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41 COMMENTS

  1. What do I love about guns? The fact that they throw a projectile down range in anger and help to feed my testosterone-fueled ego! 😉

  2. The mechanical intricacy of them
    The competition involved with IDPA/USPSA
    The concentration, skill, precision, and athleticism (to a degree) required to shoot them well
    The never ending challenge to improve the skills required to shoot them well
    The defensive capability of them
    The fact that they are a reason to get outside and get active
    The fact that there are so many different types for different purposes
    The fact that there are few “right answers” to things, so everyone has something different that works for them

    • Nice!

      I would also add immediacy – pull the trigger, gun goes off. No waiting, no PC Load Letter, boot up time, etc. Just a bang which you are now responsible for, so make damn sure you know what you are doing before you pull the trigger, because that bullet is flying and you can’t take it back.

  3. I love that you can put food on the table as well defend yourself with them. Plus I really enjoy shooting at targets as well. Now to find the money to get my CCW as well for my wife & pistols for both of us to carry open as well as concealed.

    I just wish I could shot tracer rounds, but it is illegal because they are afraid it will start a forest fire. Which begs a question are tracer rounds able to start a forest on fire without something an accelerant involved. This would have to include a very dry forest.

  4. That’s a tough question, since like many good things, guns have so much to love about them. One definite point is that they are mechanical devices that make sense and do exactly what I tell them to do without asking questions. If only computers ran like a 1911. . .

  5. Guns place a large amount of power at your fingertip.
    A small finger movement and something is effected a long ways away.
    Purely mechanical device.
    Fantastic workmanship.
    American history can be told with guns.
    Romance of them (Cowboy, Dirty Harry, Sniper).
    Durability – 100+ year old guns still fire perfectly.
    Form follows function to grand heights, even art.
    Feeling of freedom from threats (empowerment).
    I can place food on the table with one.

    There are many other esoteric reasons, but basically I like the way they feel, look, and work. It’s almost as if they would HAVE to be invented.

  6. What do I love about guns?
    1. They obey me if confronted by a criminal who will not.
    2. Shooting stuff is fun.
    3. Liberals hate them.
    4. Criminals hate them in the hands of intended victims.
    5. Wearing one concealed in the presence of someone who would scream like a little girl if they knew is fun.

  7. Speaking as an old “bullseye” shooter, I like the competition of shooting. Competition against others and competition against myself. I imagine it dates back to prehistoric times when caveman Grog challenged caveman Brog to a rock throwing contest. The guy that could throw a rock the farthest with accuracy was the better hunter, at least until bows and arrows were invented. And a gun is just another way to accurately throw rocks…… little lead ones out hundreds of yards. I just enjoy the heck out of sending a target 50 feet down range and trying to shoot it 10 times thru the same hole.

  8. I live in a very anti-gun area, so it makes shooting and connecting with fellow shooters even sweeter.
    Plus, it’s just plain damned fun to put rounds downrange and hit with skill and precision.

  9. That humbling feeling when you pull the trigger and miss. Just means you have to shoot more!

    The various devices and applications.
    The mechanics.
    The necessity to a free state & my duty as an American citizen.

  10. What do I love about guns? So many things. But, I’ll just say this:

    I love that owning and firing guns is quintessentially AMERICAN.

  11. I think it’s the historical perspective for me, that follows on to the political, and the fact I’m not allowed to have one.

  12. Most people enjoy art. It may be a painting, a photograph, blown glass bowls or maybe a vase. I enjoy the works of art that are in fact firearms. While the Picasso, is amazing to look at, with a firearm I get to do more than just look at it. I get to use it and it can do something a Picasso can’t. Protect my life and my families life as well.
    Chad

  13. More than anything, I love what they represent – freedom from a tyrannical government and protection from those who would do harm to me or my family and loved ones.

    I also love the discomfort level they cause the liberal, bleeding hearts.

  14. I mean, think about it, The United States has never had a time where there were no guns. The importance of guns through out history and throughout our future is just, astonishing. Not to mention, that feeling of hitting a target, knowing you were the “marksman” who pulled the trigger. Also, if someone is trying to get me, I know I at least have a fighting chance.

  15. What I like most about guns is shooting. Non- Shooters and anti-Shooters never seem to understand the reason why people enjoy the shooting sports. As a lifelong shooter who exists in a cross section of society which is less gun-immersed, I often find myself in the seemingly untenable position of trying to explain my sport to these individuals. What is the reason people shoot guns they ask? They can’t understand what is appealing about the activity. This inability to understand starts with a misconception about what shooting actually is and is combined with a misapplied consideration… the fact that most normal people do not like violence, war, crime or whatever.

    That sport shooting doesn’t intrinsically have anything to do with violence, war, or crime is THE number one mental block non-shooters have in the way of understanding the appeal of this activity. This is a formidable and understandable mental block for a non-gun-immersed individual, because the only context they’ve likely ever seen guns depicted in is violence, war, or crime. Making it even harder on them is that these contexts are usually depicted in a glorified manner in movies, stories, or the news. With the idea of the gun associated only to these few limited contexts, it is quite difficult for them to imagine the broader (real) world of guns. I encourage them try to acknowledge this block and the reasons why they have it and that violence, war, crime, and their glorification for better or worse are really unrelated philosophical debates. The second prevalent misconception non-shooters have about shooters is that they think the allure is some kind of rush from things that go “bang” or “a sense of power”? They believe this because in the glorified violence they consume, this is what the gun is often chosen to symbolize. This is a literary choice, a storytelling convention, it while some may not be able to separate symbol from underlying meaning, most people can. Sport shooting is neither violent nor an exercise externalizing power.

    What guns sports are really all about is self-control. The practical goal is to hit as close to that little X in the middle of the target when, if visible at all, looks scant more than a pin prick in your field of view. That little post at the end of the barrel, the front sight, often appears several times wider than the X ring when you aim.

    The whole “shooting match” is really just an indicator of how well you silenced your body before, during, and just after the shot. It is a test of your self-control. The pin prick you are aiming at is so small and so far away that when you breathe you move enough to miss the whole target board. When you swallow you move enough to miss the paper. When you blink and when your heart beats you move enough to miss the X ring.

    So like any meditation activity you need to be aware of and control all of these things. You need to develop your skills of self-control to a level much higher than ordinarily needed in everyday life. You need to control the tension in every muscle of your body. You need to reach that state, and do so in spite of the fact that you know at the peak of your stillness an explosion is going to occur mere inches from your face and the firearm is going recoil. This combination of stillness and force is both a physical and a psychological challenge. I contend that attaining the required stillness to hit that X ring under these conditions is a far more challenging meditation than anything that could be required of you in tai-chi or yoga class. Also appealing with respect to other meditative activities is that your level of success at it isn’t left for some esoteric interpretation. There is an indication left for you and anyone else to see tacked to a board waiting for you down range. Proof.

    Sport shooting is not about feeling power or a simulation of violent activity. Sport shooting is an exercise in self-control. It is a setting for meditation. It has the same components people easily recognize in other meditative activities and some additional challenges on top of those. That’s why I and many others enjoy it, and that is what I like most about guns.

    • This. A million times this. I’m never more relaxed and happy than after a good session at the range. In my daily life, I have worry about all sorts of things all the time. But when I’m at the range, all that goes away and I’m in the zone Don describes.

  16. The feeling of personal empowerment. The sense that when armed I don’t have to fear anyone or anything. The idea that they better fear me.

    Does on one relate to those things?

    • Why can’t you just answer the question honestly?

      Or, if you can’t or don’t want to, why can you just not say anything at all?

      Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

      • Matt, why would you think that was not an honest answer? I can assure you it was based on my personal experience with guns, which I’m happy to say was quite some years ago.

        The reason I’m happy about that is because since then, I’m not part of the problem like you guys are.

        The exhilaration and false sense of safety brought about by carrying and using guns is irresistible to the fearful and insecure. I don’t expect you to see that much less admit it but that’s my experience and observation.

        • So based on the immature way you felt about guns when you had one in a single limited context, you generalize your experience to all people who like guns? That is not fair, and more important logically falacious.

          It does take some level of maturity and responsibility to safely own and use a gun, and virtually any adult who can pass a nics background check has it. If you don’t, it is you with the unusual psychology.

          I offer another hypothesis. Your views on the psychology of gun owners is a projection of your own patological one. You claim to have once had a gun because you were fearful and insecure presumably of and about other people. You chose a gun as a pacifier for these feelings. Then moving closer to the root of the problem you became fearful and insecure about yourself with the gun and your feelings about it. Instead of admiting to yourself the problem was in you, you blamed the gun. Your new pacifier for your personal fear and insecurity is to pretend everything external to you is perverted rather than just yourself. That you stand alone as an example of rationality and healthy psyche is highly unlikely.

        • “you generalize your experience to all people who like guns”

          Not really. I described my experience and wondered why not one single commenter had anything like that. Seems odd. I wouldn’t expect “all people who like guns” to react like I did, but NOT ONE?

      • I think you do not see anyone feeling that way here because exhileration simply due to carrying a gun is kind of screwed up. If this were a group of gangbangers and criminals you would see that. Very few people in the real have psychologies inclined toward that way of life.

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