These are bizarre and terrifying, but I'm not sure how widely spread they are. I'm not sure it is right to attribute them to the "pro-gun lobby." I'm not sure what the "pro-gun lobby" is in this case. The website these images come from seems to be the project of one individual. Are these images used by the NRA?

I just want to clarify where these come from. It seems relevant. They totally freak me out, don't get me wrong, but I need a little more information before I make any judgements about the site they come from. Incidentally, they seem to come from this website originally. Not the t-shirt website.

Hi Dorotha,

I have no idea how to answer your excellent questions. But that is, indeed, the website I meant to link to. The link is fixed. Thanks!

As the author of the images, I am curious what makes them terrifying to you. The aim of my effort is to empower others.

The idea that the only way we think we can make a safer, better society is for everyone to carry a gun is incredibly sad. It's also individualistic--the answer to racism, rape, and gay bashing is to carry a gun, not have any form of social organizing.

And I doubt that if women started shooting men who attempt to rape them that would be seen as "empowering" in our culture--particularly since most women are raped by people they know. We're already suspicious of women who say they were raped by someone they were on a date with; what happens when women start shooting them? I'm doubtful this will be accepted as a positive change. Remember the reaction to Lorena Bobbitt? She didn't exactly meet with social approval--and she didn't kill him.

I grew up in rural Oklahoma, surrounded by guns. And I know what it's like to have one family member using guns as a way to control another. I don't think that my mom or us kids would have been "empowered"--or safer--if only she'd been willing to use a gun too.

The Holocaust ones are particularly offensive. When the agents of the totalitarian state come for you, they always come in groups. What are you going to do, pull your gun and have three of them shoot you before you can shoot one of them? Either way, you're just as dead.

A friend of mine was trans-bashed in Baltimore by a gang of six guys. A gun wouldn't have helped him, and in fact might have gotten him shot with his own gun -- you can really only point a handgun at one person at a time.

The solution to reducing crime isn't more guns, it's a better-functioning society.

It took six men to beat your friend because they weren't looking for a challenge. They were looking for entertainment. It's a game to them, one your friend was forced to play against his will. The simple display of a weapon changes the rules of the game.

"You can't shoot us all!"
"No, but I can shoot you."

Yes, we do need a better functioning society. But until that society functions in such a way as to eliminate sociopaths from our ranks, your local range can provide you with a reliable handgun, ammunition, accessories, training, and an application for a concealed carry license for a few hundred dollars.

PS. Look up the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. If you're going to die anyway, wouldn't it be nice to take a few Nazis with you?

it's also individualistic--the answer to racism, rape, and gay bashing is to carry a gun, not have any form of social organizing.

You say individualistic like it's a bad thing.

I don't think Oleg or most gun rights supporters would suggest that carrying a gun is _the_ answer to personal security. Clearly, cooperative action through business, political parties, and nonprofits is also important.

However, it often takes decades for social mores to change, or for the slow moving machinery of government to take action. In the meantime, carrying a gun can protect you.

What happens when women start shooting rapists? Guns are not a panacea. Some women will still get raped, often because they are unwilling to defend themselves against attack from someone they know and love.

However, the more women who are willing and able to defend themselves, the less incentive rapists have to try to rape them.

Firearms don't "magically" defend you against attack.

What firearms "magically" do is make a 90-pound woman physically equal to a 300-pound male rapist. Personal weaponry is the hallmark of civilization. It takes the confrontation from a physical one of brute force to a mental one involving learned skills.

Once the issue has been moved from the physical to the mental, then mental methods may be applied to solve the problem. So long as it remains in the realm of brute force, nothing but brute force will solve it.

And it's a sociological change, not an individualistic one. Ten people carrying guns won't have an appreciable effect on crime. The criminals will still attack, and may have to be killed in self-defense. A hundred people, if they make a big stink about it, might make a small dent. How about a thousand? How about a million? What if at least a third of all people carried guns? Would muggers, rapists, murderers and other social predators even take the risk?

Oh, and speaking as a descendant of European Jews, I've always enjoyed Oleg's response to the Holocaust. Look what a handful of handguns did in Warsaw. How long did they hold off the entire German army? Scum like the Nazis and other hate groups are cowards; it doesn't matter if they outnumber you three to one, because they won't go after an armed victim. The best thing about an armed society is that the guns don't have to be used, because those who would attack others just don't.

That's why Mahatma Ghandi (remember him? famous pacifist?) said that gun control was the greatest evil done by the British to the Indian people (it's in his autobiography - look it up). If you are working for peace, and Ghandi calls you evil, you may want to re-think your strategy. Just like sensible people everywhere, Ghandi knew that personal weaponry is the hallmark of civilization, for the exact reasons that I discussed.

The history of gun control is racism, slavery, and genocide. That's where the laws originated from. It's a matter of public record, and the newspapers of the time didn't even hide what was being done. "Licenses" were created to keep Blacks disarmed, since the legal changes during the Reconstruction prevented the law from discriminating against them. But a Sheriff could just choose not to issue licenses to anyone who didn't have the right skin color. It was later used to discriminate against immigrants (NYC's Sullivan Law being the most famous example). "Registration" was created to allow oppressive governments to massacre Jews and other groups who had been made into scapegoats. Bans on "Saturday night specials" targeted the lower class, who could not afford expensive guns (same goes for taxes and licensing fees and such which many states still use for that purpose).

Gun control serves violence, oppression, genocide, and other evil purposes. Opposing it serves peace, freedom, human dignity, and the triumph of intellect over brute force. Choose your side. Do you want the side that was supported by the KKK, racists, Nazis, rapists, gay-bashers, and other scum, or do you want the side that is supported by fine folks like the brave Jews who fought back against the Nazis, and men of peace like Ghandi?

The choice is yours, and history will remember you by it...

I think these posters are really great, and 100% correct.

No one has answered Mr. Volk's question about why you feel these are terrifying images.

And they probably won't answer Oleg's question,either. That would require setting aside preconceptions and emotions, and rationally approaching the issue. A rational thought process would lead one to realize that guns are tools, no more, no less. Bad people use them to kill & terrorize, good people use them to protect. Now, take a look at the percentage of the population that commits crimes, and ask yourself why it is that the notion of the vast preponderance of good people having weapons frightens you. It can't be because they're good people, it must be because of the gun, as if the gun is a magical thing that transforms the owner into a slavering homicidal maniac. I find it especially telling that Lisa dismisses the posters as "what you might expect", despite their obvious intent to show that oppressed groups benefit from having a tool for self-defense. Lose the preconceptions, Lisa, and lose your fear.

Oleg is an escaped Soviet Jew. I imagine he knows a bit more about repression than your watered-down American version.

I'm a British immigrant, and a 23 year professional at arms (US Army and USAF, including working as a weapons courier, armorer and firearms instructor). It's my professional opinion that firearms are the absolute best means of self defense.

In an ideal world, they would not be necessary.

However, to argue that instead of armed defense, one should wait for an ideal world, and accept casualties in the meantime, is a textbook fascist argument, and as silly as suggesting that until we devise a genetic mod that prevents cancer, we shouldn't use chemo and radiation, but let people die.

Incidentally, you missed his photo of my then 8 year old daughter here:

http://olegvolk.net/gallery/d/2779-4/pinkrifles0511.jpg

Now 10, she also knows sword and shield, baton, kung fu, first aid, shelter construction, and loves chemistry, piano, math and geology.

It almost sounds as if she's more empowered than you.

Certainly she's less fearful of inanimate objects.

Interrobang (great handle!?)-

Consider if your friend in Baltimore had pointed a gun at his attackers and scared them off or shot them. How many more trans would they have been likely to attack, knowing that they actually risked getting hurt or killed, too?

If we're looking to produce a better society where people don't act like your friend's attackers, I think it's incumbent on all of us to resist the violent and the morally retrograde in a way they can understand. Doing that may not save me a beating, but it will probably save the next guy.

They're beating your friend up because they enjoy it. We need to make it not enjoyable, so they'll stop.

Isn't everyone pulling together to defend society (and especially the weaker among us) what creates a good society?

There are larger issues here that need thought.

Look here

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/publicfiles/GunFacts_BFA.pdf

for more information regarding the truth about firearms and firearm ownership.

Oleg's images are not propaganda, they are the start reality behind the controversial issue of Rights Control.

Gun Control = Rights Control

If you disagree with the message of the images, please feel free to make your own with counter examples. Free speech can best be countered with more speech. However, the ones that are historical, such as the racist roots of gun control, are a bit hard to factually dispute.

I'd like to see your response to the one with the rapist, the daughter, and the distant police. As the parent of a daughter, I would rather have her shoot anyone attempting to rape her, than for her to be raped. Is that wrong, in your opinion? Why? Does the safety of a violent criminal rapist deserve the same deference as my innocent daughter?

And, you're right that the answer is a better functioning society.

But this is a sociologically oriented site, right? Remember your Kohlberg - those guys probably fell in the pre-moral "pleasure/pain" level or in the pre-conventional level of morality. Your appeals to them from a perspective of maintaining social order would likely be met with a brief moment of blank stare followed by an attack.

You want a social contract, as do we all. But we must remember that new people are added to the group all the time. Their moral development lies at differing levels. Some will never develop very fully. The wise and prepared among us must be ready to deal with people at each level in a way they can understand while striving always for our own highest level.

I carry a gun. It will always be my last resort. But if someone is trying to kill me or someone else, I owe it to that attacker's current and future victims to resist that attack. The good among us need to resist the bad with every resource.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Personal firearms are not "the" answer to the situations represented above, but they are "an" answer to certain situations, usually as a last resort.

It might be too much to ask for critical thinking about such an important issue, but I'd like to see someone to point out any factual (facts, remember them?) errors in Mr. Volk's work.

I understand the initial emotional response from some, but if you're old enough to drive a car you should be able to get over it and move on to rational as opposed to emotional response. However, if the comments above are any indication, I'll be waiting quite some time.

Interrobang:

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you'd be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur? What if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"

--Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago, the story of the 60 million Russians who suffered, and the 20 million who died in Soviet slave labor camps.

And yes, you're right, when they come for you in the night, they come in groups. But have you no sense of community at all? Do you think it is just you they will be coming for? If six SS officers come to your door, and you shoot two of them, and die, that is two fewer who can come for your neighbor, or cousin, or even a complete stranger. Yes, you're dead, but what do you think will happen to you in the camps? At least the German Jews of the 1930s had the excuse of not knowing what was coming. We have no such excuse.

Never Again. And I mean it.

For those who wonder why us "gun nuts" choose to arm ourselves over just taking it, read this:

"that it faced this problem, put the monsters in the center, gave them victory but no honor, and found a potent but terrible solution in naked will and courage." In the struggle against evil, there is no shame in defeat -- only in not fighting.

We choose to fight rather than submit, it is as simple as that, and you have no more right to tell how we choose to fight in self defense than we have to tell you under what circumstances a woman can have an abortion, or any other issue of choice. As long as we do not use the gun to bully others, we are being good citizens.

Oh, and regarding shooting multiple targets, if I, with just a little bit of practice, can hit 5 bowling pins at 25 feet in under 5 seconds, I can hit 6 men a hell of a lot easier.

Some comments from a flaming liberal:

If you are a Nazi thug with a loving wife and children to go home to, which person would you try and take off to the camps first?

A) an unarmed 60 year old gay man
B) a 60 year old gay man with a bolt action rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition?

QED.

So what's the answer? Disarm him via force of law *before* you drag him off.

And regarding the "you'll just get shot with your own gun" - do you know how hard it is to take away a handgun without getting shot first? It's incredibly hard, which is why even special forces guys only learn those techniques as an absolute last resort.

Owning a defensively capable gun like an AR-15 or a Glock is a fundamentally empowering, feminist, democratic, Democratic, egalitarian, and progressive act. Liberal Democrats like me can no more support gun control laws than we can support Jim Crow laws or "coloreds only" water fountains.

Gun control is fundamentally racist, sexist, intolerant, ageist, classist, and anti-gay because it disproportionally disarms those that are either attacked more often, attacked by groups often, or less physically capable of resisting.

And given the political climate, I don't want Bushie to have all the firepower.

Interrobang, if you care to look up some facts, you'll find US DoJ stats which show that approx. 250,000 times in a given year, the presence of a firearm in the hand of the potential victim prevents the crime, or stops it in mid attempt. Your assinine attitude is what enables your friends attackers to thrive. If he'd shot one,do you relly think the rest would have continued? Being helpless is no defence.

"Being helpless is no defence."

And neither is saying "you'll never win anyway."

I would be curious as to what you would expect from a "pro-gun-control lobby"?
Just FYI the CDC finished an extensive study in 2003 and found that in the USA every form of gun control, to include semiautomatic assault weapon bans (you knew that the assault rifles were already banned right?), pistol bans, functional firearm bans (see: DC), waiting periods, background checks and various other harebrained schemes have had no measurable effect. It seems, shocking as it sounds, that criminals don't follow the laws. I don't have the cite handy, but google around for CDC "First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence".

Typical anti-gun hysteria...

Everyone of the messages attached to those photos is absolutely true.

You say 1 gun couldn't stop an attack by multiple gay-bashers, but if you bothered to look at the Pink Pistols site, (or mine) you might a case or two where one gun did exactly that.

When seconds count, police are minutes away. When seconds count, 911 will put you on hold.

There are no guarantees of course. Wearing seatbelts does not guarantee that you will survive a car crash. It only changes the odds of doing so, yet we wear seatbelts when driving.

The "gun might be taken away from you" hypothesis is always amusing.

By that argument, we should promote criminal access to weapons. Then, when attacked by a criminal, simply "Take his weapon away from him and use it against him."

Unless the theory is that criminals have special Jedi powers or training that make them our superiors?

The DoJ's Uniform Crime Reports suggest that latter is not the case.

Oleg's posters educate people about the racist history of gun control.

So, which one are you against, Dorotha:

Education?
Free Speech?
or Blacks?

"The solution to reducing crime isn't more guns, it's a better-functioning society"

Yes indeed, and the solution to the sinking of the Titanic wasn't plugging the leak, it was lowering the ocean.

Two words: Gracie Watson

You do know how to work Google, no?

To the commenter above, it wasn't the CDC (I assume this is the one you meant), it was the National Academy of Sciences.

You're right, Gwen, though you try not to be. The solution to these problems is not social organization, it's individuals preventing predators from having easy targets.

No "social organizing" can stop rape, and "individualistic" is not an insult.

(PS. Was Lorena Bobbitt defending herself from rape? She cut off the penis for revenge, rather than as an act of defense to prevent it.

Maybe, just maybe, that and "throwing it into a field" are the reason she didn't get approval.)

As for dorotha's bizarre and terrifying, well... you terrify easily.

What's terrifying about women defending themselves?

About blacks and gays being armed to defend their rights and stop assaults?

If one of your family members threatened others with death to control them... that indicates only a problem with your family, not with armed self-defense.

(Especially since if all people are disarmed, that means the physically strong rule. The stronger person is almost always male, for biological reasons. Is that empowering?)

Interrobang: Offensive? Read about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, then come back to be offended about how awful armed resistance is in the face of fascism.

Tell JPFO how much they offend, in their efforts to make "never again" surety rather than slogan.

Why might it be that ethnic cleansing is always preceeded by disarmament?

(And oddly, in the real world, we find that small gangs are often scared off by a single gun ... because none of them want to die to "beat some faggot up" to look strong to their friends.

Predators are often cowardly. Unless, that is, you refuse to fight back against them.

Good luck waiting on a "better-functioning society" while taking steps that cannot do anything but encourage those who wish to destroy it. (Cf. Britain today.)

Bruce, those are different things I think. There was a study done my the CDC in 2003 that can be found here:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm

If you tried to Google "Gracie Watson" from the comment above, and you are tired of looking at websites about a stupid haunted statue of Little Gracie Watson, try this:
http://massbackwards.blogspot.com/2007/03/its-still-puzzling-to-me.html

"These are bizarre and terrifying"

Wow! Just wow! You can lead a horse to water, but you just can't make it drink, can you?

Your personal safety is your responsability, Dorotha! Quit hiding behind others and take responsibility for making your own life a success!

"Pro-Gun Lobby"?

Oleg is one artist expressing - quite eloquently, if that term can properly be applied to visual communications - his own opinions.

Why does any public speech defending firearms rights seemingly have to be characterized as coming from an organized industry lobby?

For most people, the phrase "{whatever} Lobby" has negative connotations: big money & small ethics. Is labeling this with "gun lobby" a conscious effort to make the messages easier to dismiss? Or do people actually believe that individuals cannot publicly express support for firearms rights without their having been coordinated and paid by some shadowy gun-industry cabal?

I checked out your site and found it interesting. By the way what is scary about positive uses of guns? They are a mainstay of civilization. As on blogger put it there are only two ways to get someone to do what you want; persuasion and force.
A defensive gun reduces or prevents the imposition of force. That is very civilizing in that it reinforces the need to persuade rather than to impose force.

It's pretty obvious, really. If you oppose gun control, you accept that minorities, women and gays have the right to be oppressed.

If you think that we, as humans, should be permitted the right to tool-use to determine their own outcome, then you have to look at it all and say "Hey - it's better for people to have guns than it is for women, gays and minorities to be victims"

Which it is. Gh0d knows I wish my wife was *allowed* to carry - here in the Uck, she's just 90 lbs of victim whenever I'm not with her. Sadly, she works far from me.

I worry about her a lot. A hell of a lot. See, I love her, and would rather console her for having to end some mother's son than having to cry over her grave. I can't always be there for her - an equaliser in her purse could be - were it legal here in the UK. Which it isn't.

I worry. Every damn day.

Interrobang:

"The solution to reducing crime isn't more guns, it's a better-functioning society."

Maybe. Some societies have decided that better functioning keeps Women in Burkhas, Homosexuals dangling from construction cranes, Blacks in chains, and Jews in furnaces.

In any case, the solution to reducing the crime that's happening to me, or you, or your friend RIGHT NOW might be a gun.

Think about it. If your friend had been able to call for help, who would he have wanted to show up? An experienced sensitivity trainer?

Or a police officer with a GUN.

And what would he expect that police officer (let's say she's 5'3, 110 pounds) to do? Reason with them? No, he'd expect her to pull out that evil gun and point it- at just one of them would do fine- and say "Stop or I'll shoot". And if they didn't stop, to start shooting.

Why not cut out the middlewoman?

Especially since she might be elsewhere. Or she might be http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifCecil Ray Price.

I suspect that your friend was NOT thinking "Good thing I don't have a gun! I could only shoot one of them!" as s/he lay there being broken, wondering if the next kick was the last thing s/he'd ever feel.

You might want to ask about that before you use your friend as an example. I've heard a lot of things from victims of violence, but "I'm sure glad I was unarmed!" isn't one of them.

And, in a spirit of genuine curiosity, what offends you about the Holocaust ones?

The idea that things might have turned out differently if the Jews had resisted? What, would they have ended up more dead? Or is it that by thinking about it, we have to ask difficult and sad questions?

Anyone with a mild grasp of history (Bunker Hill) knows that armed people (Saragossa) can make oppressors think twice.

Not just history. In case you missed it, a bunch of individuals, using personally portable arms, are keeping the most powerful military and economic force on the planet busy after five years.

Even if you support the current war, you have to admit that a bunch of goatherds with rifles are STILL in the fight.

Gwen:

1. Congratulations on your survival.

2. What would happen "if women started shooting men who attempt to rape them" is that almost all those particular women would not be raped on those particular occasions. Not such an awful result, to my mind. I know this because

3. What DOES happen when women, old people, and others DO shoot those who are attacking them is generally that the attack stops. Very seldom do even unwounded criminals press on in the face of gunfire. The victims who defend themselves are generally praised.

4. You make it sound as though it is a binary choice- social organisation OR everyone carrying a pistol. But it's not, any more than the choice between careful maintenance OR everyone carrying jumper cables. No one suggests that everyone carry a gun, but we do demand that those of us who choose to can, assuming we haven't shown unfitness. Just like those jumper cables- I might never need them. But you might need mine.

5. Don't forget that if guns went away, there would still be plenty of weapons. Note that all those weapons- knives, iron bars, axes- act as enhancers of physical strength to a far less degree than a gun does. The natural disparity in armament- the big strong young man versus the elderly woman, or man bound to a wheelchair- is EFFECTIVELY decreased best with a firearm.

LISA, and everyone else:

Thank you for posting these pictures in a place where they might get some people to think in a new way about a subject that is often just discussed in sound bites.

Thank you all for keeping things sensible and rational.

By the way, I happen to know Mr. Volk- he's about as far from a "lobby" as one can be.

To Interrobang,

Well, yes, if the Nazis, or their modern equivalents come, I'd be happy to shoot a few before they killed me. I rather die resisting evil than placidly walking into the showers, even if I fail to stop anyone. If the German Jews had done that, there would have been no death camps. But the Nazis passed comprehensive gun control in 1934, so when they came for the Jews, few had the means to resist.
These are great images, and anyone who values their life and the life of their loved ones should carefully consider the message they carry.
Maryland has already disarmed it's citizens. Your friend would never have been able to be anything but a victim. In a free state, I promise you, if he shot one, the rest would have run. He probably would have only needed to remove his gun from it's holster and they would have backed off. It's the weak, the minorities, the victims if you will, that most benefit from shedding their victimhood and choosing to defend their own lives.
To suggest differently is to suggest that a strangled rape victim is somehow a morally superior outcome to a dead rapist.

You seem to have a hard time with stereotypes that you agree with, or perhaps stereotypes that are favored by the left.

"Pro-gun feminism?" Why the question mark? Is it at odds with a stereotype you agree with?

I support gun rights. I am not a member of the NRA, as they are too socially conservative for me. I am not on the payroll of any gun-rights organization. I am a lone individual.

IMHO, the phrase "gun lobby" is intolerant, marginalizing, and discriminatory towards gun owners. Liberal Democrats like me do not use such shameful rhetoric. Ugh.

Dorotha, Gwen, Lisa, where are you?

I would really like to hear your responses to the comments. I am not trying to be cute, I want to know what you think.

Thanks

"These are bizarre and terrifying..."

If you find pictures on a computer screen terrifying you should try a 6'2" 275 lb man with an IQ less than 100 coming at you with the intent of beating you to death and taking your money. Pictures don't seem so scary after that.

"The solution to reducing crime isn't more guns, it's a better-functioning society."

Yes, a better society would be nice for everyone. However, I believe that there are bad people in society now and there will always be bad people in society no matter how great it is. Therefore, I will defend my life with whatever means are available. If you chose to hope for the best and wait for a better society then that's fine. It's a free country after all. :)

This is one of the best essays I have ever read on this subject:

A Liberal Democrat's Lament: Gun control is racist, sexist, and classist - Robert Cottrol.

I encourage you to read it. It begins with this quote:

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizen to bear arms is just one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.

—Hubert Humphrey, 1960

Why is it bizarre for women, gay people or black people to defend themselves and their families with firearms? It's bizarre and terrifying to hear people who want to disarm black people, gays and women and leave them open to being preyed upon by bigots.

I wonder about those who advocate disarming vulnerable people...what's the real agenda? Is it gun control or is it driven by hatred for women, gays and black people? I think the answer is probably quite disturbing and frightening.

Here's a great site you can go to and a great organization to belong to if you are gay:

http://pinkpistols.org/

'"Pro-gun feminism?" Why the question mark? Is it at odds with a stereotype you agree with?'

The current "feminist" organizations, want everyone to be a victim. They love victims. They want whole classes of victims.

Let a woman say that she wants to take some measure of responsibility and she is ostracized as a freak. Trust me I know - and if you don't believe me, take a look at Tammy Bruce's site (at one time she was the president of the LA chapter of NOW.)

"Guns are icky" according to the "feminist" organizations. Hell, even the girl scouts hate guns.

"Fear no man no matter what his size call on me and I shall equalize." That was the advertising campaign for the Colt Peacemaker. It was as true 150 years ago as it is today. Without the means of effective self defense - namely a tool known as a firearm - most women would be at the mercy of larger rapists. A lone woman would be at the mercy of two or more rapists.

What should a woman faced with a rapist do? What should a parent faced with a pedophile trying to hurt their child do? Should they - as the Left loves to preach - cooperate with the criminal? Or should they take some direct action that could be categorized as self-defense?

To all the people who are cleverly trying the pro-gun equivalent of a Gish Gallop (and none of which, interestingly, are 90-pound women trying to defend themselves from 300-pound men):

If what you are saying were correct, the US would be the safest society on the face of this earth.

Oh wait.

If what you are saying were correct, the US would be the safest society on the face of this earth.

I'll take living in the most free and liberty-loving country over living in the "safest" country any damn day.

With freedom comes risk and responsibility. Your world is only as safe as you make it. That's your job, my job, and the job of every free individual everywhere.

Nazi Germany was a "safe" country. Just as long as you weren't Jewish and were willing to surrender your personal sovereignty to the State.

Yeah...I'll pass thanks.

And, not that you'd be capable of accepting this reality, but the people who make our society less safe are, by and large, the ones for whom gun control laws are of no consequence. They're called criminals. And, those in the gun control movement are actively campaigning to award them a total monopoly on the civilian-based dispensation of lethal force.

Tell me that makes sense.

To all the people who are cleverly trying the pro-gun equivalent of a Gish Gallop

From Wikipedia:

Gish uses a rapid-fire approach during a debate, presenting arguments and changing topics very quickly. The approach has been dubbed the "Gish Gallop" by Eugenie Scott and criticized for failing to answer objections raised by his opponents.

I don't see anyone commenting here in "a rapid-fire approach". And I certainly don't see anyone "changing topics very quickly". In fact, what I do see are a lot of well thought out comments, presented in a logical format, and staying SOLIDLY ON-TOPIC.

It's called communicating like grown-ups.

The only person here who's "failing to answer objections raised by his opponents" is the earlier commenter, Dorotha, who described Oleg Volk's work as "bizarre and terrifying" and was asked multiple times to explain what she meant by that.

Come back to the discussion when you know what you're talking about.

In the 1920's Great Britain chose to disarm it's citizenry. With the IRA just a short boat ride to the west, My Irish-American relatives contemplated returning to their ancestral homeland and joining the cause with the aim of subjugating Great Britain and paying back 700 years of English oppression, with 700 years of Irish oppression.

Fortunately my Irish ancestors liked a good bullshit session over a few dozen beers. They only became 'men of action' after those foul Japanese bombed a bunch of ships in a place they could never afford to visit. And the first 'English Oppressors' they met were survivors of Japanese internment camps.

Tell any one of them that no guns makes a society safe. Especially in a world where the President of the United States wakes up every morning, wondering which laws and treaties he's going to break or ignore today.

The people who want guns banned are afraid of me having a gun.

I'm afraid of what they WILL do if they succeed in getting that gun away from me.

An anti-gun person's argument is that a criminal will take that gun away from me and shoot me with it.

An anti-gun person is trying to take my gun away from me.

An anti-gun person is a criminal!!!

sloppy symbolic logic, but tighter than their arguments......

> I'll take living in the most free
> and liberty-loving country over
> living in the "safest" country
> any damn day.

Ah, so now guns do not in fact make a society safer?

See: Moving the goalposts.

Why did I know that this was coming?

Also, I always find it hilarious if people who have no idea at all about the constitutions and laws of foreign countries, and in all likelihood don't even own a passport to leave the US, talk about a supposed lack of freedom elsewhere.

Ah, so now guns do not in fact make a society safer?

A gun can't make a place safe, in as much as a hammer can't build a house. A gun is a tool. It's up to the people holding the guns to determine what kind of society they want to live in.

Look at DC, that place is crawling with guns...in the hands of violent gang members and drug dealers. DC leads the nation in violent crime rate and firearm fatality rates by a friggin' mile.

My neighborhood is one of the safest around. And, nearly everyone on my street has guns in their houses and/or carries a gun on their person during the day.

I'm not moving any goalposts.

Way to only quote a portion of my comment. I was merely drawing attention to the frivolous use of the word "safe". There's a big difference between providing for one's safety and relying on the government to provide it for you.

I notice you also disregarded entirely my second-to-last paragraph in which I clarified my point further.

Sorry, kid. But you simply got no game.

Oh, and I LOVE this line.

"...a supposed lack of freedom elsewhere."

Suppose this, pal.

Chinese paramilitary police killed eight people and wounded dozens more when they fired on a protest by several hundred Tibetan monks and villagers, The Times has been told.

They searched the room of every monk, confiscating all mobile phones as well as the pictures. The monastery’s website (www.donggusi.com) says that it is home to 350 monks. A contact telephone for the monastery was not operational yesterday.

Chinese citizens are prohibited from owning any kind of firearm. Is that the kind of "safe" society you want to live in?

I'm done here. I'm gonna go out in my back yard and start up a conversation with a piece of moss. You never know. Unlike some of the folks in here, the moss might learn something.

The U.S. is, in fact, the safest society on earth. At least, the parts that have guns are. Crime is not evenly distributed. The U.S. crime rate isn't the U.S. crime rate. It's the crime rate of a few cities and demographics where guns are illegal and the drug war rages.

If you don't do drugs or deal drugs or associate with people who do, your chance of getting killed is essentially nil, as low or lower than most other nations. Of course if you do, your chance of dying young is several times higher than the general murder rate would suggest.

If we were to legalize it, we could fix that problem, but that's another debate for another time.

> Chinese paramilitary police ...

Of course! Let's compare ourselves to the lowest possible standard! We will easily win that one! Maybe we can find something else to compare ourselves to; Zimbabwe or Kenia would be nice possibilities.

I am sure that the horribly oppressed citizens of e.g. the Netherlands or Sweden will agree, while they hide in their houses from all the violence they experience daily in their terribly dangerous societies.

Ok, people. Of course I am not silly enought to think that I might actually be able to convince any of you. However, the theatrical lengths to which some of you went were just too hard to resist. Onoes! The Nazis are coming to take our guns away! Save the last bullet for yourself! I had some more fun planned, but unfortunately my time ran out earlier than I thought.

So here is my (somewhat) more serious (probable) Parthian shot at this matter.

What annoys me personally about this whole debate are the fundamentally dishonest arguments coming from the pro-gun crowd. The reason you want to own guns is because you LIKE to own guns and you LIKE to shoot things. It has nothing to do whatsoever with defending gays, lesbians or blacks (people most of you probably couldn't care less about), fighting the Nazis, defending your freedom against the government in the form of the US Army, or any other such nonsense. These are just nice, impressive talking points. That's the reason why I find the ads in the original post pretty disgusting, actually.

This is not a moral issue. You LIKE to own guns just as you LIKE to own a boat, a Plasma TV or a hut in the mountains.

This is, of course, a valid position to take. I disagree, but that's life. The fact that owning guns is actually much more dangerous to you, your family and friends than to any hypothetical black rapist in your back alley is not my problem. Well, maybe a bit in case of your family.

However, guns are also potentially dangerous to OTHER people. Thus, as with other potentially harmful things, in a free, democratic society there is a discussion about legally restricting access to them. There are people who like to smoke Marihuana or drive their cars around at 150 mph in a city center. They can not legally do that. And in the same way, when/if a majority of people decide to restrict access to guns, you will no longer be able to own them legally. Live with it.

So, thank you very much. I leave the arena to you, for witty final words at my expense.

Oh, comparisons to Scandinavia, good job there. Ever been there? I have, nice place, kinda empty though, lots of elbow room.

Let's see, population of Sweden, 9 million in a country larger than California. Norway, 4.5 million in an area slightly larger than New Mexico. Netherlands, 16 million in a country twice the size of New Jersey.

Maybe, just maybe, population density has something to do with the low level of violence. Maybe the fact that these countries have different political and social systems from us has something to do with it. Maybe the fact that these countries have VERY tight immigration controls has something to do with it.

I've also been to Singapore. Very low crime rate, very safe, very democratic with a high standard of living, BRUTAL justice system with punishments for crimes that would make you pass out (caning is a low level punishment, it gets worse from there).

Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/countrylisting.html

this is america where we have the right to bear arms guaranteed by the constitution/bill of rights. if you dont like it leave.

"when/if a majority of people decide to restrict access to guns, you will no longer be able to own them legally. Live with it."

Luckily 73% of the US likes to own guns, or thiks we should be allowed to. Oh, yeah, and there is that pesky 2nd amendment. I don't recall an amendment to own or drive a car.

Cars can be dangerous to others, drunk drivers even more so. We don't ban cars or drinking, we just have laws in place to punish those who abuse either. Why are guns any different? We have tons of laws to puish those who commit crimes with a gun, yet only guns get called out for bans, rather than people asking that the laws that exist get enforced to the letter.

And yes, we do care about gays, and blacks, and women. Believe it or not, many of us are quite liberal in our attitudes toward such things and think everyone should have equal rights and access and no one should be abused because of their race, sex, or orientation. We've grown tired of such bigotry and we want the victims of such bigotry to have the tools to stop such violence the moment it happens, rther than just hoping we can catch and punish the guilty later.

Yes, I LIKE to own guns, shooting at targets at the range is fun. I also like to defend myself, and having been at the wrong end of a violent thugs boot in the past, I have more than a speculative knowledge of how such beatings feel, physically and mentally. So I will defend the right to own and carry weapons for personal defense for as long as I draw breath, and hopefully my access to such weapons will make sure I draw breath for a long time.

look at mexico where guns are illegal to have. i would hope you would notice that criminals still have guns and are slaughtering law abiding mexicans. so why would one possibly want to prevent lawabiding citizens from owning firearms? there is just no logic to that.

False dichotomy, much?

Heaven forbid we enjoy ourselves, fail to shed tears of regret at the grim necessity of it all when we practice with our tools of self-defense.

What a drab and joyless life you must lead. No doubt driving a tiny car with no radio to work, eating only the bread and water and vitamins required for basic nutrition, dressing in burlap sacks to keep from freezing to death. Avoiding nonsense and frivolity of all sorts so that people will take you oh-so-seriously.

Oleg's images are disturbing because they graphically disprove the fallacy of the "peace and love" view of life so many people hold. John Lennon said, "All you need is love." David Chapman proved him wrong. Oleg Volk makes that plain in images even the most committed pacifist can comprehend.

"To all the people who are cleverly trying the pro-gun equivalent of a Gish Gallop (and none of which, interestingly, are 90-pound women trying to defend themselves from 300-pound men):

"If what you are saying were correct, the US would be the safest society on the face of this earth."

Do you really think that there are no 90-pound women who support gun rights?

As pointed out by others, the parts of this country that are the safest, by far, and the areas that allow people to concealed carry. The dangerous area (that throw off the national averages by a long shot) are the inner cities where the law-abiding are disarmed, but the criminals are not.

"What annoys me personally about this whole debate are the fundamentally dishonest arguments coming from the pro-gun crowd. The reason you want to own guns is because you LIKE to own guns and you LIKE to shoot things."

Gee, "Anonymous", (if that is your real name!) you didn't tell us you were psychic!

I don't own a gun. I'm an okay shot at best, due to poor eyesight. I just believe that individuals have the right to own them if they want or need to.

"It has nothing to do whatsoever with defending gays, lesbians or blacks (people most of you probably couldn't care less about), fighting the Nazis, defending your freedom against the government in the form of the US Army, or any other such nonsense. These are just nice, impressive talking points."

The point isn't necessarily that any person here is going to go around patrolling for gay bashers or KKK members. The point is that the gays and blacks who themselves are vulnerable should have the right to defend themselves.

As for the "Nazis" bit... you're foolish if you think tyranny can't come to this country. Just because they won't be wearing swastikas and jackboots doesn't mean they won't be fascists, or dangerous.

And specifically -- the citizenry having the physical ability to directly confront and fight the agents of the government is the primary reason I support these rights. The rest is just gravy.

Look at England, They ban guns and violent crime goes way up. There was a law in the works a while back to ban kitchen knives over such-and-such length -- you know... to prevent stabbings. In London there are cameras everywhere. The police are watching. "The police are aware". But their awareness, sadly, does nothing to stem the tide of violence.

"However, guns are also potentially dangerous to OTHER people. Thus, as with other potentially harmful things, in a free, democratic society there is a discussion about legally restricting access to them. There are people who like to smoke Marihuana or drive their cars around at 150 mph in a city center. They can not legally do that."

1) Baseball bats can also be dangerous to other people. Ditto kitchen knives, matches, bleach, gasoline, a pair of scissors, hairspray, water, or the ability to swing your fists.

2) I'm not so sure marijuana should be illegal, myself.

3) I can't randomly fire a gun in city center, either. It's not the existence of cars that makes driving 150 in a city dangerous. The CAR is not dangerous (unless it's defective) -- the way it's used can be dangerous. It's already illegal for me to murder someone.

4) My older brother learned to drive when he was 12 years old. He just didn't drive on public roads -- he drove in my uncle's field. No, this isn't rural Mississippi, this is suburban Chicago area. If I had known how to physically operate a car when I was thirteen I could have diffused a very dangerous situation (but that's a story for another day).

"this is america where we have the right to bear arms guaranteed by the constitution/bill of rights. if you dont like it leave"
amen to that, there are plenty of nations out there that dont allow civilian firearm possesion, if you are against the american way of life or our freedoms go find somewhere else to live. and by the way america is not a democracy we are a republic.

Oh, my, this is so delicious. Thank you, everyone, for a mostly calm and well-reasoned discussion.

I've posted excerpts and comments over at my own blog.

To perlhaqr [April 3, 2008 8:25 AM]: Your quote from Solzhenitsyn is beautiful and moving; surely there can be no higher authority on the matter of guns versus tyranny.

Your “No sense of community….” is another excellent response to the “individualistic” canard. A community is nothing if not composed of individuals, all of whom have a responsibility to protect it. The idea that you can keep your hands clean by paying taxes so that others less refined than yourself will protect you is unspeakably offensive and classist, and deepens the disdain the people and the police have for each other.

Dick Heller, plaintiff in the 2nd Amendment case now before the Supreme Court, is an excellent example of where that attitude leads. He filed suit because, as a professional security guard in D.C., he is allowed to carry a hand gun in public to protect the lives and property of those who feel they are superior to him (and us); however, he is not trusted to keep that same gun in his own home to protect himself and his wife.

On the other hand, David Codrea has done an admirable job of documenting the police arrogance arising from "We're the Only Ones" privilege and immunity.

See this “Principle of Policing” from Robert Peel:
"Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence."

Arming the people is the best way to remind everybody that none of us are above the possible need to kill in our defense, nor below the ability to do so responsibly.

I also want to respond to Anonymous, whose "Parthian shot" hits his own horse in the ass.

Anon is implying that the only reason we want to own guns is because we like to own guns. And indeed, I do like to own a gun. I like to own a gun just as I like to own a car, a circular saw, a stove. Or, for that matter, a fire-extinguisher. It’s a tool, a tool that carries some risk with it, as all tools do, but which also allows me to do things I cannot do without it.

Some people do enjoy shooting as an end in itself, to be sure. They like target shooting and hunting. They like to compete. They like collecting guns, and arguing, as collectors do, over the minutia of their hobby.

But a growing proportion of us don’t, anymore than we race, or build heirloom furniture, or enter pies at the county fair. We just want to be able to drive to work and home again, put up some shelves, and cook dinner. And, to the point at hand, to be able to put out a fire or defend ourselves at need, although we’d most certainly prefer it if we never, ever, needed to do either one. We are willing to accept some small personal risk, which we try to mitigate by with regular training and practice (“regulating” ourselves, yes, as in “well-regulated militia”), because we see the larger, long term risk to society of losing our liberty to the thugs, crack-headed or jack-booted, as being much, much greater.

I very strongly encourage those who have not to read Eric S. Raymond's punch in the gut, "Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun":

There is nothing like having your finger on the trigger of a gun to reveal who you really are. Life or death in one twitch -- the ultimate decision, with the ultimate price for carelessness or bad choices.

* It all comes down to you.
* Never count on being able to undo your choices.
* The universe doesn’t care about motives.
* Right choices are possible, and the ordinary judgment of ordinary (wo)men is sufficient to make them.

And, for the touchy-feely among you, you cannot go wrong with Richard Robert's "Tao of Gun -- Spiritual Sovereignty and the Hypocrisy of Gun Control".

Finally, not to put too fine a point on it, but if it comes to a fight, we have guns, and you don’t.

Molon labe, anon. Come and take them.

i am mostly anti-gun but i do agree that the 2nd amendment is indisputable about the right to bear arms. i have done a little research and the people i would not want to have a gun(criminals,etc) would have access to guns regardless of legality. that makes me a little worried about taking guns away from law abiding peoples. so my opinion on guns has shifted. there should be no reason to prevent good people from owning a gun. and then again there should be more done to prevent bad people from getting/using guns.

"Also, I always find it hilarious if people who have no idea at all about the constitutions and laws of foreign countries, and in all likelihood don't even own a passport to leave the US, talk about a supposed lack of freedom elsewhere."

Well here's one British ex-pat who knows from first hand experience of the lack of freedom in the UK; a land where firearms are all but universally banned and self defence is illegal. Yes, that's right, ILLEGAL. Also a land where criminals and drug dealers gun down their victims in broad daylight while police run around arresting children for playing with water pistols, a land where there is one spy camera for every 14 citizens yet armed crime continues to spiral out of control. Don't talk to me about a lack of freedom in America unless you've lived elsewhere.

"Well here's one British ex-pat who knows from first hand experience of the lack of freedom in the UK; a land where firearms are all but universally banned and self defence is illegal. Yes, that's right, ILLEGAL. Also a land where criminals and drug dealers gun down their victims in broad daylight while police run around arresting children for playing with water pistols, a land where there is one spy camera for every 14 citizens yet armed crime continues to spiral out of control. Don't talk to me about a lack of freedom in America unless you've lived elsewhere"

america is not "elsewhere". we have been guaranteed rights that many patriots have fought wars over to preserve. a lack of american freedom is a problem. we won our revolution against the british government. maybe there needs to be another revolution against the british government but that is not americas problem that is a british problem. if you want to live in america, welcome. but please understand we are not britain and we will speak up for our rights.

No sir, Mr. Anonymous, I don't like guns. I have never owned one, nor do I have one now in my home. However, were it not for a couple of mitigating circumstances, I would feel compelled to go buy one, because my mother and sister live with me and I feel it is my duty to at least be *capable* of defending them should the need arise.
I'm a fairly good shot, or at least I was when I was in the military. I assume I'm VERY rusty after all these years. But to the point, the mitigating circumstances:
1) The minor one is, I did medieval reenactment for over 20 years, so while I do not have a gun, I *do* have two swords, several knives and a crossbow, and I am reasonably close to expert in the use of all of them. More than once I have found myself silently praying I will never have to.
2) The *MAJOR* mitigating circumstance, the one that makes me feel fairly safe, is that I live in a fairly rural area surrounded by armed rednecks. The vast majority of my friends and neighbors have known how to shoot since they were big enough to keep both ends of a rifle off the ground. Most of them are ex-military. A fair number of them have already *had* to find out, in wartime, whether they had the judgement to know when to shoot and when not to.
There is a rifle range just down the street from me. I find the sound of gunfire comforting. Why? Because I'm intelligent enough to know it's the sound of *real* gun control: Learning accuracy, learning proper maintenance, learning awareness of the power you hold in your hands, and the subconscious realization that there is a responsibility that goes along with that power.
The man who lives two doors down from me is a scum sucking racist KKK member bastard. I hate him and all he stands for, and I can assure you the feeling is mutual, for myself and all my family. And yet I am utterly certain that if I were away from home and my 77 year old partially paralyzed mother was under attack, that worthless piece of crap would come to her rescue and not think twice about it. And he'd be effective and exercise good judgement, too. I've known him for nearly 30 years, I'm not guessing on that. The cops would be hard pressed to get this far out of town in less than 20 minutes at a minimum. He would have her back in SECONDS.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. No, I don't care for guns, and will never spend the money to own one until and unless I feel I absolutely must. But since I once, when I was living in a city, had to face a dozen gang members with nothing but a stick, and was thoroughly surprised that they backed down and I therefore lived to see the next morning.... you're damn right I'm thankful I have the choice to go buy one if I need to. Or even if I just *want* to.

An armed society is a polite society.

Anonymous 9:51:

"gays, lesbians or blacks (people most of you probably couldn't care less about)";

"hypothetical black rapist "

Where did those come from? I know you can't see my Gay and Black friends through the internets, but I do care about them. Calling people bigots when they are saying a right should be shared by everybody is more than a little crazy.

"Hey, you with the books, taking them to the projects- you don't want poor people to read!"

"You USAID people, distributing rice in Zimbabwe- you hate Black people!"

2."guns are also potentially dangerous to OTHER people."

Yes, they are meant to be. Like an extinguisher is dangerous to fire. I don't plan to use the extinguisher on the fire in my grill, nor my gun on my neighbour. But if either behave in a way that endangers me, I'll use the appropriate tool. That's what tools are FOR.

3. The "family and friends" argument is statistically true but specifically false. Some people have "family and friends" who are violent and dangerous. On a statistical basis a person killed in self defense, or by a criminal, is far more likely to be someone the killer, whether murderer or defender, knows or is related to. That's who criminals generally kill or try to kill, not strangers.

That has nothing to do with an individual case. It's like saying your car is more dangerous to your friends or family. Of course it is.

3. The purpose of MY gun, like that of my jumper cables, is to protect ME and those who happen to need help I'm able and willing to provide. I don't care if some criminal uses jumper cables to strangle someone, nor if an innocent little child can't hook them up right and fries herself.

They are MY tools, and I am responsible for their use or misuse.

Thousands of people use pens and paper to write thousands of bomb threats, terror plots, stalker letters, ransom notes, extortion demands, and child pornography. Hitler used them to write Mein Kampf, and the Klan used them for membership solicitations and meeting notices.

Taking my pen and paper is STILL a stupid response to those events.

Taking A's gun because B used his to kill someone is just as stupid.

Which gets me to thinking about the "More people are killed in crime with guns than are killed in self defense" argument.

I'll bet WAAAAAY more people are killed by jumper cables in the CDC death stats than are saved. Fire extinguishers too.

4. Strip gun homicides out of the U. S. stats. We STILL have a disproportionate homicide level, and the Japanese, Swedes, Dutch and British have exactly the same access to knives, chair legs, and fists as Americas. Some of us are just meaner than they are.

You had me going with the Gish thing, because the only one I knew was Lil, the first and last movie star (and a director and producer). Early in her career ("Wind") and again much later ("Night of The Hunter") her characters (about 90 pounds, incidentally) dealt with evil by means of firearms--a rapist in the 1920's, and Robert Mitchum (fill in the blank) in the 50's. Around the Gish Film Theatre is a subculture of film fans who, whenever an on-screen armed heroine is confronted with an evildoer, call out "Shoot him, Lil!"

Tangent to your point, I know, but just my bit of Gishiana. To film students, you might better have kept your mouth shut.

accusing anyone of the Gish Gallop in a text-only forum is highly disingenuous. that tactic works for Duane Gish precisely because he specializes in oral debates, where his opponents do not have unlimited time to compose their replies, nor the resources of google and their local libraries at their disposal. were he to hold his debates in writing he'd be clobbered, because the facts are against him and it's only a matter of finding the references to prove each of his myriad galloping points wrong.

if somebody's spamming a web message board with incorrect junk, the rebuttal needed might perhaps get unwieldily long, but you've got time. compose it well, and you can make it readable and entertaining while still rebutting your opponent's incorrect claims. the simplest method is a list of quoted claims, followed by a googled-up URL showing it wrong. such link farms make very boring reading, but can be useful resources.

Sadly, as a liberal I deeply resent the fact that most liberals continue to post such naive statements such as "we need more soliciolgical change" and I'm lumped in the same category as those nit-wits. Apparently, they've never opened a history book, have no idea that 6 million Jews were murdered after being disarmed, and insist that the police will beam into your home with 10 seconds of your dialing 9-1-1 ala Star Trek.

We need a new political term - something between liberal and conservative. Moderate isn't descriptive enough. But I certainly need to put some distance between my fellow idiotic liberals who think that more time and more wishing will magically make the world all perfect and safe, and myself. That illusion, and unfortunately, the hope, it creates isn't realistic in today's time.

IMHO if you're scared to death of those images that the gentlemen made, you ARE one (or all) of the following:
- A Racist
- A Idealist
- Kindergartner

I'm in a wheelchair for life, and unless you've ever been in one in any large urban area leaving a restaurant around 11pm and experienced the sheer terror that accompanies being approached (and robbed) by thugs, you know nothing of reality many of us face every day.

"One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that 'violence begets violence.' I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure - and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy."
-- The late Colonel John Dean "Jeff" Cooper, 1920-2006

OK, so he gets a little strong with with the "bleeding heart" moniker, but my point is that "better functioning societies" come to exist precisely because men and women of courage stand ready to actually DO something to stop thuggery and tyranny with more than just wimpy words. Ask the founders. They understood tyranny; they understood its remedy; and they were willing to do the hard things to put an end to it. They were brave people. Those that seek to disarm us are not brave at all. Surrendering to the perpetration of evil is simply not an acceptable alternative.

I find it remarkable that people exist who believe that a better functioning society can be arrived at by empowering the visigoths and disarming the citizenry.

"I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honor by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully."

- Mohandas Gandhi (Young India, 11-10-1928, p342)

The one thing that bothers me about these images is the fact that they were created. If guns are really that much of a "tool," then why don't people just quietly have them? Everyone who is "pro-gun" has to be "in your face" about owning a one.

If you use it just for sport and/or to keep IN CASE of emergency or attack, why do guns have to be flaunted like so?

And regardless of whether you are pro-gun or not, the argument "We have guns in America, and if you don't like it, then leave" is just a cop out.

taxi3,

Were you one of those people who said, "Why do those homosexuals have to have parades?"

Because, Taxi, those who against us being able to have guns to defend our lives are "in our face" telling us that we should simply lay down and submit to any attack. That we should just "reason" with our attackers. That we should be able to have a just and peaceful society without violence...if we could jsut get rid of the guns.

You see, we are under attack for our desire to defend ourselves every day, and it is only with stark images such as these that we can show the fallocy in those attacks for what they are.

Jason,

Homosexuals are harming people?

"Were you one of those people who said, "Why do those homosexuals have to have parades?""

Exactly. The language of gun control starts and ends with intolerance. Owning and using a gun safely and legally does no harm to others, and a lot of people don't get that the language of gun control fundamentally shares a LOT with homophobic anti-gay rhetoric. It's disgusting. I'm ashamed of my fellow liberals sometimes.

"Homosexuals are harming people?"

Have you read the nauseatingly self-righteous, sanctimonious crap spewed by gay-haters?

"Gays are destroying families, responsible for the 9-11 attacks, undermining America, molesting our children..." it goes on and on what the anti-gay bigots puke out. Anti-gun rhetoric is fundamentally the same, and comes from much the same roots.

Gun ownership and safe and lawful gun use is a life choice that does no harm to others. Gun control is intolerant of others' life choices, not to mention bigoted. It's wrong, and we liberals shouldn't engage in it for the same reason we don't push "defense of marriage acts" and "coloreds only" water fountains.

jlbraun,

I agree with you on the intolerance aspect. I just feel uncomfortable when people shove guns in my face. If you want to have them, it's your choice, but people who show them off seems like they just want to prove how tough they are by having one or something.

But touching on your point of comparing the intolerance of gun holders to homosexuals, having guns is clearly a choice.

Gun owners are harming people?

Something like 40-50% of American homes own a gun, across broad social strata. Billions of rounds of ammo are expended in target practice every year, with fewer injuries than nearly any other sport. Most states have some form of concealed carry license these days. Even by conservative estimates, hundreds of thousands of crimes are prevented by ordinary citizens with guns, usually without any shots fired. And that doesn't include the general deterrent effect.

Why shouldn't gun owners be out and proud? We're your neighbors. Your co-workers. Possibly even your family. It's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing to hide.

"I just feel uncomfortable when people shove guns in my face."

You'll get over it.

Just over ten years ago, a lesbian kiss on TV was the cause of national outcry. America managed to survive the trauma, and the whole thing seems silly now, when every sitcom has its token gay friend character.

A poster with ordinary people and guns on it is no more outrageous than a poster of an actor with a gun.

I'm not saying that the picture of the gun itself bothers me, it's the text included.

"You'll get over it."

Thanks, doctor. What would I do without you?

"I just feel uncomfortable when people shove guns in my face."

Then don't make intolerant, conservative, divisive, and bigoted statements concerning them or their owners. We liberals tolerate others' life choices, not demand that they not offend us by not expressing their group identity. That's repressive language and clearly wrong.

"having guns is clearly a choice"

Need I dredge up what the gay haters say? "Acting gay is a choice. Through enough group therapy and conditioning, we can free someone from gayness." The parallels are clear.

And it's a straw man anyway. It isn't about owning guns as a choice, it's about defending oneself with tools. Outlaw guns, people will defend themselves with sticks and knives. Defending oneself with useful tools is an irrevocable part of being human, and isn't a choice at all. Taking away those tools is fundamentally antithetical to basic human rights.

Eh, from the sound of it, you'd hyperventilate like a Southern Baptist who'd just seen a nipple on the television. An understandable response if it's a H&K P7M8, or Halle Berry. Some things do overwhelm. But with practice and regular exposure, a certain amount of poise can be maintained.

If you live in a high crime rate area and are against using guns to protect yourself, I suggest you do this:

Put a big sign in your yard that says "The owner of this dwelling owns no firearms and will not use deadly force to protect life or property."

If you don't, then you're just deriving benefit from all the gun owners around you.

And if you DO, I wish you well. Make sure your living will is current.

Wow, if there is anything that this discussion proves is that there a lot of strong feelings out there on this subject. A lot of ignorance as well. Ignorance of laws and the form of government we have:

"Thus, as with other potentially harmful things, in a free, democratic society there is a discussion about legally restricting access to them. There are people who like to smoke Marihuana or drive their cars around at 150 mph in a city center. They can not legally do that. And in the same way, when/if a majority of people decide to restrict access to guns, you will no longer be able to own them legally. Live with it."

Since we live in a republic and there is nothing inherently dangerous about carrying a gun (unlike driving 150 MPH in the city) the argument is not just false it is also really bad.

Bigoted willful ignorance about people:

"Also, I always find it hilarious if people who have no idea at all about the constitutions and laws of foreign countries, and in all likelihood don't even own a passport to leave the US, talk about a supposed lack of freedom elsewhere."

Absolutely no clue who they are talking about. This may be good a thing, given their position.

Ignorance of gun statistics:

"This is, of course, a valid position to take. I disagree, but that's life. The fact that owning guns is actually much more dangerous to you, your family and friends than to any hypothetical black rapist in your back alley is not my problem. Well, maybe a bit in case of your family."

Lies and insults are the last refuge of a failed argument. But everything in the above paragraph is both.

"The fact that owning guns is actually much more dangerous to you, your family and friends"

Every variant of this argument is based on the flawed Kellerman study. "6 times more likely", "43 times more likely", it's all bunkum. Kellerman (and all subsequent studies to date) have consistently failed to control for the *criminality* of the decedents and their families. 71% of Kellerman's decedents had felony records. Second, the gun that killed the decedent wasn't even the one they owned! If a criminal gets killed with a gun owned by someone else, they gun the dead person owned is at fault instead of their murderer, the gun the murderer owned, or the decedent's violent and criminal lifestyle? How stupid!

This study was so politically laden and flawed that they passed LAWS saying that the government could never again fund any direct gun control studies.

"The reason you want to own guns is because you LIKE to own guns and you LIKE to shoot things."

You are a liar.

If guns are really that much of a "tool," then why don't people just quietly have them? Everyone who is "pro-gun" has to be "in your face" about owning a one.

There are millions of people who own guns who do exactly that. They're not in your face, they're not militant - they're just people.

It's probable one or more of your neighbors is armed - but they see no need to tell you about it. You could be my neighbor - but I don't sport a handgunner bumper sticker and I don't belong to the NRA. I'm just this guy, you know?

You're only seeing a small noisy minority here.

I think the best response to Anon's fundamentally intolerant comment above:

"What annoys me personally about this whole debate are the fundamentally dishonest arguments coming from the pro-gun crowd. The reason you want to own guns is because you LIKE to own guns and you LIKE to shoot things."

is jason's quite snarky and on-point reply:

"Heaven forbid we enjoy ourselves, fail to shed tears of regret at the grim necessity of it all when we practice with our tools of self-defense.

What a drab and joyless life you must lead. No doubt driving a tiny car with no radio to work, eating only the bread and water and vitamins required for basic nutrition, dressing in burlap sacks to keep from freezing to death. Avoiding nonsense and frivolity of all sorts so that people will take you oh-so-seriously."

Anon = 0wn3d.

You're only seeing a small noisy minority here.
-Brian Dunbar

Yes, the Smallest Minority, in fact. A minority of ONE. This is the work of one man who is trying to show those who may not have thought of it, what a defensive weapon can do to help a person who is at a disadvantage physically when he or she is attacked.

Noisy? Hardly. These images have not made a sound. What you're hearing is the empty rattling of a long-disproven belief that people with the means to protect themselves are actually the dangerous ones.

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

"An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry."

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
"He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."

" If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

" No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

some quotes from thomas jefferson

@ frank
Yes, the Smallest Minority, in fact. A minority of ONE. This is the work of one man ...

I wasn't referring to Oleg's imagery but the people commenting on this post.

"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

" If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

"The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

quotes from james madison

james madison was the father of the us constitution was he not??

"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security."

"Half a truth is often a great lie."

"He that's secure is not safe."

"Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God."

"Those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory, sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them."

"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."

"Where liberty is, there is my country."

quotes by ben franklin

I came back to see if anyone anti-gunner would engage my comments. They did not. But I found this: "when/if a majority of people decide to restrict access to guns, you will no longer be able to own them legally. Live with it.

Since you posted anonymously on April 5th at 9:51 AM, it is difficult to know if you are just trolling for the maximum effect. But here's my reply, if the majority of the population voted to ban firearms, I would know that the time to use them had truly come. The Nazis disarmed the German people in 1934, and then began their reign of terror. The only way to stop tyranny is to stand against it. I will not be disarmed. Now, if firearms are banned, who is coming to get mine? Not you, that's for sure. You have no weapons or training. But for sure, whomever gets sent will be armed. And when I am dead and disarmed, those armed men will be your masters.

Here's a quote from Thomas Jefferson for you to think about,
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." - Thomas Jefferson

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

this is america. i shouldnt have to say more

"These (Oleg's images) are bizarre and terrifying...."

I've seen many of Oleg's pro-self defense images, and they have often been described in detracting terms by many anti-self defense individuals.

However, I have never seen them described as false or untruthful.

Maybe this is why they are considered so "bizarre and terrifying" to those who believe the proper response to a criminal attempting to take their life would be to wait patiently for someone else to take the risk of tying to save it.

Interrobang:

"The solution to reducing crime isn't more guns, it's a better-functioning society."

This is absolutely correct. In the past there was more access to guns and fewer incidents of school shootings and shooting over shoes or "being dissed".

The root cause of these issues is many areas of our society is failing to function. This is tied to poverty, racism, single parent households, lack of responsibility, Paris Hilton types as roll models, etc.

However, changing society is hard, and us Americans seem to rather watch TV than do hard tasks. Also changing society takes a long time.

I am all for changing society so young boys don't grow up to be gang-bangers who prove themselves with firearms. I am all for changing society so young boys don't objectify women to the point that rape is so frequent.

Until that time, I think possession of a firearm is a very reasonable precaution.

Once we change our society to a level where voilence is not an issue, my choosing to have a firearm for recreational target shooting will not be an issue.

akluis@gmail.com

(sorry I don't see the spellcheck button, I am lost without it)

Taxi writes Everyone who is "pro-gun" has to be "in your face" about owning a one.

http://www.armedamerica.org/ Many of the people in that book were 'outed' as gun owners to family and business associates. The truth is, for most people the gun stays in the closet, safe, or nightstand unless some photographer shows up. But they are still there, even if unseen.

As far as flaunting guns, as mentioned before, they are mostly kept out of sight, just like medicine and underwear. Yet frequently these items are flaunted by advertisers, do you object to that as well?

Further, I hope that gun owners do occasionally take the gun out of the case and go practice with it.

Besides, what is more in your face than the anti-gun groups stating their desire to collect every gun, and jail anyone who would dare keep one? I think being threatened with imprisonment is pretty "in your face"

And regardless of whether you are pro-gun or not, the argument "We have guns in America, and if you don't like it, then leave" is just a cop out.

Maybe it is a cop-out. But doesn't this standard apply to other amendments and rights as well? Do you consider it a cop-out if a person would say to you "I don't approve of women being allowed to vote, or own property" and someone replied "you are entitled to your belief. However, here as a society we believe differently, feel free to leave for a country that more closely matches your dogma"

And finally, most gun owners don't really care if you choose to own a gun or not. We just want to be allowed to keep ours. We may believe that if you try it you may find it fun, but as long as you don't try and throw us in jail, we couldn't care less if you have a gun or if you like jazz or prefer chocolate icecream over strawberry.

-akluis@gmail.com

p.s. anyone with a soul prefers strawberry icecream

taxi3 said:

"The one thing that bothers me about these images is the fact that they were created. If guns are really that much of a "tool," then why don't people just quietly have them? Everyone who is "pro-gun" has to be "in your face" about owning a one.

If you use it just for sport and/or to keep IN CASE of emergency or attack, why do guns have to be flaunted like so?"

My response is:

A) The fact that we are "in your face" about it is in response to your side's "in your face" provocations threatening to take away what we view to be a fundamental and Constitutionally guaranteed right - the same as YOU would be "in your face" about it if someone threatened to take away your right to speak freely. So as ye sow, so shall ye reap. If you don't like it, back off, and so will we. These images of Oleg's are merely a reaction to exactly the same kinds of advertising images ginned up by the Brady Bunch against gun rights. Did you object when they did it?

B) I never flaunt my guns. Never have, and never will. I don't even flaunt my right to own them, unless that right comes under attack. That is more than just a semantic difference. Your side wants people like me to stop being uppity about our rights? Stop trying to take them away!

Pretty basic, really.

Why are all you liberals so afraid of inanimate objects? Do you make the same arguments about kitchen knives?

What is wrong with fighting force with force?

you can make powerful bombs out of fertilizer and battery acid all available at walmart. this was used once on the world trade center. and people are worried about guns??

Estimated guns in the United States: 275 million (roughly).

Estimated swimming pools in the United States: 2.5 million (roughly - according to Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, 2004)

Unintentional firearm deaths ages 0-14 (according to the CDC) from 2000 to 2005: 412.

Unintentional drowning deaths from 2000 to 2005 ages 0-14: 4,993.

Clearly the only solution is to make sure we have diving board locks installed on all pools in this country. And no pool should be installed within 5 miles of a water source of any kind. Registration, chlorine microstamping, and some way to prevent the exploited “diving in” loophole are necessary.

Swimming pools … the silent suburban killer stalking your children in your own backyard

A personal witness of the value of owning a gun.

In 1972, My 76 year-old grandmother lived in a rough part of Detroit. She had a live-in renter, and a small dog. One evening, a 21 year-old drifter began breaking through her back door. My Grandmother and her renter screamed, but to no avail. He kept coming. My Grandmother pulled out a S&W .38 she purchased after her husband died. Holding it in her arthritic hands, she closed her eyes and fired once at close range.
The perp was KIA instantly with a shot to the head.

The detectives ruled it as justifiable self-defense.

Now tell me that it was wrong for her to own a gun. A handgun, of all things.

Every human being has the right to defend themselves--And they should not have to defend themselves for doing so when someone invades their
space, and fails to obey the request to stop.

Everyone should be able to protect themselves from thugs..........

"Homosexuals are harming people?"

And gunowners are harming people how, just by owning guns?

"I'm not saying that the picture of the gun itself bothers me, it's the text included."

So, someone's freedom of speech needs to be curtailed so you're not offended?

Are these types of images and their message to be classified as "hate speech"???

This is what we have come to in this country, a bunch of screaming, indignant 5-year olds who'll holler at the top of their lungs until the Nanny puts the pacifier into their little mouths.

It's all just a failed attempt at totalitarianism, and I'm quite sick of it all.

I just hope that the dolts like taxi3 get to take more ground, faster and with more zeal in this country. Honestly, it's the only way to get most people to wake up and see what's happening.

Then, and only then, will they see what ALL of those images truly represent.

Can't wait. Really.

I am glad to see the pro-self defense posters feature women, blacks and homosexuals as they are more at risk of violence than I - a 51 year old straight, white male. What is galling is the posturing of politicians opposed to self-defense, who are most often self-appointed guardians of the rights of women, blacks and homosexuals. I suspect those political figures are more interested in making minority groups dependant on them than empowering them in their own self-defense.

"if a majority of people decide to restrict access to guns, you will no longer be able to own them legally. Live with it."

That is nothing more than tyranny.

"It has nothing to do whatsoever with defending gays, lesbians or blacks (people most of you probably couldn't care less about), fighting the Nazis, defending your freedom against the government in the form of the US Army, or any other such nonsense."

*blink*

I'm guessing the dolt just doesn't understand that there are some gays/lesbians who do this sort of thing for THEMSELVES, and aren't relying on me or any others to do it for them. At least THAT IS what he is implying there, no doubt about it.

Here's a clue for the idiot, I don't have to care about their welfare, and in fact, I don't. THEY are the the only ones who have to care about their OWN welfare.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND, you knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing heathen?

"The solution to reducing crime isn't more guns, it's a better-functioning society."
While I would generally agree you're presenting a false dilemma where we must either chose to have guns or a better fuctioning society. Its sort of like suggesting we can either store our box of oily rags outdoors or have smoke detectors. Why aren't both possible? I would like to improve society but also have a firearm for self defense just in case that work on improving society wasn't enough.

Fundamentally, rights are secured by force. It is fundamental to the very nature of the world we find ourselves in. When one entity seeks to impose it's will upon another, lawfully or unlawfully, it must apply some kind of force. When unlawful/unjust force is being applied, any individual or community has a right to resist that force with measures appropriate to the circumstance. It does not matter if oppression comes from a lone criminal, a king, a cult, a collective, or a cartel. Individuals and communites have a right to resist such tyranny, and have a right to the means relevant to this resistance. In short, individuals and communites have a right to keep and bear arms for the preservation of their lives and liberties. This is a fundamental founding philosophy of the United States, which is as relevant today as it was at the nation's founding.

As a small female living in a rough part of my town, I wish I had the legal right to carry all manner of weapons, not just guns.

i am transgender. however you may feel about that isn't the issue here, but after my band played on holloween night three men thought it was. i was met in the empty parking lot and was told that ' tonight i was going to make love, prison style' i didn't have to shoot anyone but brandishing my weapon completely disolve the situation. whether you like it or not, at this point in american society arming yourself is your best bet. there does need to be some serious reform in the way we deal with violence and criminals. in mass, it takes 4-6 weeks to get a license to carry. if you think that reform is going to take place within 4-6 weeks then carry on being a target. personaly i'd much rather defend myself or die defending myself against a rapist or a tyranical government then have them do what they want with me.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people, with anything they can get their hands on. Guns are a polite way of enforcing, death being short and painless as possible. More people die in Australia, where guns are illegal, from knifes.

Mahatma Gandhi, assassinated on Jan 30, 1948 - by a bullet. So much for peaceful protest.

Interesting how there are both ads playing on racist fears -- OMG BlACK THUGS VS. THE WHITE WIMMIN! -- and fear of racists -- YOU NEEDED A GUN TO PROTECT YOU FROM LYNCHING AND COULDN'T HAVE ONE, SO GET ONE NOW.

The advertisements referencing rape really bother me.

Statistically, one is not very likely to be raped by a stranger in a dark alleyway (the way rape is often depicted.) Of all the cases of rape that I've had friends and loved ones, as well as myself, suffer through, not one was carried out by a stranger. As far as I can tell, they were also all situations where a gun wouldn't have offered much protection- in my cases they were carried out by former boyfriends; the last people I would think to cary weapons around.

The way to fight rape is to fight patriarchy and objectification, not to have more guns.

This scares me.
This really does.

Guns are not the be-all and end-all for societal problems, and in no shape or form will giving a gun to every single woman in the world stop rape.
People are opportunistic and will adapt to the situation.
Criminals are people.
If they wouldn't adapt to the situation, crime would've been wiped off the world a long time ago.

If every single woman in the world were to have a gun, and I was a rapist. I'm sure there are more ways than one to skin a cat, and there are more ways than one to rape someone. Gain their trust, get them when they have no gun, incapacitate them with chloroform, or I don't know. But for the love of any god that you choose to believe, Guns will not stop crime. ever. Crime will simply become more insidious, more careful, more tactical. Crime will clear up it's tracks more, will become more petty but careful. It may seem safe, but all you've done is made all the rats run into the holes in the walls, waiting.

And the image of the young girl with the pink rifle truly scares me. I have seen children soldiers. and to live with a gun in your hand is nothing more than ripping out their childhood from them.

You want to protect them, get them to self-defence classes, martial arts classes. Tell them what to do if they ever get attacked, where to attack so they can run. If they are too weak, there is pepper spray, which i still don't like, but i much prefer having than guns.

You are instilling fear and paranoia into people, and you give them something which can misfire, kill an innocent target... it's not right.

I know this thread is old, but goddamn: there are some disturbed individuals in the world. I think the comment about Gandhi takes the cake.

this has to be one of the weirdest posts I've ever seen on Contexts.. these advertisements are so weird... it also seems parody.

It is important that minority members of our society have guns and know how to use them. Never again!

Thank goodness I live in Canada.

I LOVE the pictures.

They are true.

Fear no man, no matter the size. Call on me, and I shall equalize.

guns protect the weak

When my girls were 9 they knew not to answer the door when we weren’t home.

Well then it's a good thing nobody tried to force their way in anyway, isn't it? I'm sure they also knew how to call 911, which would bring... men with guns to help.

Sorry, almost forgot. By unrestricted, I don't mean totally unregulated, I mean viewed as an inherent right to carry unless there is a specific provable danger like mental instability. Even though some states require that you take a course in handling a gun before you're allowed to carry one, if any adult is permitted to purchase and carry a handgun, concealed or openly, if people are permitted to purchase and keep in their house a semi- (or worse, fully-) automatic weapon - not a rifle or shotgun that could reasonably be used for hunting, but something like the pink assault rifle like the girl in the poster has - that's not a society I feel safe in.

Hahaha this shit was hilarious
Nice posters

I don't know about you, but I want some guns
Although, I would probably use it for evil, but it's okay because I'm Canadian
Also I hate these douchebag republicans that are posting in here. What does guns have to do with politics? shut up about that no one cares

Thank you SO much for posting these images, Drs. Lisa and Gwen.

Although I've never been particularly passionate on EITHER side of the "pro-gun vs. anti-gun" argument, these are such hard-hitting and thought-provoking images, that I am now convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that responsible handgun ownership (meaning take a course, qualify with the gun one has chosen, and always always lock it up if it's not on one's person) is a MUST.

I have learned so much as a dirct result of you having posted this, that I called my local Police department to inquire about the necessary steps to get a Concealed Carry Permit. I am also on my way this afternoon to a gun dealer (recommeded by the police officer I spoke with), to try a couple of options, and then buy one. I feel very at peace with this decision, and once again, I THANK you from the bottom of my heart for introducing this option to me.

Sincerely,
Ben Jameson

I don't like these ads not because I'm ant-gun, but because they use fear tactics to get you to see their point of view. I don't believe in "fighting fire with fire" or that as a woman, I need a rape gun. I think some of these ads are grossly misleading and would make one think they need to constantly be armed, always watching their back, and making enemies of potentialy everyone around them. Maybe some people see them as perfectly good arguments, but they honestly scream propaganda to me, and scare the shit out of me.

Yet, I still like guns, the same way I still like violent videogames and adult cartoons. The only argument pro-gun group really need to drive into the ground is that guns are meant for responsible adults who are educated in their use. To think taking away all means of harm from the general public will make them safer is a foolish idea, since that harm only becomes more prominent in the criminal world.

What is truly needed is some balance. anti-gun groups need to quit clumping in the average gun user with gang violence and organized crime, and pro-gun groups need to realize that public saftey is a concern and America is too large to give everyone a gun and hope they use it wisely. I'm not saying I know the answer to this perfect midground, I'm just saying that if pro and anti gun groups focused more on the abolishment of guns in the criminal world, and less on the total dominance or abolishment of guns, it could lead to something better for both groups.

This would be reasonable if it didn't sensationalize and exaggerate the number of stranger rapes. Rape is a common violent crime, but it is primarily committed by familiar people, including family members. Having a gun could very well be pointless in these cases as one would naturally be hesitant to use them against a family member or friend.

Ban all guns everywhere, make concealed weapons legal for everyone- I honestly don't care which one you choose, as long as you choose one and stop with the half-assed restrictions and liberties that just make things worse all over.

(no idea who 'you' is, specifically)

Looked at all of them and none of them are racist. Not one. There were a few stupid ones though.

an eye for an eye... your just as bad ... refuse this and you can have the moral highground. I'd rather die than lose my morals.

I've just found this site and am amazed at some of the things said.  As someone who doesn't live in a the USA, I would just ask the pro-gun writers to consider the majority of western countries where guns are not allowed.  We don't live in fear and answer the door with a gun in our hand and yet our crime rate is as good as or better than in the US.   Of course, citizens of USA have the right to make their own laws as they see fit, but do you see people owning guns in 200 years, or would you hope that civilisation would have made that un-necessary.  All the best to all.

( OK, let's be really radical - imagine a USA without guns or religion and with a proper social security system - attractive image or not ? )

I'm a 100-pound, five-foot-one woman living in a fairly high crime area (Oakland), and while I don't own a gun, I understand why people like me would. Every week I read about innocent people getting shot, and it seems like the bad guys can find guns regardless. I'm also thinking about carrying out a lifelong dream of traveling alone across the country, and if I do that, I WILL get a gun. Having guns around isn't an ideal situation, but neither is having an abortion, declaring bankruptcy, driving everywhere (hello environmental impact), killing animals for food, drinking or smoking, saying whatever you want, and lots of other things that I believe people should have the right to do. Thanks for these images!

BTW I vote Democrat

Interesting how we never hear the phrase "anti-gun lobby" on sites like this, or in the main stream media.  "All animals are equal,  but some are more equal than others."

i will be happy when the 'brady bunch' and all their ilk can tell me their plan to  guarrentee to keep me safe from being attacked. seeing as now the police have admitted that they have no obligation to assure my personal safety

Great Pics! I hope there are more to come! :)

Research has shown that rapists are natural predators that can instinctively find the "weakest of the herd" so to speak. A woman packing heat is probably not going to look the part of a victim.
It is also good to note that the one thing that most often prevents rape is fighting back in any way.I bet a woman without a gun is far more appetizing than an armed lady.

Great meme collection. STSA is fully supportive of any law-abiding person that wishes to exercise his or her 2nd Amendment rights.
http://sellingthesecondamendment.com/

Arms in the hands of responsible citizens are a threat to no one but those who would them harm.
What is terrifying is an unarmed person having to face a criminal.

I went to the website and it makes you choose a path between a gun being a liability or a useful too. I chose liability. I'm by no means anti gun, but I am pro gun control (to an extent).
Basically all the questions are rhetorical shit that a pro gun advocate with an IQ of 70 would ask. They force you to give answers you don't agree with or make yourself look stupid.