option and refused it if tragedy struck and our families were targeted.

    When I’ve asked those that favor gun control what they would do if their children or loved ones were attacked, they often cite using 911. Or pepper spray. Or they’ll take it a step further, and claim that even if they had a gun, they don’t believe they’d ever be able to use one on a person.

    Again, accountability. None of us asks to be in a tragic situation. Whether it’s a flood, a fire, or a bad guy deciding the lives of you and your family are worth less than the money or valuables he can take from you. But understanding that the government doesn’t believe that they are responsible for individual protection is all that someone who truly understands their duty to their families and loved ones should need to know.

    If you believe you need to keep your loved ones safe and healthy, you try to always be prepared to survive for at least a week if there is no means to get groceries. You keep fire extinguishers around the house and make sure everyone is aware of how they are used. And you keep a firearm and you train in its use.

    What you don’t do, is have something horrible happen, and afterward show up on the talk show circuit demanding to know why The Government wasn’t there to help you. Ultimately, they don’t care about the individual. Ultimately, when tragedy strikes, you’re the only one that really cares about you and yours – and likely the only one who can do anything to help them anyway.

    It’s a scary truth, and not owning up to it is indeed a form of cowardice.

    • Hey! It looks like there are two Colbys here! Guess we’ll have to figure out away to differentiate ourselves. I call dibs on No.1Colby and you can have ColbyNo.1.

      Just Kidding. 😉

  26. She seems to think she would align herself with those that would do ill (or at least those who she perceives to do ill, ala LaPierre and Zimmerman) with the same firearm she has purchased.

    She can’t seem to realize that guns save more lives.

    She can’t seem to realize that a tool doesn’t make you do anything. You’re not Derek Jeter when you pick up a bat and you’re not Claude Monet when you pick up a paintbrush. When you pick up a gun or any other object you’re still just you, just as you’ve always been. It’s not unusual to pick up an inanimate object and have a reaction when you hold it, but if you pick it up and you have a negative reaction then maybe you should be thinking more about who YOU really are, rather than what the object is.

  27. It seems to me that these people aren’t entirely out of touch with reality but they ain’t exactly tuned in all the way either. She bought a gun and i respect her for that decision however she didn’t bother to learn about it i.e. how it functions how to store it safely and everything else the rest of us go to great pains to learn in the end her article is a half assed quasi political propaganda piece for the anti movement that just happens to mention a gun in an attempt to appear to take in both sides of the arguement

  28. Maybe she is trying to user herself as a sociological experiment to fabricate evidence of her own pre-determined conclusions regarding psychology of gun owners.

  29. Most ive met fall into 2 groups. Aforementioned poosay’s and those that arent comfortable with guns to do no or low exposure but they arent poosay’s either.

    There will always be those that lie down and bare their soft underbelly for others.

  30. Maybe we need to keep guns away from parents with mentally disabled children? I’m sure she’d love that one.

  31. I think it’s more a failure to take responsibility for ones’ own well being than cowardice.

    It’s the same type of thinking that allows people to advocate the creation or continuation of social programs that insulate people from the consequences of their decisions and actions.

    Responsible people may not be pro-gun, but they can at least understand the concept of taking ownership. What she’s attempting to do is make it someone else’s responsibility to ensure her security in the face of what she claims to believe to be a credible threat. Hope that works out for her.

  32. Ardent’s Axiom: One cannot be honest, sane, and well informed simultaneously while also advocating civilian disarmament.
    One leg must always be missing, such that one may advocate for disarmament for political, social or economic goals without believing in it, but then one is dishonest. One may advocate for disarmament because one is pathologically afraid of them, but then one is not fully sane. One may advocate for disarmament because one believes it is for the greater good, but then one is not well informed.
    When encountering an anti, ask yourself, is this person dishonest, mentally ill or misinformed. I think you will find that they are always at least one of these, though they may present more than one at a time.
    Updated: They can also be cowardly, but this simply goes hand in hand with the concepts above, that is, their cowardice stems from their internal dishonesty, misinformation or personality disorders or some combination thereof. It, the cowardice, is merely a symptom of an underlying flaw.

  33. Lest we get to far off the rails, Newton was caused by a son with issues who killed his mother and took her guns to the school.

    While I firmly believe our right to own guns should not be abridged in any fashion, I do think that some people should not have a gun. I would prefer that the group that does not want guns would be self selecting and have the sense to leave the rest of us alone.

    • But then they must force conformity on or demonize the rest of us to validate their choice to themselves. Thay CANNOT act alone on an individual decision.

  34. Isn’t there someone reading this post who lives in Albuquerque, and can just get the poor woman out to a range for an hour? Teach her how to keep her means of defense out of the hands of kids? Joline seems mildly obsessive. It would be nice if she could learn to obsess on writing “I finally learned that my gun can be controlled… by me.”

  35. I realize that my situation isn’t repeatable or perhaps even desirable for replication, however the environment I was raised in would certainly produce fear induced seizures in many of these people.

    I shot my first real fire arm at age 4, own and kept my own rifle and ammunition at 8 and often took it afield sans supervision. In the homes of my grandparents and many of my aunts uncles and cousins loaded guns were such a common sight that unless it was a new gun or of interesting design they were more akin to decoration that anything very interesting.

    There were a lot of us kids. . . I eventually ended up with 36 first cousins on my mothers side with an age range covering better than 25 years. Despite the enormous numbers of guns and children there were no shootings, no near misses, no OMG moments, not one blip on the radar.

    In the same way a toddler can be taught to avoid a hot stove or a lighted kerosene heater they can be taught to avoid a firearm. Of course this requires careful supervision, something we had plenty of in early childhood. Just like a baby is taught not to touch the stove but an older child can be taught to use it safely we learned about guns at a pace appropriate to our age and maturity. I had cousins who were older who were not permitted personal weapons while I was though younger than them. Maturity, responsibility and a proven track record were the determining factors.

    When it came my generations time to raise children of their own most passed along the gun safety and handling skills they had themselves learned as children. Rather than insulate their children from guns generally, they instead took reasonable precautions (don’t leave loaded guns where the very little can get at them) and teach children safe and responsible gun handling as soon as they are ready, by stages, as appropriate.

    Now, when I was little we also commonly road on the front armrest in the car in the position I know think of as ‘pre launch’, since in the event of a frontal collision we were set to become missiles. Helmets were things that soldiers and football players wore, not things one road motorcycles and bicycles with, and loaded guns were often in the corner of a room where children played.

    I’m not saying we should return to any of those unsafe practices, but the fact that we all survived, especially vis a vie the fire arms is a strong statement that ‘accidents’ involving children and guns are as much a training and discipline problem as anything.

    Admittedly, in my family gun culture was nearly cult-like (in a good way), and it wasn’t uncommon for guns to be put away when uninitiated friends were over to play. One simply couldn’t trust that they had the skills, respect and discipline to be safe around arms. However the contrast simply illustrates what appropriate training does to the safety ratio between guns and kids; ‘little Johnny owns a rifle and keeps it and ammunition in his room but when little Timmy comes over to play the rifle has to be put away because Timmy might not have the requisite training to safely handle (or not handle) the weapon.

    Which do you think works better in the long run; pretending that children will never have access to guns, or training children how to safely handle (or to ignore/refuse contact with) guns?

    The former saves lives in a variety of ways and teaches responsibility and accountability the advantages of which last a lifetime, the latter is a fantasy that can result in tragic consequences when it’s proven false.

      • Thank you Ralph, that means a lot coming from a respected commenter.

        Though I note I reversed the former/latter appellations in the closing sentence making it contradict everything else I said and meant to say. I suppose the sentiment carried it off despite the error.

        I wonder if the mods could help me out with an edit on that?. . . it’s really irksome that I missed it in my read through and changes the meaning to the opposite of what I intended.

    • You’ll have to work on that whole former/latter thing, but otherwise Ralph is right; you hit the 10 ring.

  36. It’s funny, this dynamic of “I rationally feel I need a gun but I’m too freaked out to touch it, and guns are bad, bad, bad anyway” is reminiscent of something I see crop up in religious debates. You have a certain number of people that want desperately to belong to group X (in this case, the gun-control crowd) but they can’t bring themselves to believe or behave the way group X demands, but they manage to find a modicum of acceptance in that group by constantly groveling about how torn-up they are not to believe in or do what the group wants them to.

    This isn’t about guns; it’s about salvaging identity and group-affiliation.

    • Good insight DaveL. It’s often more about affiliation or identification than the issues involved when talking about these sorts of people. Unlike those who actually have the conviction of their beliefs, people like the antis are often in search of an identity and cycle in and out of various astro-turf groups seeking to define themselves.

  37. So…
    “Mostly, there is this: My youngest, who is special needs, got angry at an older brother recently and threatened to get my gun and shoot him.”
    Basically she believes the actions of retards should preclude normal folks from the option of defending themselves from said retards.
    Amirite?

    • No. Many OPs here have pointed out that “special needs” comprises a wide spectrum of illnesses and disorders.

  38. Calculated move. Claim to try, push agenda without actually trying. Play on emotions by referring to tragedy. Seems to be part of anti gun playbook now.

  39. Calculated move; Claim to try, push agenda without actually trying. Play on emotions by referring to tragedy. Seems to be part of anti gun playbook now. We’ll see many more similar articles.

  40. Calculated move; Claim to try, doesn’t try, push agenda. play on emotions by referring to tragedy. Seems to be part of anti gun playbook now. We’ll see many more similar articles.

  41. “Mostly, there is this: My youngest, who is special needs, got angry at an older brother recently and threatened to get my gun and shoot him.”

    This woud be compelling, save for the slight quibble that kids say that sort of crap all the time.

    Hell, a toddler might actually mean a threat of death, whatever the weapon of choice.

    That’s one reason why those who are chronologically say, eight years old do not have majority.

    ‘Course, a mental age of eight is no disqualifier to (f’rinstance) journalism, public “service” or reproduction.

    Why must “they” give soap boxes to “people” with IQs of room temerature in Celsius in an igloo?

  42. Just as well. Her ruger was going to be woefully outgunned against the ghosts of all those crazies, crooks and victims she’s so terrified of. She doesn’t need a sidearm, she needs a proton pack.

  43. Your links are correct, but they’re to the Albuquerque Journal. The Albuquerque Tribune ceased publishing in 2008.

  44. Maybe if gun control advocates don’t want guns, and hence, abrogate their responsibilities to protect their families, which is a HUMAN RIGHT, then they shouldn’t have families either. Government should take their children from them because they can’t protect their children and families properly. Only saying. But, it’s not that far-fetched. Once government starts coming for children through Obamacare, watch the bleeding heart liberal, left-wing nutcase gun grabbers start demanding the gun rights owners defend them.

  45. What I have noted is that most liberals demonstrate ignorance about guns in general. They can’t seem to fathom the difference, for example, between a “clip” and a magazine. Nor do they realize that guns cannot fire themselves. So, calling guns “dangerous” is foolhardy. And only those who are criminally negligent allow their kids unsupervised access to guns. All that is required to get over that knot in your stomach is to take a firearms safety course from …… oh let’s say the NRA who has been teaching firearms safety and skill at arms for over a century to law enforcement, hunters and sport shooters alike. Their Eddy Eagle safety program that teaches kids the right things to do should they come cross gun has been taught in schools for many years. So take the course, Lady. Learn how to master your new gun instead of continuing to let it master you.

  46. Well, yeah. It’s Albuquerque. I love the 505, miss it too. Good to see that some people there are waking up. Unfortunately she’ll most likely be chastised for writing such an article. Which is weird because people in NM never question why you own a gun. But people in GA always freak out when they see you carrying a gun.

  47. 1.5 million defensive gun uses a day (taking a median estimate) divided by 365 gives us approximately 4,200 DGUs a day. I guess if they don’t happen in Ms. Krueger’s site they didn’t happen.

  48. Jolene once wrote that the same people who want to own guns want to take away your right to an abortion, the latter being a right she holds in high esteem. Maybe the Ruger in her hand cognitively dissonanced her.

  49. There are 4 basic attitudes about self defense

    1) “Gun owners”: I believe I can win. I rarely practice, I rarely carry, and I believe that however good I shoot is “good enough”. Despite my mediocre skill level, odds are actually pretty good I will win, if I just bother to carry. About half of the situations in which I end up shooting could have been avoided, if I had a self-defense plan, skill and training that was more than “have a gun”.

    2) “Shooters”: I believe I can win, because I’ve trained to a realistic standard, not my state’s minimum carry permit requirements. I carry as often as I can. Because I understand the dangers, I’ll do what I can to avoid gunplay, but should it be required, I will not hesitate to act, because I have confidence in my skill. My odds of being in a gunfight are lower than a “gun owner”‘s, but my odds of winning, should I end up in one, are much better because I have trained properly for it.

    3) “Asleep”: Nothing will ever happen to me. If I had to, I could probably handle being armed and carrying, but I don’t need to because I’m (insert self-deluding rationalization here). If something bad happens, my legally armed friends/neighbors/co-workers can protect me so I don’t have to bother with the hassle of carrying and training.

    4) “Afraid”. I don’t believe that I could safely own or handle a gun. I could never use one to defend myself. That attitude must be “normal”, because I am “normal”. That means those that believe they can be safe with guns and use them for self-defense are dangerous fools that could shoot me. I probably can’t disarm the criminals but I can use gun laws to disarm all the scary gun nuts. I hate them because their confidence in armed self-defense is a constant reminder of my own character flaws and fear.

  50. Albuquerque has another problem ; Dylan Maho – who was found one night, completely nude, peering into the window where two young girls were sleeping. Maho was ” rustling the bushes “, making moaning noises and possibly ” treating his body like an amuzement park ” ! The girls’ Father and a brother, chased Maho, caught him and the understandedly enraged Father beat the snot out of Maho. Many pedophile / sexual predators only become more bold. At some point, Maho might just be breaking into homes with sleeping children to satisfy his ” urges “. It may become necessary for Ms. Krueger to defent her family and herself from the ” Maho-s ” in her community. Visit the Blaze for more about this news story that the Corrupt Media is ignoring. A parent’s responsibility is to provide for AND to protect their children, Ms. Kreuger. Time to grow up.

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