19 thoughts on “Dumbing Us Down”

  1. Freud’s mystic world of meaning needn’t have us mystified
    It’s really very simple what the psyche tries to hide:
    A thing is a phallic symbol if it’s longer than it’s wide
    As the id goes marching on.

    Much better when Melanie sings it.

  2. The cops occasionally shoot and kill people who they believe are brandishing a firearm. When this happens, nobody says the cops are idiots or hoplophobes for defending themselves except for Al Sharpton and others of his ilk.

    1. You’re generalizing. When police shoot someone, they don’t get an automatic pass. Their actions are reviewed to determine whether they acted properly — and not by Al Sharpton, either.

      1. You miss my point, which is that from a distance, lots of things can look like a weapon, even to someone properly schooled in the use of firearms like a cop.

        1. Not sure that cops are good examples of people properly schooled in the use of firearms. There was an article last year about a cop literally shooting himself in the foot at a school assembly when bragging that he was probably the only one in the room who could safely handle his sidearm.

        2. You miss my point, which is that from a distance, lots of things can look like a weapon, even to someone properly schooled in the use of firearms like a cop.

          So what? They can look closer.

  4. I can tell you the flip side of people seeing ‘guns’ everywhere also exists in misidentifying WHO has a firearm when they know they’ve seen a ‘gun’, or in just wanting to talk to me about my pistol.

    I have my CCH and I never leave my house without my pistol. I cut the grass wearing my pistol, not out of necessity either. This is a very nice neighborhood, and I fully intend to keep it that way.

    Two things showed up early on when I started carrying. African-Americans are three or four times as likely to speak to me about my pistol than any other group. Kids I lump together, they all want to see it, but I never do that unless it’s kids / families I know. And AA women are ten times more likely to speak than AA men. The exception being LEOs, retired LEOs or retired military men. The AA women somehow notice my pistol even under a shirt or jacket and a good 25% call the size of the pistol without actually seeing it.

    (I’ve re-read and re-written that three times and it still comes out sounding odd and comes out doesn’t help)

    If by chance my pistol comes out from under my shirt or jacket and a Caucasian person (yeah, I ain’t white, if they ain’t black, sorry) notices it, 75% ask if I’m an under cover LEO. I invariably deny that because I’m not and I don’t ever want anyone to think I’m posing as an LEO. There are, after all, laws about such things, with stiff fines and jail time.

    What’s weird is that many of them say, “…OK, I get it..”, as if they are now ‘in’ on something when I deny being anything other than a law abiding gun owner, with permits to carry.

    I do get that guns, gun ownership, etc is a hugely different topic with different attitudes here in the South than it is in Jersey or Boston (from FKA Skeptic’s link) But many of our ‘locals’ here are from the Northeast now.

    And I have detected many a MA, NJ, NY or other ‘yankee’ asking me gun questions, and not going off on a typical liberal tirade. I had one guy tell me he grew up in Southie and his dad worked for Whitey Bulger. And honestly at the time it meant nothing to me.

    (I’m Half-Heinz 57 / Half-Italian, my mother is from L.I., if he’d been from NYC and said Lucchese, Bonanno or Gambino, well, to THAT I woulda’ said fugadaboudit!)

    Maybe there’s something in the water up there in the NE, that wears off after they are here for a while.

    1. “And AA women are ten times more likely to speak than AA men. “

      One thing I do feel the ‘pro gun groups’ should do is intense training and credentialing of urban minorities. Something like “Chance for a Free Glock!” would probably violate some prohibition against guns as prizes. But range time or something….

      What I’m saying is, push -training-, awareness and willingness towards the groups most likely to have problems with oppression in their own neighborhood.

    2. I am really confused whether you are engaging in open or concealed carry. It sounds like your weapon is “openly discernible to ordinary observation.” I know several people with concealed carry permits and no one can spot their weapon.

      1. “I know several people with concealed carry permits and no one can spot their weapon.”

        Permission to hide the weapon isn’t the same as a -requirement- to do so. And identifying someone with a weapon doesn’t require spotting the actual weapon. (Often it just requires looking for the bad suits.)

        1. It’s a violation in Texas if the weapon is “openly discernible to ordinary observation.” Concealed carry actually means the concealed carry in Texas. Maybe it’s not a violation where Der Schtumpy lives.

          1. What makes you think the weapon here is “openly discernible to ordinary observation”? Der Schtumpy has already stated that he wears it under clothing. Spotting the weapon while speaking at length to the person carrying doesn’t strike me as qualifying as ordinary observation.

          2. Here in NC the ‘preferred’ method is open carry, before CCH was legalized here you hardly if ever saw a civilian with a gun. There were stiff fines for even partial concealment of a pistol. That was one reason why I didn’t get a pistol then, it was just too easy to get fined.

            I said sometimes my pistol will show out from under my shirt or jacket, here’s what I should have said.

            Getting in and out of the car or pick up, my shirt or jacket rides up on my right side. When I go t the stores, I always use the handicap go cart. In getting up and down, again, my shirt or jacket rides up and my pistol is out.

            Jardinero1,
            95% of people don’t realize I am carrying. But for some reason, there are people who ‘spot’ the bulge or see the weight on my side just from the way I waddle.

            When I first started carrying we went to a family dinner at my brothers house. None of the adults noticed my pistol. But my then 8 year old nephew asked me if we could go shooting in the woods next to their house.

            That day, I had on a pull over golf shirt with a long tail, and much of the day I had on a sweatshirt because we were cooking on the deck. I have zero idea how he knew it. Or how any of the other people sight it under my clothing.

            This falls (I think?) into a category of kids just seeing the world without all the blinders adults build up. And they have no buffer when asking questions out in public. Kids are totally unencumbered by not having all the ‘rules’ adults have about talking to people.

            Having just written that, I’ve got a new theory. Perhaps a bunch of people see it, but don’t say anything because it might be a tumor or a colostomy bag.

  5. What kinds of movies are kids watching in schools these days if they can’t identify a gun?

    2. Most of the live kids shows never show any firearms, and the cartoons only show some kind of futuristic laser type hand guns. So they don’t have a point of reference.

      I think the other thing is that even IF grand dad or Uncle Bubba have guns, they’re in a safe locked away. When I was a kid my grandfather had two pistols in his sock and underwear drawer. I knew they were there and I know my younger brother knew also. I had seen my grandfather tke out his .38 to check on noises behind his garage in the alley.

      But I also knew the penalty for going into ANYTHING, except the toy box or board game closet, in my grandparents house was a hanging by the thumbs or a fiery cauldron offense. So the thought of touching my grandfathers pistols wasn’t ever going to happen.

      If the choice had been, touch those guns, or spit in the Devil’s eye.

      I would have been in a graveyard, at a crossroads, during a full moon, with a Ouija Board, a crystal ball, and some Tarot Cards, dancing naked covered in chicken blood, chewing a stick of Juicy Fruit, to ensure I had a supply of saliva at just…the right…moment…SPLAT!

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