Ultimate Gun Defense

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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Gentlemen, gentlemen... Can we allow a little dissent so we have an opportunity to address it? Scaring it away won't make it go away.

That said... I found Glenn's expression of concern to be spot on. He stated the facts - as he perceived them - and skipped the sarcasm. You didn't see an automatic retort from Van - even though Glenn was expressing concern directly to Van.

Meanwhile, we get this line buried in a post.
Valkenar wrote:
Well, controlling one's emotions is an important life skill, imho.
For someone who claims to value control of emotions, Justin, you show a remarkable lack of emotional intelligence. If your intent was to antagonize, well maybe I should retract that statement. Along those lines you've succeeded marvelously. But if your intent was to win others over to your point of view, well you've failed miserably.

Respect is a 2-way street. You have to give it to get it. And to use a metaphor from Covey, you need to make many deposits in that emotional bank account before you can start withdrawing.

- Bill
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

I've wanted all day long to address this. Sorry it took so long; I had to clean up some mess.
Valkenar wrote:
The whole decision-making process goes like this:

1. Will a gun make your family more or less safe?
2. If yes, will it make them enough less safe to be worth the cost (in time and money)?

For 1, you have to ask questions like: how are you storing it? What are your risk factors? Are you the kind of person who can definitely keep it secured? Will you be capable of using it if you need to?

For 2 you have to ask: How does owning the gun affect your quality of life? How much time do you have to spend training with it? How much money do you have to spend buying and maintaining it (and relevant licenses)?

Compare it to medicine. It's easy to say "Every life is worth any expense saving" but when you have limited resources, you have to decide where you're going to put your resources. Quality of life is an important consideration, not just quantity of life. To bring it back to guns, doing all the training necessary to be really proficient is time-intensive and expensive. If you like doing it, that's not a problem, but if it's just an onerous chore, then even if there's some chance of it preventing an unlikely disaster, you aren't necessarily making the right choice by having one.

And yes, that means you're taking a chance but you're *always* taking chances in life. Every day what you eat, what you do, where you drive, there's always chance involved. It's not possible to eliminate chance from your life, and no person is totally in control of their own destiny. That's a hard fact for a lot of people to accept, but its reality.

Basically it comes down to this:

Is
(Chance of bad things happening) X (severity of bad things happening)
greater than
(Cost of prevention) + (severity of bad things happening) X (chance of prevention failing)

And no, you can never truly know exact values for that. But what this tells you is that if the chances of bad things happening is low enough and the cost of prevention is high, then it's not worth trying to prevent it. You can try and take all the personal responsibility you want, and you'll still never eliminate chance. At the end of the day you have to accept that there are risks you're just going to have to live with.

That's not to say prevention and risk-reduction is worthless, but saying "I will always do maximum risk reduction" doesn't really make sense, and besides, nobody really does that (not even the most timid people).
I find a basic flaw in this discussion, Justin. Hear me out.

What is completely missing - and is eminently American - are factors like freedom and choice. Jefferson being one of my heroes, I always look to him for inspiration.
Thomas Jefferson wrote:
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Many choose to frame a discussion along the lines of maximizing some greater good, while ignoring simple concepts like freedom, choice, and cultural heterogeneity. We could impose a dictatorship and "solve" a lot of problems. But we value other principles more than the "one size fits all" solutions dictated by "elite" thinkers.

Our strength as a nation comes from the diversity of our culture and the tolerance we (should) have for many points of view. We even defend the right of individuals to make complete asses of themselves.

I'm with Jefferson. I'll take the imperfect global statistics (framed of course by those wishing to prove a point) if it means I have the ability to make my own choices in how to deal with gun ownership.
Winston Churchill wrote:
Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
I'm good with the freedom and I accept some consequences for those freedoms.

Meanwhile... we as participants in a democracy owe it to ourselves and others to inform. Knowledge and wisdom turn the lawless and clueless masses into more responsible citizens. That is especially true for gun ownership.

- Bill
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Van Canna
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All here in a nutshell_

Post by Van Canna »

Bill
For someone who claims to value control of emotions, Justin, you show a remarkable lack of emotional intelligence.

If your intent was to antagonize, well maybe I should retract that statement. Along those lines you've succeeded marvelously. But if your intent was to win others over to your point of view, well you've failed miserably.

Respect is a 2-way street. You have to give it to get it. And to use a metaphor from Covey, you need to make many deposits in that emotional bank account before you can start withdrawing.


Hear/hear....

And this has been his MO all along in discussions about guns as far back as 10 years ago...always antagonizing, never winning any friends, and never succeding in persuading anyone over to his way of thinking.

Job well done, pal. :wink:

And now he has even succeded in pissing off the Marines...Stevie B...who's got his number for sure. :lol:
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Post by Valkenar »

Fair enough about the emotional control line. I stand by the principle that even (in fact, especially) when discussing emotionally charged topics it's important to separate emotion from logic, and to keep yourself rational even if you feel strongly about a subject. And that the ability to do so is very helpful throughout one's life. But you're right, that sentence was on the snippy side (irony, anyone?) and I should have made my point more clearly and diplomatically.

As for your bank metaphor, I agree, but I think my overall ratio of deposits to withdrawals is pretty high, in this thread and on these forums in general.
Bill Glasheen wrote:Many choose to frame a discussion along the lines of maximizing some greater good, while ignoring simple concepts like freedom, choice, and cultural heterogeneity.
I don't think we disagree on this. The equation I suggested was for an individual's most rational choice. It is not at all my idea that such a decision-making process should be legally mandated. It's just the process that seems maximally rational to me. If for whatever reason people want to use a method that is less rational, then that's their prerogative. It's still a bad method (in my view), and I would counsel against it, but, as you say, it's their bad decision to make.

NB: this isn't about legislation, for me. Jeffersonian democracy isn't in question. From a legal perspective all I want is for people to demonstrate some level of basic responsibility/competence (like we have with that other deadly weapon - the car). Once they meet that (low) bar, they are free to make decisions any which way they choose.

Just because I think that there's a better and worse way to go about making life decisions doesn't mean I want to legislate that better way.
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Post by Jason Rees »

Bert, I am a clod. Please forgive me for not acknowledging your grief. I am extremely sorry for your loss, and I can't imagine the heartbreak of losing a brother or sister to suicide. Having known a soldier who took their own life was more than enough sorrow, and meeting a woman who took a bullet to stop their suicidal husband caused more awe than I'd ever experienced.

Time may not heal all wounds, but memories become more dear as it passes. May you cherish the years and the memories you have left.
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Van Canna
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The fallacy in thinking...

Post by Van Canna »

....that continues to not be grasped is that 'surviving' is part of living our lives together with others we love...children etc.

It is simple math:

We always want to stack the odds in our favor as much as possible. Myopic, uninformed, unprofessional _misguided self centered opinions, especially when it comes to the safety of family relying on us for reasonable protective steps is nothing but unconscionable.

This simply means having the tools you need to meet whatever challenge life might be throwing at you...and also the ability to keep them and use them safely...especially when the law of the land is that there IS no law of the land.

Also the horror imprint that violent acts or death of a loved one to violence when negligent in foreseeability and precautions...will debilitate someone for life.

My cousin's wife sought to escape such guilt and emotional turmoil by fleeing back to Russia.

My cousin to this day still gets calls at the anniversary of his daughter's killing...with the_ warning that he still has another daughter. :(
Van
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Justin

There are times you remind me of myself as a younger lad, which makes it easy to see why you communicate the way you do.

A Meyers-Briggs ENTP also loves to debate for the fun of it, and will sometimes play devil's advocate in a discussion just for the sport of it. I grew up in a family of competitive extemporaneous speakers and debaters, so I get it. But not everyone appreciates the pure art of debate - especially with emotionally charged topics. You are correct to want a rational as opposed to an emotional discussion. But it's disingenuous to claim so when one's "rational" debate stirs up raw emotions in others.

There's a fine art to being part of an enlightening discussion as opposed to taking part in a verbal battle. When it comes to doing so with people you spend a lot of time with, another level of debating intelligence needs to come forth. I have to turn that on in my job where - in my super technical world - I'm often in the minority having English as a first language. I need to be culturally sensitive so that people around me who are equally intelligent (or more) feel they can express their thoughts.

Try having discussions with many family members while a loved one is experiencing failing health. The simplest "innocent" statement can set someone off. And when you know it will do so... As my family negotiates the passing of our patriarch, we all need to practice the fine art of enlightened communication. This includes knowing when to shut up, being able to laugh at oneself, and knowing when to change the subject. Being "right" - whatever the hell that is - doesn't necessarily count. And continuing a discussion which isn't getting anywhere just isn't very smart. Again... the goal is to win friends and influence people. And if there are friends in need around us, it makes sense to tend to those needs first. Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.

There is a way to "think out loud" as you are trying to do in this discussion. But one must clearly state that ideas are being entertained, and not necessarily embraced.

This is a very similar situation to my family dynamics of late. We have a few people here who have lost loved ones. If we want to persuade our neighbors over to "our" view of the world, it's going to take a masterful effort. And if that isn't going to happen, well sometimes it's best just to leave it alone. In doing so, sometimes WE are the ones who learn a little something.

- Bill
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apologies & rebuttal

Post by Panther »

I had intended on dropping this for a number of reasons. I mention this only as an FYI to some here because of the flippant comments about cyber-stalking... Some posters on these forums have been targeted in the past, in the real world, specifically because of positions taken on these forums. Targeting me is one thing, but the potential for economic, emotional and potentially physical (who knows how far the person was going to go) harm to my family crosses the line. It's happened, the police were involved, it was a federal crime, the person is known and that situation is done. I have been very careful in most (if not all) of my posts since returning from a long, self-imposed lurking status (because of the fear and stress the "real world" situation caused my family). However, after hearing of this post, I feel I must comment. To wit:
Valkenar wrote:Have any of you paused to realized that I'm not the one that started this talk of statistics? It wasn't me coming in here to Bert he was wrong to blame it on the guns. That was Panther. Everything I have said about gun control has been to other people, who in my opinion (and I didn't want to come here to cast recriminations) were insensitive in how they approached the subject.

Look at Panther's line:
I know it is tough to lose someone you love (no matter how it happens), but thinking that it was in any way "the gun's fault" for being "easily available" doesn't work for me

So here we have Bert, in his pain, talking in a less-than-positive (while still saying he does keep a gun) way about gun ownership and what did Panther do? Got up on his soap box telling Bert his thinking "doesn't work for me" Maybe he was right, maybe those stats are dead on, but is that what Bert really needs? If you are so concerned with Bert's pain, why not just let him post whatever he feels like, without trying to prove him wrong? Why critique his feelings just one month after it happened?

Did you see me coming in here and telling Bert what the statistics say about gun safety? No, I responded Panther and you. You're furious that I would have the gall to question people who have had such serious tragedies and yet turn a blind eye to it when your friend does it.
Look Justin, if you're going to quote me, please quote me completely, not selectively. I could easily cut & paste your posts selectively and easily make you look like an ignorant, insensative @$$hole too.

My very first sentences when joining this thread were:

"Sigh... :cry: I've been avoiding any comment on this thread. I am very sorry to hear of Bert's loss..."

I only joined this thread because I was mentioned. The issue of having vs not having a firearm and similar off-shoots had already been brought up. For all of your complaints and underlying dislike of what they indicate, the truth is that I posted cited stats from a source recognized by both sides of the debate to back up what I said. I did so because KentuckyUechi said "statistically", so I was providing some statistics. Even in that very first lengthy post I concluded with:

"As was said before, this isn't meant to be callous and I'm truly sorry for the tragedies that people have suffered."

Both sympathy and an acknowledgement of ALL of the tragedies people had suffered and were dealing with.
Valkenar wrote:Here's the bottom line. I don't really know, and I'm not going to pretend to know what Bert needs. Nor am I going to pretend like the losses I've suffered in my own life make me an expert on how he feels right now. I have very intentionally avoided pretending like anything that I, a complete stranger on the internet could say has any true meaning in the face of such a highly personal tragedy. That seems awfully presumptuous to me. There's lots of maybe-helpful things I could say about suicide, but it's not my place to presume that I know about someone else's feelings. I don't begrudge anyone well-wishes or comforting words. There is value in that. This is just how I feel about it.
I responded to Glenn with my "bottom line", which evidently doesn't cut it for some either. That's fine. But in addition to painting me as a callous statistics spouting @$$hole, you also strongly imply in this statement that I am pretending that anything I could say has any true meaning. And follow that up with the statement that it "seems awfully presumptuous to me". Previously you wrote (and I did not respond):
Valkenar wrote:I have known that people's experiences affect them for a long time. In fact, that's exactly the point that you don't seem to be getting. These life experiences that mold people don't always mold them in positive ways. Not all experience is wisdom. It's all too easy to be emotionally scarred by an event and make bad decisions because of that experience. That's why it's important to try and get perspective on the things you experience, maybe even some counseling so that you don't end up having trouble detaching enough from the emotional content to make informed choices.

So do I understand that the way people think about things is influenced by their experiences, particularly traumatic ones? Of course I do. But you seem to be assuming that those experiences always equate to having a better perspective on these things, and I think that's quite clearly not how people work.
Perhaps it is just your style, perhaps I misunderstand, perhaps it is a veiled insult... regardless:

You say that those experiences don't mold people in a positive way, are not wise, make it easy for someone who is emotionally scarred to make bad decisions and that you think that your perspective is quite clearly the truth. I say, if I learn from my experiences and it keeps me and my loved ones safe, alive, healthy and happy, I really don't care whether you think it is either positive OR wise! It is interesting that you take this position only when there is something that is said and you can't refute it... Now... for the scars... They're physical... The only ones that have seen them are my wife and doctors. I don't play the "wanna see my scars" game. You say that it is important to try and get perspective and (perhaps) counseling in order to make informed choices. Well... Here's where and why I do get emotional on this... You have NO effin' idea WHAT counseling I have or have not gone through! NONE... I never saw YOUR sorry @$$ in the corner when I was up at night "trying to get perspective" on things that I was working through and I have made informed decisions even IF they are "incorrect" from your esteemed perspective. You see, you have shown that it isn't about guns... it's about control.

You also neglected to quote this, which you imply was/is your original position and which I wrote pages earlier. I think it needs to be reiterated:

"I didn't join this thread until directly mentioned. I've said it all along... I feel bad about Bert's loss. I know what it's like to lose someone you love tragically... Nothing can be said by anyone to offer true comfort. The best thing that was ever said to me by anyone was, "I know..." Nothing else, just that. It's tough and I knew this would turn into the whole "gun debate". I didn't think this thread should be about the whole "gun debate", I thought (and still do) that this should be about Kentuck's loss... And there's nothing that anyone can really say to make it any better.


"... people have said many things and even said that it "gets better with time", here's what I've learned. That's BS... It doesn't get better with time, you just learn to live with it."

"I'm really truly sorry Bert, but... I know... :cry: :puppydogeyes: "

One other thing that I've learned, but more recently, is that life is just too short to waste time with people who aren't worth my time.

To lighten up a little bit, you wrote:
Valkenar wrote:I never said that anybody was letting Tommy go play with guns.
Unless, of course, if it's a Tommy gun! :lol:

Finally, I apologize to Bill-Sensei AND to KentuckyUechi for being a party to taking this thread off on a tangent when it shouldn't have happened. Again, Bert... Our Sympathies for your loss and our wishes for your comfort during this sad time in the life of your family. Please take care...

:(
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Stevie B
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Yes ... what Panther said..

Post by Stevie B »

Very sorry for anyone's loss like that.. I only caught this in the tail end.. And to Bill, of course I am sorry for being my normal Dorky self.. But you guys should be used to it by now...

And to Justin... One thing I can say positive about you ( because Momma always taught me to look for the positive) is that you seem to be very articulate!!!
That's awesome!!!
See if you can articulate this?!?

Deleted by Moderator

Ooopppppssssss....

Sorry again Bill...... :roll:
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Van Canna
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Post by Van Canna »

Panther
I mention this only as an FYI to some here because of the flippant comments about cyber-stalking... Some posters on these forums have been targeted in the past, in the real world, specifically because of positions taken on these forums. Targeting me is one thing, but the potential for economic, emotional and potentially physical (who knows how far the person was going to go) harm to my family crosses the line. It's happened, the police were involved, it was a federal crime, the person is known and that situation is done. I have been very careful in most (if not all) of my posts since returning from a long, self-imposed lurking status (because of the fear and stress the "real world" situation caused my family).
Sorry to hear this, Panther…very chilling to say he least. This also happened to another well esteemed poster on my forum, who actually had to leave town and move his family to a remote State for safety.

And here we have this Justin character thinking life is cyber game where he gets his thrills by 'debating' and hurling veiled insults. He still does not realize that he might well put his own family at risk with what he spouts on people and guns.

Many people will read what he writes and may well harbor unhealthy thoughts as far as his personal safety is concerned. It is indeed a cyber jungle.

In his present daze brought on by the extreme reactions of people to his latest cyber excursion…

he
might do well reading Golan's "Emotional Intelligence" as brought up by Bill Glasheen, especially chapter one which delves deeply into the insight of the purpose and potency of emotions…the emotional legacy of evolution that made the difference between survival and death and outlining the pitfalls of when passions can overwhelm reason not just shaped by our rational judgment or personal history but also by our distant ancestral past.

I recall a similar discussion I started once on my forum about the ancestral custom of Sicilian vendettas….and there was the usual Justin spouting off garbage _from
his lofty academic perch …having the gift for pissing people off not ever realizing that he is seen as nothing but a pettifogger, constantly quibbling and raising annoying petty objections while playing in the real world. I doubt he has many friends.


Stevie has got him pegged right as a cry-baby.


And now here we have this self appointed 'counselor' dispensing therapy advice as in standing over a raging fire pouring gasoline in it from a can. He is lucky that Panther is the /control/real deal.

Hopefully this latest fiasco will have taught him a real life lesson, because in the end he is not a bad guy and now he is a father.

Best of luck to you and family Justin.
Van
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Please behave, gentlemen. I know you have it in you. Thank you in advance.

I conduct this forum in a manner where all feel like they can be heard. It's unfortunate when the privilege of a stage is not handled wisely. But I'd like to think that good ideas can rise independent of those who advance them, and bad ideas (and behavior) can be addressed and put to rest. There is a right way to do it. And the parties in this discussion have all the skills they need to do that gracefully.

I've left most of what's been posted because there are important issues being revealed. The issue of gun ownership and gun legislation becomes very personal to people who have been exposed to violence, and to those who have seen gun violence. It's only natural to expect the tenor of a discussion to get a bit testy at times.

And I'm happy Panther brought up the subject of our Uechi Forums "stalker." This was a well-known Uechi Ryu black belt who - for lack of a better word - went postal and started engaging in felonious activity to harass people whose opinions she objected to. The good news is that it didn't take us long to figure out who it was, and we got the legal process involved to stop it. My point? Sometimes these spats can get out of hand. It may seem like a game to some, but it isn't. There were no winners in that extended "disagreement."

- Bill
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Stevie B
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Darn...

Post by Stevie B »

Yeah... You are right Bill.. A little over the top... :oops:
He was starting to remind me of the folks from the Westboro Baptist Church... And I've just been itching to give one of them what for.. I don't mind people having strong opinions, but if they take away our right to bear arms... Because of a few zealots then we may as well never separated from England in the first place!!!
Anyways... I don't blame you for censoring me.. I admit I was testing the boundaries that time... :lol:
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

No worries, Stevie. I have a sense of humor as well. ;)

- Bill
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Panther
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Post by Panther »

Bill Glasheen wrote:Please behave, gentlemen. I know you have it in you. Thank you in advance.

I conduct this forum in a manner where all feel like they can be heard. It's unfortunate when the privilege of a stage is not handled wisely. But I'd like to think that good ideas can rise independent of those who advance them, and bad ideas (and behavior) can be addressed and put to rest. There is a right way to do it. And the parties in this discussion have all the skills they need to do that gracefully.
I apologize again... I've tried... I really have...
Bill Glasheen wrote:I've left most of what's been posted because there are important issues being revealed. The issue of gun ownership and gun legislation becomes very personal to people who have been exposed to violence, and to those who have seen gun violence. It's only natural to expect the tenor of a discussion to get a bit testy at times.

And I'm happy Panther brought up the subject of our Uechi Forums "stalker." This was a well-known Uechi Ryu black belt who - for lack of a better word - went postal and started engaging in felonious activity to harass people whose opinions she objected to. The good news is that it didn't take us long to figure out who it was, and we got the legal process involved to stop it. My point? Sometimes these spats can get out of hand. It may seem like a game to some, but it isn't. There were no winners in that extended "disagreement."

- Bill
I also find it tough sometimes because people say they don't want an "emotional" or "emotion-based" discussion, but when presented with dry facts and stats there's a problem with that. Then, when some personal perspective is included (regardless of the subject) it is often discounted as not being relevant at all... unless it agrees with the person's opinion, in which case it becomes very relevant. Without backing up one's opinion with cited and sourced statistics and studies OR using some legal basis to back up the position... if anyone's personal experience is discounted, then things quickly start to deteriorate. Just my observation...

The situation has never been put out for general public consumption and certainly not the details (and they shouldn't be), but publicly... Thanks for all of your help in that situation. It was greatly appreciated. FYI to others, that incident also crossed state-lines, putting it into the realm of the Federal authorities as well. Help from other honorable friends was also important and much appreciated. It let me know who I'm willing to walk away from and for whom I'll drop anything and do anything to go help... in other words, who some of my true friends are. 8)

I gotta tell ya tho...

Stevie was just talking about pastel colored cigarettes! :lol: :lol:
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Stevie B
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LOL...

Post by Stevie B »

Why yes... :lol: Yes I was...... :lol: :lol: :lol:
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