Bang! Bang! Shoot em' up! Shoot 'em up. Yeah.
A highly controversial and debatable subject in the U.S. is the right to arm ourselves. Are we or are we not able to have guns for our personal protection?
Well, you may be more opinionated than I or less so, but this is what I have to say (because it came up this morning and may or may not have ruined the day for us/created some hopefully just temporary tension in the group):
Guns. I am terrified of guns. My uncle has guns, because my uncle in Colorado hunts. He is a responsible man who uses his gun for that purpose, recreational hunting and that only. He hunts in season and is a wildlife lover. Yes I know that sounds ironic and for those of you who are very much against animal hunting, I am as well, but I love my Uncle Dwaine and that is how he was raised. It is his way of life and I will respect him by not saying much about it. I count on him obeying the laws and not over hunting. My opinions about HIM hunting are not as severe, because he donated his own land to wildlife conservation and donates some kills to the local wolf sanctuary with whom the founder is a good friend. Also, if we humans are going to wipe out the natural hunters, the wolves, cougars, bears, etc, we must take responsibility for keeping the status quo and cull the herds of plant eaters ourselves to keep the wildlife healthy. Still don't understand think I'm an enemy of PETA? DO YOUR FRIGGIN' HOMEWORK. I am an animal lover. DO YOUR HOMEWORK BEFORE YOU JUDGE. I could go on about this forever, but hunting is not what I'm really talking about.
Guns.
I am terrified of guns. I have never been interested in guns. I hate gun violence in movies, especially when it's action films. I respect action films that rely on hand to hand combat or with swords or something, something that takes skill. Anybody can shoot a gun. Anybody. And it's terrifying.
At brunch today, one of my friends said she was excited to get a revolver. She is being licensed and taught by her father to operate and own a gun. I asked her what for and of course, it is for her safety. She wants to use the revolver for personal defense. After hearing her explanation and having been confronted with gun issues/protection as a woman before in college, I turned to another friend who I was sitting next to and said, "You know, it couldn't hurt how to learn how to use a gun."
For these reasons: number one, if you had to protect yourself or disarm a weapon, it's good to know how to, without accidentally hurting yourself OR somebody around you who is not a "target." With the combination of martial arts/personal defense and you were successful at removing the gun out of somebody's control, and at least have the gun in your possession. If you know how to use it's to your advantage, I'm not saying I'd shoot the person, but now I can really have their attention and hopefully scare them off.
And I'm not necessarily saying that I, Chinny, will go out and get myself trained and licensed like my friend who is getting a gun OR say that I even think it's a bad idea. I don't think it's a good idea to have a gun, but it's certainly not a bad idea for a young woman who is sane and level minded, like my friend, to get a gun in order to protect herself. Because the reality is, we are young women who may or may not live alone one day in a big city and well, even if we are physically capable of protecting ourselves, sometimes it's necessary. We are women. We are not weak, but we are disadvantaged in some ways and would hope my friend would never ever have to use the gun in her entire life, but I understand completely why she wants/will have one. Her father encouraged her and frankly, having seen all the stories and horrible things about murders of young women who have been violated, sexually assaulted or just murdered in cold blood, young women should do everything in their power to avoid such a crime from taking place and learning how to protect themselves.
I never want to live alone. I always want to have people living with me and perhaps accompany me on walks and such, but I do hope I'll be living in a decent neighborhood, but I can't take any chances. I will have dogs as a way of protection. Large dogs that will pose a threat to home invaders as well as sound the alarm and in addition dogs that I can walk so that I will not be alone on the street.
Now that's my idea of protecting myself.
My friend's idea of protecting herself is a gun.
She feels like she needs to do that in order to feel safe. I can't really judge her or say anything of it, because that's how she feels. I can't necessarily understand completely the idea of owning and having a gun on me, because I'm nervous of guns, even though I did say it would be a good idea to learn how to use one.
And I also understand my other friend who is terrified of violence. And yet I don't. Her experiences with violence are far greater than mine and most likely more terrifying. My other friends have become desensitized to violence, but that just goes to show our ideas of safe and violence are VERY different and we must respect each other.
As a woman and for my friends who are women and women in general, we have to do what is necessary to protect ourselves. We must be aware of who we are, who we are with and what we can do.
Well, you may be more opinionated than I or less so, but this is what I have to say (because it came up this morning and may or may not have ruined the day for us/created some hopefully just temporary tension in the group):
Guns. I am terrified of guns. My uncle has guns, because my uncle in Colorado hunts. He is a responsible man who uses his gun for that purpose, recreational hunting and that only. He hunts in season and is a wildlife lover. Yes I know that sounds ironic and for those of you who are very much against animal hunting, I am as well, but I love my Uncle Dwaine and that is how he was raised. It is his way of life and I will respect him by not saying much about it. I count on him obeying the laws and not over hunting. My opinions about HIM hunting are not as severe, because he donated his own land to wildlife conservation and donates some kills to the local wolf sanctuary with whom the founder is a good friend. Also, if we humans are going to wipe out the natural hunters, the wolves, cougars, bears, etc, we must take responsibility for keeping the status quo and cull the herds of plant eaters ourselves to keep the wildlife healthy. Still don't understand think I'm an enemy of PETA? DO YOUR FRIGGIN' HOMEWORK. I am an animal lover. DO YOUR HOMEWORK BEFORE YOU JUDGE. I could go on about this forever, but hunting is not what I'm really talking about.
Guns.
I am terrified of guns. I have never been interested in guns. I hate gun violence in movies, especially when it's action films. I respect action films that rely on hand to hand combat or with swords or something, something that takes skill. Anybody can shoot a gun. Anybody. And it's terrifying.
At brunch today, one of my friends said she was excited to get a revolver. She is being licensed and taught by her father to operate and own a gun. I asked her what for and of course, it is for her safety. She wants to use the revolver for personal defense. After hearing her explanation and having been confronted with gun issues/protection as a woman before in college, I turned to another friend who I was sitting next to and said, "You know, it couldn't hurt how to learn how to use a gun."
For these reasons: number one, if you had to protect yourself or disarm a weapon, it's good to know how to, without accidentally hurting yourself OR somebody around you who is not a "target." With the combination of martial arts/personal defense and you were successful at removing the gun out of somebody's control, and at least have the gun in your possession. If you know how to use it's to your advantage, I'm not saying I'd shoot the person, but now I can really have their attention and hopefully scare them off.
And I'm not necessarily saying that I, Chinny, will go out and get myself trained and licensed like my friend who is getting a gun OR say that I even think it's a bad idea. I don't think it's a good idea to have a gun, but it's certainly not a bad idea for a young woman who is sane and level minded, like my friend, to get a gun in order to protect herself. Because the reality is, we are young women who may or may not live alone one day in a big city and well, even if we are physically capable of protecting ourselves, sometimes it's necessary. We are women. We are not weak, but we are disadvantaged in some ways and would hope my friend would never ever have to use the gun in her entire life, but I understand completely why she wants/will have one. Her father encouraged her and frankly, having seen all the stories and horrible things about murders of young women who have been violated, sexually assaulted or just murdered in cold blood, young women should do everything in their power to avoid such a crime from taking place and learning how to protect themselves.
I never want to live alone. I always want to have people living with me and perhaps accompany me on walks and such, but I do hope I'll be living in a decent neighborhood, but I can't take any chances. I will have dogs as a way of protection. Large dogs that will pose a threat to home invaders as well as sound the alarm and in addition dogs that I can walk so that I will not be alone on the street.
Now that's my idea of protecting myself.
My friend's idea of protecting herself is a gun.
She feels like she needs to do that in order to feel safe. I can't really judge her or say anything of it, because that's how she feels. I can't necessarily understand completely the idea of owning and having a gun on me, because I'm nervous of guns, even though I did say it would be a good idea to learn how to use one.
And I also understand my other friend who is terrified of violence. And yet I don't. Her experiences with violence are far greater than mine and most likely more terrifying. My other friends have become desensitized to violence, but that just goes to show our ideas of safe and violence are VERY different and we must respect each other.
As a woman and for my friends who are women and women in general, we have to do what is necessary to protect ourselves. We must be aware of who we are, who we are with and what we can do.
posted by Chinny at
2:26 PM
1 Comments:
Learning gun safety would certainly be very useful skill to have, if only because not enough people know and wind up injuring themselves instead of others. Yeah, don't ever handle a gun if you don't know what you're doing.
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