A Handy Guide For Liberals Who Are Suddenly Interested In Gun Ownership

That title isn’t joking. This post is aimed at my liberal readers. I’m a libertarian leaning Republican and gun expert, who thinks you are wrong about a lot of stuff, but I’m not writing this to gloat about your loss. For the record, I disliked all the presidential candidates.

Judging by your social media over the last few days many liberals have been utterly terrified that your government might turn tyrannical or that evil people will now be emboldened to hurt you. I’m going to let you in on a little thing the other half of the country is familiar with to keep those unlikely, yet catastrophic, events from happening.

And that my lefty friends, is 2nd Amendment.
Having just gone through a war against a tyrannical government, the Founders understood that governments can go bad, so they made sure to note our God given right (or we’ll say naturally occurring right, since a bunch of you are atheists) to keep and bear arms in order to defend ourselves. The 2nd Amendment isn’t about hunting or “sporting purposes”, it’s about having weapons that you can fight with. As an added bonus, being able to protect yourself from a tyrannical government means that you’re a lot better equipped to deal with any common criminal who decides to hurt you.
Before I get into the details about how to enjoy your newly discovered 2nd Amendment rights, let me just say that I get you’re sad, angry, bitter, and fearful. But just like my people over the last few elections, you’ll get over it. The really hyperbolic freak outs about Literally Hitler make you sound just like the Alex Jones crowd worried that Obama was going to herd Christians into FEMA camps last time. So take a deep breath and relax. Your friends and neighbors are the same as they were last week. The vast majority weren’t voting because racism, they voted against the status quo and a really unlikable Democrat. And no, they aren’t going to round you up into cattle cars.

But in the off chance they do, let’s get you prepared!

WHAT GUNS ARE FOR

I’ll start out with the far more likely threat, violent criminals who would assault, rape, or murder you, and how to deal with them.

Many of you have been sharing every second hand account, rumor, and urban legend about some random doofus in Somnambulant, Wisconsin or Bumfight, Louisiana, shouting an ethnic slur or spray painting a swastika on a wall. Newsflash, in a country with a third of a billion people, some percentage of them are going to be assholes. I hate to break it to you, but the assholes were there before, and they will be there forever. Just right now the news has a self-serving incentive to report about these assholes in particular.

But Correia! You’re not a marginalized Mexican transsexual Muslim! What do you know!?

I know that anybody can be “marginalized” if they walk into the wrong neighborhood. Violence can happen to any of us, and it does, all the time. Whether your odds of being a victim are good or bad, it still sucks when you draw the short straw and somebody tries to hurt you. Whoever you are, you are correct to be concerned for your safety. Anybody can be attacked, and everybody should be prepared to deal with it.

Since this is addressed to liberals, spare me the usual nonsense about “Victim Blaming”. We don’t have time for silliness. If you’re banking on the goodwill of evil people to keep you safe, you are a sucker. If I urge you to look both ways before crossing the street, I’m not victim blaming, I’m trying to keep your stupid ass from getting hit by a bus.

Whether you are being attacked because some jerk doesn’t like your head scarf and you voted for Hillary, or getting pulled out of your car and beaten because the local hooliganry thinks you voted for Trump, or some dude with no coherent political philosophy beyond the voices in his head told him to murder you and rape your dog, it doesn’t matter… There are evil people in the world, and they will hurt you simply because it amuses them.

So there are bad people who want to hurt you. Now what do you do?

Regardless of what you worship, who you love, or you skin tone, you have the unalienable right to self-defense. The 2nd is an equal opportunity amendment.

Calling the cops is awesome. If they get there in time they will be happy to save your ass, but that’s assuming they get there in time. Violent encounters usually happen very quickly. Good police response time is measured in minutes. You can be dead in seconds. Plus, your side is the one that doesn’t trust the cops anyway. It isn’t Republicans out there protesting the police. So why is it you expect agents of the state to risk their lives to save you? Gratitude?

What most of us in the right side of the country understand is that responsible adults need to be able to defend themselves. That means owning guns and learning how to use them. (To be fair, many on the left have also come to this same conclusion already, but they have to keep that opinion to themselves so the rest of you don’t yell at them).

Unarmed self-defense is great, when it works. I’m a fan. Less-lethal devices like pepper spray are great, when they work. But trust me on this, everybody who does this professionally, who has spent years learning about how violence really works, we all have guns.

You’ve probably been taught that guns are frightening murder rods, just itching to go shoot up a school. You want to survive, get over that nonsense. I know that most of the stuff liberals think they know about firearms is flat out wrong. I’m here to tell you as a retired professional firearms instructor that sadly everything Occupy Democrats memes have taught you is incorrect. Whatever you think you know, check those preconceived notions at the door, because it is probably biased garbage.

Firearms are not magic. They are neither evil nor good. They are just tools that throw a projectile. That’s it. There’s no voodoo involved. They are items that allow a physically weak person to survive a confrontation against somebody who is stronger, or there’s more of them, or whatever other nightmare scenario you come up with. I know many of you are scared of guns, but just think of them like fire extinguishers, but for murderers.

HOW SELF-DEFENSE WORKS

Just because you have a gun doesn’t mean that you can just go and shoot whoever you feel like. I see this pop up all the time amongst my liberal friends. Like if a redneck sees a black dude, he can just blast him because the redneck felt uncomfortable. First off, no, that’s not how the laws work. Second off, maybe if you’d quit proclaiming everybody who isn’t part of your clique is a racist murderer, you’d win more elections.

Here is another article where I go into a great deal of detail about when it is legal to shoot somebody. https://monsterhunternation.com/2014/11/25/the-legalities-of-shooting-people/ I taught this stuff for a living. Trust me, I know more about this than the staff writers at Salon. Almost everything I’ve ever seen from a liberal publication concerning self-defense laws is incorrect. And I’m not just talking like I enjoy guns and they don’t, I mean they have such a basic, elementary misunderstanding of the legalities of shooting people that we aren’t even inhabiting the same reality. My reality is the one that the jury instructions will be issued from.

The short version is that in order to be justified in using lethal force against another human being, they need to be demonstrating the ability to seriously harm you, the opportunity to do so, and acting in a manner that a reasonable person would believe they are an immediate threat.

So no, you can’t just shoot somebody walking down the street in a Trump hat. That would be Murder. Or considering most liberals don’t understand basic marksmanship, more likely Attempted Murder. However, if somebody dressed entirely in Confederate flags walks up, screams DIE GAY ABORTION VEGAN and tries to stab you with his commemorative Heinrich Himmler SS dagger, it’s game on (don’t blame me, I’m basing this hypothetical scenario on what most of your facebook feeds sound like).

Go read that article. As a bonus once you understand how use of force laws actually work, you won’t be able to get as spun up with outrage over every shooting that makes the news.

LEARN HOW GUNS WORK

Now that you’ve decided that you should be able to protect yourself from sexist war bands, and you know the basics about when it’s okay to shoot people, you want to go get strapped. But hold your horses there, Che. Guns are tools, but they are also very unforgiving of stupidity, and the last thing I want to have happen is one of you liberals shoot somebody on accident, because then you’ll be trying to pass more laws to punish people like me. First you need to learn how to be safe.

Seek out your local gun range. Sadly, for those of you living in deep blue areas, this will be difficult because the politicians you have voted for have run off most of your local gun ranges. Now that you’re afraid the state can’t/won’t protect you, I hope you realize that was a bad call.

But if you do have one in driving distance, most ranges will have ads posted for upcoming basic classes. Contrary to what you’ve been told about the ultra evil National Rifle Association, the majority of what the NRA does is conduct basic safety training to keep newbies from shooting themselves in the foot. They will walk you through the fundamental rules of gun safety, mechanics, and storage.

Here is another mind blowing factoid for you liberals, the NRA was actually started by Union army officers to train recently freed blacks how to defend themselves from the Democrat KKK. The first gun control laws in America were racist in origin, and aimed at disarming “undesirables” like blacks or the Irish. So in that respect, not much has changed.

For those of you in the LGBTWTFBBQ community, in the aftermath of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, a transsexual friend of mine started Operation Blazing Sword. https://www.facebook.com/OperationBlazingSword/ It is a network of firearms instructors across the country who are volunteering to help out gay and trans people who are new to guns learn about basic safety and firearms familiarization. I helped them get started. Check their map. They’ve probably got somebody near you willing to help.

If you haven’t blocked all of them yet for having dissenting opinions, you can ask your gun owning friends and family for advice. I would still recommend talking to actual experts though, just because we know what we’re doing, and we personally haven’t had to listen to you talk about how we’re all baby murdering psychopaths over Thanksgiving dinner. But if they love you, they’ll be happy to help you learn about how guns work. If you don’t have any friends who own guns, you may want to ask yourself how you live in such an echo chamber.

Again, most of what you’ve been told about the gun culture is a myth. We want you to be able to defend yourself, and we want you to be safe and responsible doing it.

HOW GUN LAWS WORK

Now it gets really complicated. And that’s entirely your fault. See, traditionally Democrats don’t like the 2nd Amendment and historically have done everything in their power to screw with it. Your gun laws are going to vary dramatically based upon where you live. It might be really difficult and expensive for you to exercise your 2nd Amendment rights, or it might be relatively easy.

But you’re scared right now! Well, that’s too bad. Because for the most part Democrats have tried to make it so that citizens have to abdicate their responsibilities and instead entrust that only state can defend everyone… That doesn’t seem like such a bright idea now that you don’t trust who is running the state, huh?

You might get attacked in your home, but let’s be realistic, you’re way more likely to be attacked out in public. Accordingly, democrats have made it way harder to have a gun where you are most likely to need it. If your state is red or purple, you probably have an inexpensive way to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon so that you can be armed everywhere. The bluer your state, the more unlikely/expensive that becomes, and in the most exclusive cities, unless you are a politician, movie star, or body guarding a politician or movie star, you are basically out of luck.

Oh yeah, it kind of goes without saying by this point, but most of what you think you know about what gun laws do is wrong. I know you think you’ve been helping with your demands to Do Something, but you aren’t. I wrote this article a few years ago in the aftermath of Sandy Hook. It is one of the most widely read articles on gun control laws ever written. https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/06/23/an-opinion-on-gun-control-repost/

I am a big fan of concealed carry, and if you are honestly worried about murderous racists being emboldened, then you should be too. If your state has a concealed weapons permit, I would recommend taking that class. Even if you are not personally ready to take that big step of actually keeping a firearm on your person, the class should provide a great primer on your state and local laws.

There are thousands of onerous little gun laws. I won’t overcomplicate this, but you guys have been sticking extra gun laws on the books all over the country at every opportunity. In your area you might not be able to buy certain guns, or you’ll have to lock them up in a specific manner, or you’ll have to register them with the state. (now that you’re worried about the state rounding you up, having a registry of which of you own guns seems kind of dumb huh?)

HOW TO BUY A GUN

 

Now that you understand basic safety and marksmanship, let’s get you armed.

Contrary to what Barack Obama told you, Glocks are not easier to get than books. Hell, I’ll trade an autographed copy of each of my published novels for a Glock if you’ve got any spares lying around.

If you haven’t completely alienated all of your pro-gun friends by blaming them for every mass murder that’s ever happened, now would be a great time to ask them to come shopping with you.

Find your local gun store. Go there. Ask the nice people behind the counter questions about what is the best gun for you needs. They are usually very helpful, however, don’t tell them that you are a liberal, because since you’ve previously tried to ban everything you’re now buying, they will probably laugh at you. That’s expected, because your people do kind of malign them constantly and have repeatedly tried to ruin their livelihood. Oh well, live and learn. You know better now.

Shockingly, you will quickly discover that the gun best suited for your home self-defense needs is probably one of the guns that the news would call “assault weapons”. In reality that’s a gibberish term to scare newbs, but remember, most of what you’ve been taught is complete bullshit. You want the best tool for the job. Yes. It looks scary. That’s kind of the point.

If you live in a place with concealed carry laws, you will probably want one of those deadly high capacity assault pistols too. In regular America we just call those handguns. Have the experts help pick one out that suits your lifestyle and manner of dress. Then make sure you get a good holster to carry it safely. Common newb mistake is to get a decent gun and a crap holster. Don’t do that.

Once you’ve picked your firearms, you will need to fill out a federal 4473 form, provide ID (gasp! Racist!), and the shop will call in your background check to make sure you aren’t a felon, illegal alien, or otherwise prohibited person. Since this check is computerized it only takes a few minutes.

Now that is how it works in most states. If you are lucky enough to live in a blue state liberal paradise, then you may have to deal with extra laws. Like mandatory waiting periods, special permits, or you’ve got to jump through a bunch of other onerous hoops before you are allowed to defend yourself… But hey, you voted for that. Suck it up, buttercup.

GET BETTER

 

Now you need to learn to shoot. It doesn’t work like the movies.

There are a lot of people out there who do what I used to do, so find the professional firearms instructors in your region and take some classes. Your local ranges and stores will know who is teaching or will have ads posted. A good instructor won’t just teach you how to hit the target, but will teach you basic tactics, and when/how to use your gun. I spent a big chunk of my time teaching people how to avoid fights and not make stupid decisions.

The more you shoot, the more you train, the more comfortable you will become. Your confidence will grow. If something awful happens you can be part of the solution instead of just another victim. You won’t rise to the occasion, you will default to your lowest level of training. So get trained.

Oh yeah, this training part gets expensive too. Government regulations have driven up the cost of ammunition. You get one guess which party is responsible for that. And around the blue cities you’ve closed all of your shooting ranges because guns are scary and loud (oh yeah, we could fix that, but Democrats made it illegal or really expensive to make guns quieter), so you’ll have to drive further in order to train. Let me check… Nope, I’m still fresh out of pity.

WHAT ABOUT DOOMSDAY?

Now the elephant in the room. I’ve seen a lot of you going on about how terrified you are for all your “marginalized” friends, that the government is going to turn tyrannical and genocidal, and murder them by the million. I don’t think that’s actually going to happen, but let’s say it did. We’re talking full on Gestapo Stasi jack boots and cattle car time. Bear with me through this hypothetical situation, that stuff about ability/opportunity/immediate threat is actually happening, but it is systematically being carried out by agents of the state against its own citizens. I’m talking war in the streets.

I keep seeing you guys saying that you’re going to “fight harder”. No offense, but bullshit. What are you going to do? Call more innocent bystanders racists? Post more articles from Salon even harder? Have a protest and burn your local CVS? Block more freeways with your bodies? Guess what. If the government has actually gone full tyrannical they’re just going to machinegun your dumbass in the street. They are going to drive through your roadblock, and your bodies will grease the treads of their tanks.

That’s what actual tyrants do. So despite your bitching, virtue signaling, and panic attacks, we’re a long way off of that.

There is a saying that has long been common in my half of the country. There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty, soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. You can debate, vote, and go to court in order to get things changed. You only go ammo box when those other things no longer work, because once you do, there is no going back.

God willing, America never gets to that point, because if we ever go to war with ourselves again, then it will be a blood bath the like of which the world has never seen. We have foolishly created a central government so incomprehensibly powerful, that to stop it from committing genocide would require millions of capable citizens to rise up and fight.

Congratulations. Now you understand why the Framers put the 2nd Amendment in there. It is the kill switch on the Republic, and everyone with a clue prays we never have to use it.

Right now you guys are angry and talking a lot of shit. This is all new to you. My side is the one with the guns, training, and the vast majority of the combat vets, and we really don’t want our government to get so out of control that this ever happens. Only fools wish for a revolution. But that big red button is still there in case of emergency because if a nation as powerful as America ever turned truly evil then the future is doomed. As Orwell said, if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.

That’s the real meaning of the 2nd Amendment. So don’t screw around with it. If you do you’re no better than the fat wannabes running around the woods in their surplus camo and airsoft plate carriers… You don’t get that, but all my gun culture readers know exactly who I’m talking about. They are the morons CNN trots out whenever they need to paint all gun owners as irresponsible inbred redneck violent dupes for your benefit.

And spare me the typical talking points about how an AR-15 can’t fight tanks and drones… It’s way beyond the scope of this article, but you don’t have a flipping clue what you’re talking about. Every HuffPo guest columnist thinks they are Von Clauswitz. They aren’t.

This Doomsday option is something we never want to use, but which we need to maintain just in case. It is also another reason Hillary lost. One motivator for Americans to vote for Trump was that Hillary hates the 2nd Amendment. Her husband put the biggest gun ban we’ve ever had in place, and she has been exceedingly clear that she hates guns and would get rid of all of them if she could.

And doing that would push that big red button.

When the already super powerful government wants to make you even more powerless, that scares the crap out of regular Americans, but you guys have been all in favor of it. Take those nasty guns! Guns are scary and bad. Don’t you stupid rednecks know what’s good for you? The people should live at the whim of the state!

But now that the shoe is on the other foot, and somebody you distrust and fear is in charge for a change, the government having all sorts of unchecked power seems like a really bad idea, huh?

Absolute power in the hands of anyone should terrify you. The 2nd Amendment is there to make sure some of that power always remains in the hands of the people.

CONCLUSION

So that’s it. That’s how you go down the path of responsible gun ownership.

I don’t care how marginalized you think you are. Get armed. Get trained. Be prepared to defend yourself and your loved ones. That’s part of being a responsible adult.

And quit trying to disarm the rest of us.

##

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636 thoughts on “A Handy Guide For Liberals Who Are Suddenly Interested In Gun Ownership”

      1. Cook good BBQ, and I couldn’t care less about one’s sexual identity.
        (of course, I really don’t care anyway, I just like good BBQ)

    1. That actually sounds like an event…if they were smart, they should copyright that and make it happen.

      Nah…that would mean that they would have to eat meat, too. Not going to happen.

  1. [Slow clap building to thunderous applause]. Well said Larry, I hope you don’t mind if I go and share this over on my own blog, giving you full credit of course, just want it over their too, plus facebook.
    Well said, I love how you gave them the directions needed while also not letting them off for making things so annoyingly difficult. Hopefully some people will get through the article without having an offence attack, and actually see a bit more of the real world they are living in.

  2. This should be the 17th writer essay in the New Yorker. I’m sure everyone is shocked that none of the other writers advocated that people arm themselves. Also, this was 100x more fun to read than Toni Morrison’s essay.

  3. Nice, if unflinching guide. I just offered to show my liberal friends how to safely handle and store firearms. Reaction is split about 50/50 between ZOMG! YOU OWN GUNS?!?!?! and some mild interest. We’ll see how it shakes out.

    1. My favorite is “I’m not victim blaming, I’m try to stop your stupid ass from getting hit by a bus.” I’m of the mind that a lot of liberals own guns but won’t admit it to the aforementioned “stupid ass” liberals to avoid being ostracized. And some Hollywood types have had firearms training with real guns for safety purposes and realisms sake, because a gun on a movie set can kill you just as dead as a gun in the real world. Just ask Brandon Lee.

      1. Yeah. Some of the loudest voices against private gun ownership make their livings shooting guns in the movies- and are protected by private people with guns, which lets you know what they really think.

      2. I recently realized there are a lot of gun owning liberals out there who utterly despise the private ownership of anything more martial than duck guns. They are called duck hunters. Not all duck hunters, to be sure, but a non-trivial percentage of duck hunters have made it very clear to me that anyone who thinks we have a constitutionally guaranteed right to actual weapons is a dangerous spittle spewing jerk. As in, to quote one of them who is also a gun dealer, we’re stupid wierdos who need to stop with “that Constitution bulls***.”

        1. Well, those duck hunters are people to be avoided. Luckily, they’re easy to avoid, as duck hunting seems pretty boring to me.

    2. Eh….it’s a bit ambiguous as to who is using the tool and who is being extinguished. I know which one Larry meant, but a less knowledgeable or charitable reader might not. That was my only major problem with the article.

      Maybe a better way to phrase it would have been “Like a fire extinguisher, except you use it to put out murderers instead of fires”. It’s a bit clunkier, but less ambiguous…

        1. I’m a gun owner, firearms instructor, FFL holder, etc. I loved the article. Best article I’ve ever read. Ever. Seriously.

          That said, I too misread the sentence as saying firearms were tools for murderers. I wrote it off as just being a bad joke. Having seen this comment now I get your actual meaning. Far be it for me to suggest a minor edit, but maybe “but just think of them like fire extinguishers, but for murderers instead of fires” (only added “instead of fires”).

          Great article. Thanks for it. I’ll be sharing widely.

          1. Extinguishers are FOR people against a fire, a firearm is for people against a (would be?) murderer. It’s a logical conclusion, but I understand much of the country has trouble with logic.

        2. I would change it as well. I knew what you meant, but it took me two quick mental steps to come to the right interpretation.

      1. This is my fire extinguisher. This is my murderer extinguisher. I do everything I can to not be forced to use either one.

  4. Thanks Larry. I’m going to share this with my friends who are gripping right now. You make alot of sense. Volens et Potens

  5. Outstanding article! The idea of armed resistance to the government is scary for a good reason; scary, but necessary. The Second Amendment is the final safety valve for our society, after all other forms of resistance and avenues of change are exhausted. It is scary to think about a world where elected representatives become tyrants, but ignoring that possibility won’t make it go away. Many left leaning people should be reminded that armed resistance was a necessary part of securing union worker rights in America (Homestead Steel Strike). Armed private citizens were critical to protecting the rights of racial minorities during the fight for Civil Rights during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I know guns can be scary, but they are necessary to preserve our civil rights.

    1. Re civil rights: excellent point. It’s described quite well in one of the chapters of Tonso’s excellent “The gun culture and its enemies” — by someone who was right in the middle of that effort and depended on his weapons every day for survival.

      1. I’ve had that discussion with so-called “civil rights advocates”. They are proud to stand up for civil rights, until I say I’m glad they support my civil right to own a gun, then they go off on a rant, and I laugh at their hypocrisy. They only advocate the rights they like, that gives them more power.

  6. Nice post. You’re not going to overcome decades of programming though. Gun == racists tool of the evil Republican. Guns magically shoots people.

  7. I’ve got a well-maintained lightly-used Glock 19 (upgraded to a 21) with spare mags; will swap for the complete autographed Correia hardcover collection any time! (Serious offer; it’d be a fair exchange of value in my opinion.)

      1. First a helpful advice column for the fearful lefty, now a books for guns program!

        By this time next week, they’ll love you!

        1. Everyone keep in mind that Mike Williamson also has a Books for Glocks program running. A full signed set of his works in hardcover for a decent pistol. Definitely in the Freehold tradition.

          1. I always saw Freeholders as, whenever practical, going for custom and oddball guns that they just liked best. Of course, their military standard rifle has millions of aftermarket doodads.

  8. A conservative friend of mine who is not sticking her head up to be whack-a-moled just now would like to say, “THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ARTICLE!!!”

  9. Well said, Larry! I will be sending this on to some friends of mine. Not sure if it’ll change their minds, but maybe it’ll at least get them to think. There are some introspective liberals out there, albeit in small numbers.

  10. I don’t know, Larry. I think maybe we should respect our Lefty neighbors’ advanced notions and compassionate spirits and encourage to stay disarmed. You know. For the children.

    1. I must regretfully agree.

      Given how many Leftists appear to be utterly losing their minds and making unambiguous threats of violence against people who disagree with them politically–Charles Walz, Paul Schrader, many others, and Google for their names if you don’t know what I’m talking about–I am of the opinion that if these people find firearms distasteful and do not wish to burden themselves with the responsibilities that go along with firearms ownership, who am I to try to convince them otherwise? In the meantime I think I need to go to the range again tomorrow…

      1. Well, I think it self selecting for the misguided but rational, as opposed to the ‘hair on fire’ full emotional meltdown types. If they actually worked through the logic of ‘if Trump might be nascent Hitler, maybe guns aren’t inherently bad, and we need to be armed’, then there’s at least an ability to be rational and logical there- so there’s a glimmer of hope! Maybe they’ve just been simmering in the Lefty stew for long enough to start to pick up the flavor, but aren’t that at the core (yet).
        If they’re ‘hair on fire’ sorts yelling about ‘he’s going to deport black people!’ and ‘he’s going to make it illegal to be gay!’ (I’ve actually heard one of those!), then maybe don’t bother suggesting firearms.

  11. I actually went to the gun store today, for realz. I’m not a liberal, but I’m in Canada so I have to keep current on the constant rule changes. Discovered that if I want to buy a gun there’s a whole lot of brand new hoops I’m supposed to jump through. So just because I can, I’ll jump through them.

    If you want to buy a gun in Canada, any old kind of gun, I figure it’ll take about six months to a year of screwing around with classes and paperwork. Or, you can go see Guido downtown and he’ll fix you up same day, know what I’m saying? I figure Guido will be making some money on the day the zombie apocalypse drops.

    The realization by the Left that they are utterly at the mercy of government, and that the government has just been taken over by Satan, is hilarious. Now all that high minded “but why do you -need- a gun?” is replaced with “aaieeeee!” and the frantic search for anything that can go BANG.

    For all of y’all that live in New York, Illinois, California and etc, that panic you’re feeling right now, since you’ve discovered exactly how hard it is to buy a gun? That’s buyers remorse, friends. You arranged this. You did it to yourselves, you retards. Enjoy!

    1. I live in Illinois. Its not nearly as hard as out of staters make it out to be. Preparation is the key. Yes, the FOID is a ridiculous idea, but it is the law, the application is online and lasts 10 years. Yes, waiting periods prevent an extremely small amount of domestic violence(the original stated purpose of them), but they are the law and living with them is part of preparation. As long as your address is not Cook County, Elgin or even worse Chicago, there is probably a shop or range within a few miles of your home. I live in the rural northwestern part of the state and there 8 or 9 ranges within 30 miles and 5 or 6 gun sellers in that same radius.

      1. The only association I have with people wearing safety pins is for infants. Is this really a thing, or is it a joke.

        I’m still can’t tell if this universe is just screwing with me or not.

        1. It’s really a thing. In the aftermath of the election, people are wearing safety pins to indicate that they’re safe to be around for racial and serial minorities, as well as for cossetted gentry liberals

          1. Serial minorities? Are those the ones that change their identification to whatever one gets “most oppressed” for the day?

  12. Yep. Sensible. This advice should be freely spread whenever people get scared. Feel free to sprinkle it with liberal amounts of common sense as well.

  13. About that Obamacare Expense?

    That is $300 to $900 every MONTH,. For me, it is a policy that costs $15,000.00 a year and doesn’t do anything until I pay $5,000.00.

    Twenty Thousand Dollars a year.
    A new compact car. To replace the fifteen year old car.
    A year’s tuition for my niece or nephew at the best state college.
    Four individual week long vacations overseas.
    A new kitchen, laundry room, and bathroom.
    $200,000.00 in my retirement accounts when I retire in twenty years.

    1. Have you considered doing a Healthshare? For two of us we pay $299/mo and have a $1000 deductible total, and then they pay 100% after that. We choose our own providers, there is no in network, etc. I use Liberty Healthshare (which I think is the best, but there are others as well).

  14. This essay (and a couple of your other pieces on gun control and the lunacy thereof + the Ikea shopping post from best of) were the gateway drug for my wife to start your novels. After reading this, then clicking through to some of the others, she told me to give her one of your books. I pulled the first Grimnoire book off the shelf and handed it to her.

    Very cogent, thank you, Larry.

  15. Inflammatory, yes, but entertaining.. I enjoyed this article. As a “libtard” though, I must protest that not all “libtards” like me are against the 2nd amendment… just like all “rednecks” are “racists”… although I must say that my redneck relatives spend an uncomfortable amount of family time talking about “sand niggers”… maybe that’s just my family though. Politics in this nation are designed to divide us while both parties have the same goal of authoritarian power. Bernie, yes, was the only authentic human running. They could fix it… they could start talking more about gerrymandering and less about bathroom politics, but they don’t… and the media seems complicit in it… regardless of whether you’re talking about FAUX News or CNN.

    1. I didn’t use the word “libtard”. I would never insult the mentally handicapped by saying they were leftists.

    2. The Democrats really need to take a good look at their primary process, and do a bit of house cleaning. They pretty much let Hillary get away with suppressing Bernie.

      1. They suppressed Bernie in the primaries but the fact that there were not other choices suggests someone made sure it happened that way. It wouldn’t need to be 14 or so like the Repubs started with but, you know… five?

        1. The problem is, can you name five Democrats for 2020?

          They don’t have a very deep bench right now. I think Bernie supporters are self-deluded to think he could have won, and certifiably insane to be chanting Bernie 2020! already.

          The only three that come to my mind immediately are, what, maybe Andrew Cuomo? Cory Booker? Antonio Villaraigosa?

          1. And you have to ask yourself why. Well, no you don’t *have* to, but I ask myself why… why no up and coming people? Why no one gathering any support in the last 8 years and setting up a run? In some sense it’s an indictment of Obama… like belonging to a church where no junior pastors are allowed to shine vs. one where producing new leaders is an important function. Why? Or have there been eight years of shutting all competition down because it’s Her turn? (And crazy grandpa didn’t get the memo… or having *no* other candidates would have been too obvious and Bernie was the “easy to beat” choice, just like (according to leaked emails) Trump was chosen as one of those easy opponents.

          2. There was some indication and expectation that she wanted to run this time. Why didn’t she?

          3. I think she didn’t want to go up against the Clinton machine. In 2020, that won’t be a factor.

          4. She’ll be 71 and the Bern will be 79. I think the Grim Reaper is going to be the biggest factor for most of the few names I’ve seen floated for the Democrats.

          5. Antony V.? That sounds like a desperation move (says old guy who grew un in L.A. County in the 50’s.)

          6. As of this morning, Governor Cuomo has more staff under indictment than Richard Nixon did.

        2. Jim Webb was in the Dem primaries, too, but it was basically the Hillary Show. Sanders got noticed because he kept skittering around underfoot like a cockroach, but Webb pretty much sank without a trace.

          1. I hadn’t considered Webb, but he’s another one that’s getting up there in age. Of course, he’s not radically Leftwing, so it’s no wonder he disappeared from the primaries. For all their talk of youth, energy, and vibrancy, their slim pickins are old pickins.

      2. So do the Republicans. Both parties pretend to follow voters’ choices but are really run by insider cabals that you join by bringing in the biggest bag of money.

        The reason the Republicans have done so poorly of late is that their biggest money donors are elderly religious-right types, and they’re dying off and their kids don’t agree with their social conservatism. This process will likely take another decade or two to really run its course, but you can see what it will look like in today’s European conservative parties (which have long since abndoned opposition to gays or even abortion, except in one or two holdout countries like Ireland).

        The question is, when the Republicans do change direction, is it going to be in a libertarian direction, or is it going to move toward the kind of cronyism that people like Trump (when he was in business) can use to take advantage of us?

        Trump is leading them on the latter course. Which is why I voted Johnson/Weld.

        1. Not to defend the Republican Party, but the Republicans are enjoying historical majorities nationwide among the states and have recaptured the POTUS and legislature within 6 years. And that’s doing “poorly” as of late??

        2. “poorly as of late”… Uh… Over the last decade they’ve gained congress, the senate, record domination of state legislatures, a bunch of governorships, and now the presidency.

    3. Slight correction to your post: Bernie Sanders was the only authentic guy running on the Democrats’ side. Some of the Republican candidates, like Ben Carson, were authentic too. I didn’t want Carson to win the primary, because he’s too naive about politics and would have gotten smoked in the general election — but he is an authentic, genuine human being who says what he means, and I have a great deal of respect for him as a person (even though I disagree with a few of the policy positions he advocated, IIRC).

      1. Y’know… the problem with saying “So-and-so is a genuine human being” is that horrible, or shallow, or tyrranical people are also genuine human beings. Horrible, shallow tyrranical human beings, but human beings nonetheless. Don’t deny the full humanness of either human good or human evil.

        Try “So-and-so is a good man with strong convictions” instead.
        /nitpick

        1. Except for Hillary. She’s a lizard. A horrible, shallow, tyrranical space lizard. But everyone else, yeah, that’s true.

        2. To me, “not a genuine human being” doesn’t imply a non-person, just someone who isn’t genuine (meaning honest about his feelings and intentions).

          I would rate most of this year’s candidates as genuine except Trump and Hillary. They just didn’t have the money to buy in to the DNC or RNC in-groups.

  16. I would have voted for ice cream, but being a fat white man, I am trying to change. I can’t spell all the nasty things they have been calling me lately. But then the weekend spent instructing at an Appleseed event was worthy. And I never asked their politics.

  17. Contrary to popular belief and right-wing bloggers, not all “liberals” are afraid of guns or want to ban guns and there are plenty of liberal rednecks like me. Thanks for the info and the wake-up call, though.

    1. I even said in the article that many liberals own guns. Sadly, you guys are a quiet minority, and your party pretty much rides roughshod over you. I’d love to see more liberal gun owners out of the closet.

      1. I can’t count the number of arguments I get in regarding gun rights. But then they usually end with “Well you’re from Chicago; what else would you expect….”

  18. You seem like a condescending blowhard asshole. It hurts me, however, how right you are on so many points. I guess a broken clock is right twice a day, so that’s something. I’m going to rewrite your article (without credit) removing all of the chest beating, cock measuring and rhetorical bullcrap and post it to my constantly whiny, regrettably unarmed liberal friends.

    1. So I’m right, but I was mean about it.
      Oh well, bite my ass.
      After you plagiarize this (but edited for your safe space), I bet it will be really boring and nobody will read it. After it gets a tiny fraction of the readership this post has gotten, you’ll probably be sad. I recommend finding somebody wearing a safety pin and getting a hug. 😀

      1. I thought the Shooter McGavin comment was supposed to be a deliberate parody of a certain type of person?

        If it *was* serious, c’mon now. I don’t endorse every single reference either but that’s kinda beside the point. The “rhetorical bullshit” and the “condescending” part was what made it great. Falls under headings “humor” and “comedy” and “snark.” Tell me you didn’t laugh with:

        So no, you can’t just shoot somebody walking down the street in a Trump hat. That would be Murder. Or considering most liberals don’t understand basic marksmanship, more likely Attempted Murder. However, if somebody dressed entirely in Confederate flags walks up, screams DIE GAY ABORTION VEGAN and tries to stab you with his commemorative Heinrich Himmler SS dagger, it’s game on (don’t blame me, I’m basing this hypothetical scenario on what most of your facebook feeds sound like).

        That was one of many great lines, made all the funnier because it’s true.

          1. Yes, yes they are. Shut up and go back to your flyover Jesus country, you ignorant racist hater [/sarc]

          2. Anything a liberal comedian ever said is brilliant social commentary. Anything a funny right winger (he sounds angry!) has ever said is a hate filled screed of hatey-hate-hate. There is no double standard. Racist. 🙂

            Or if you really want to see the best display of this ever, go read all the one star reviews on Audible for Tom Stranger. 😀

        1. If Shooter was going for satire let that be a lesson to all that there is nothing so outrageous as to be beyond what a lefty will say seriously.
          Don’t forget the SARC tag!!
          (Maybe it could be attached with a safety pin 😉

        2. Unfortunately, MojaveWolf, I fully expect that Shooter McGavin was dead serious. When you’ve been around this blog for a while as a regular reader, you’ll see that you and BugMaster are the exceptions when it comes to left-leaning/liberal posters here, and Shooter McGavin is the norm (albeit in his case, a more mild norm than some of the others who have been through here– go back and look at some of the Hugo-related posts Larry’s made to see some of the more crazy ones).

          1. Oh yeah! We’ve had some fun ones over the years. Most of them are just idiot shit talkers who I laugh at. YOU DISAGREE! I WILL KILL YOU! kind of thing. The really silly ones I just leave up so everyone can have a laugh. But I’ve got about a dozen serious whackadoodles over the years. Those I take down. They don’t need the attention. (though I keep them for the police investigation should I actually get murdered, I’m helpful like that). And I’ve had three where it was a legit serious threat from a crazy person. And I’ve got one place in the country where anytime I do book signings in that region, I make sure I’ve got a few cop fans in the audience in advance. Because that guy is a certifiable violent nut bar.

            All of them from “caring liberals”. They want to rape my family to death, burn my house down, shoot me to death because I think people should have guns. That kind of thing. And it’s okay, because in their mind I’m all sorts of evil vile things that justify it. It’s been loads of fun.

            This is also why I have a laugh at the SJWs talking about the threats they get, because by my standards they all fall into the anonymous internet pussy shit talker category. If you have an opinion, congratulations, you are going to get those.

      2. Larry, I’m sorry, but I already get funny looks for my explanation of the tactical melonballer at the range. I think I’ll leave safety pins alone.

    2. This is either a poorly executed parody, or the perfect illustration of the reason why Democrats keep losing elections. My advice is, either get better at writing parodies, or stop demonizing people for having different beliefs than you. Or perhaps both.

      1. Check my Facebook feed this week. I’ve got a hundred people like this screaming in my face that I must be a racist. And I didn’t even vote for Trump! 😀 But yes, they are a big reason you guys lost. Regular America is tired of getting screamed at.

        1. Didn’t you get the memo a vote for Johnson or McMullin WAS a vote for Trump or Hillary (depending upon who you are talking to).

  19. “…hold your horses there, Ché.”

    LOL. I’m not certain if your condescension in this essay was inadvertent because you can’t help yourself, or because you’re parodying the Libsplaining that the Left so often engages in when talking to the Right. I’m going with the latter. Whichever it was, I laughed my ass off.

    1. Both. After twenty years of being screamed at that I must only own guns to compensate for my dick and that I’m a ticking murder bomb itching to shoot up a gay abortion school, I can’t help but gloat a little. 😀

      1. We can now officially state that “you must be angry” and “you must be driven by fear” are now officially off limits as Leftist arguing tactics.

  20. Another great read, as always. Funny how many idiots there are that are completely unable to ponder the question “what if the shoe was on the other foot?” until something like Trump happens then it’s a full-on panic attack.

  21. “Contrary to what Barack Obama told you, Glocks are not easier to get than books. Hell, I’ll trade an autographed copy of each of my published novels for a Glock if you’ve got any spares lying around.”

    Hmm. Makes me think of this picture, oddly: https://u.nya.is/uxelmp.jpg *grin*

    1. The inventory guy is clearly a librarian. They learn in librarian schools that books can only be counted by whole numbers with a unit of measure “each”. Since nobody would order a 0.380 of a book he discounted the point as a typo and went with the most plausible integer.

  22. “but when an asshole from Black Lives Matters murders five cops or a Muslim blows somebody up they are anomalies and we shouldn’t paint with a broad brush”

    Having Lena Dunham call for the extinction of white men, then, rather than condemning her, Barack Obama actually sends his teenage daughter to intern with this crazy bigoted harridan? That’s another good one.

    I know at least one reliable third-party voter who switched to Trump after seeing that. Because he has sons.

    1. All of the firearms company’s stock prices are down since the election. The justified fear of broad erosion of 2nd amendment right has sold more guns in America than anything else during Lord Obama’s reign. Now that we have another NRA member coming in as president, that fear is somewhat tempered.

      Over here in California, no such relief. We now have to register to buy bullets.

      1. As a fellow Californian, I”m glad I have frequent occasion to visit Vegas- now I’ll have to pick up ammo every time.

          1. I understand that agriculture and immigration check points are being set up near “gun loving” borders to check for “smuggled” ammo, as the new law makes that a felony, IIRC>

          2. I expect every town bordering California loves that law, I know the sporting goods stores in my border town love it.

  23. You know Larry, you really are quite the wordsmith. I agree whole heartedly with this article. Then, I’m over 60 and a history major. Grew up watching documentaries about the holocaust. I know the evil in men’s (peoples) hearts. Well, kind of. Haven’t experienced too much myself. I have however, observed more than I wanted to. The fact that the anti-gun crowd in now messing their pants doesn’t hurt me a bit. The politics of division that the Democrats have been playing for the last thirty or so years is coming back to haunt them. I wish I had more sympathy.

    But, I don’t.

  24. You are a bigger man than most I had seen post election. Unfortunately, your lessons will fall on deaf ears for most of the SJWs, snowflakes and ideologically indoctrinated rich idiots. The DNC could had run better candidate whose name is not Hillary or Bernie, but they did not because they drove them away. They are already doubling down on having Keith Ellison as DNC head so expect more of gun buying from us conservatives and libertarians since the DNC is committed on bringing and repeating Europe’s mistake to America.
    For the sane Democrats, this is a good post for them because I fear that their greatest enemy will not be the ones from our side, it will be the ones from their side and they will need to defend themselves when the Progressive Leftist side of the party decide to conduct a putsch to clear themselves of moderate and traitorous elements of the party

  25. This is GREAT! BRILLIANT!!–and really needed to be said. I just hope that a lot of liberals read it.

    You’ve done a real public service writing this. Now please go back to finishing the Siege book. Thank you.

  26. Oh yeah, this training part gets expensive too. Government regulations have driven up the cost of ammunition. You get one guess which party is responsible for that. And around the blue cities you’ve closed all of your shooting ranges because guns are scary and loud (oh yeah, we could fix that, but Democrats made it illegal or really expensive to make guns quieter), so you’ll have to drive further in order to train. Let me check… Nope, I’m still fresh out of pity.

    Larry, I giggled my way through the essay, but that was the point where I had to stop because I was laughing too hard. You’re awesome. This is the best, pithy yet helpful advice I’ve ever seen.

    1. Btw, if anyone new is reading this deep into comments and have problems for funds, here is a tip for you to consider;
      You may be better off with a 357 magnum wheel gun (revolver) as your first buy. They aren’t flashy but they are reliable and relatively simple workhorses that allow you to train enough and still get adequate performance if you ever need to use it.
      Remember that the best gun is the one that you will use and train with. A fancy 5.7 with all the bits and bobs and attachments won’t help you one bit if you can’t afford to shoot it.

      1. Honestly, you can get a quality slide gun for less than a reliable revolver these days. Especially considering newbies *don’t know* what to look for in a used gun. (Seriously, they’re at a bigger disadvantage than an Amish farmer trying to evaluate whether a used airplane is a good buy. At least Mr. Yoder knows machinery.)

        I’m still kicking myself over not taking advantage of the buckets of S&W M64 and M10 revolvers we were blowing through our place when I was an Assistant Merchant of Death, back when all the cop shops were switching to semiauto. I could have had all I wanted at $100 apiece, before my employer discount.

      2. No offense, but your info is way out of date.
        9mm is usually cheaper in bulk than .38, and more readily available.
        Good 357s are more expensive than a good modern 9mm semi-auto.
        The used market for revolves is scarce.

      3. Reload. Yes it is a bit pricey to get started (a few hundred $$) but I pump out 9mm at around $.10/round (could be cheaper but I like my 147 grainers) and .45 acp @ around $.13/round. That’s .22 LR prices, if you can even find it.

  27. Larry:
    I disagree. A 12 gage short barrel shotgun is better for home defense. This is especially true if you live in an apartment building with sheetrock & 2×4 walls.

    But rifles are much better in a doomsday scenario.

    1. Any load out of a shotgun that will reliably stop an assailant will power through sheetrock without any issue. OTOH, a lightly constructed .223 bullet pushed to high velocity will tend to break up soon after hitting anything solid, limiting its penetration through buildings, while still being fairly effective against Thugy McThugerson.

      1. if it won’t go through sheetrock how do you expect it to stop a threat? if you wouldn’t hunt deer with it its likely not the best defense round you can carry.

        1. Little known fact: the muzzle blast of a Mosin Nagant will throw any home intruder under two hundred pounds right straight back out the door or window he came in. Picture the shield vs hammer scene in the first Avengers movie.

          1. … and then you can poke the body with the bayonet through the window to see if he’s dead, all without leaving the lounge chair.

  28. Larry, Awesome article. The only issue I have is the part about keeping guns out of the hands of crazy people. My concern is less about what you wrote and more about how its handled in the real world. I’m concerned more about process than product. My thoughts on this are not original, I am paraphrasing Trey Gowdy here. Can you name any other Constitutional right that can be taken away without going to a courtroom? It should require an action of Law to put you on the list. In other words, your craziness must be so apparent that the state had to take action. The idea of some bureaucrat making this call horrifies me. Does this mean we have to put up with the possibility of an unidentified crazy person getting a gun? Yes. Do I loose any sleep over that idea. No. Some risk is always the price of true freedom.

    1. How it is supposed to be handled is that due process is still followed. To end up as a prohibited person on NICS for mental health issues, there is still a legal hearing, and you have to be declared a danger to yourself and others. The idea of a bureaucrat making this call should terrify you, because when given that ability they would immediately declare anybody with depression or PTSD as a prohibited person.

      1. And the people calling for background checks ignore the fact that criminals and crazies get firearms anyway, by breaking the law.

        If you are going to commit murder, you will probably ignore little things like complying with background check laws.

      2. Already a problem in the VA. Many vets are not asking for treatment they need because it’s gotten so politicized over there. But hey, at least they can get assisted suicide counseling.

      3. There is a news story today about a vet that called a VA hotline about his PTSD and they sent a SWAT team to his house……TWICE.
        He wasn’t suicidal, nor a threat to anyone. But, because he honestly answered THIER question about owning a firearm he was taken in to custody and they left his front door of his house open for two weeks before being let free.

  29. Well, after watching the riots of the last few days I’m not sure I want those Progressive Liberal Democrats (PLDs) to carry guns. I mean many are obviously not fit to own or carry a gun if they can’t be trusted to act grown up when their candidate loses the election. If those people had guns can you imagine what would be happening out there? Dead cops, dead people with Trump stickers or “Not Hillary” or “Hillary for Jail” stickers…

    I love your books but this is a little bit crazy given that they are so infantile over an election. And as for their listening to reason–they haven’t listened to a thing we’ve said for years, what makes you think they will start now?

    1. And I figure that there are around 50,000,000 of them who aren’t rioting and burning other people’s property, and they have the exact same Constitutional rights as everyone else. Plus, if a big enough number of liberals become gun owners, that makes the 2nd a 3rd rail political issue forever (untouchable because you’d get burned).

      1. “I figure that there are around 50,000,000 of them who aren’t rioting and burning other people’s property, and they have the exact same Constitutional rights as everyone else.” Thanks for that. A nice antidote to the trolls talking about massacring the protestors themselves.

  30. You know, I was eating dinner at a restaurant a couple days ago, and my chair happened to be facing the bar. There was a news story on one of the TVs: some guy was holed up in his house with a rifle (which he used to shoot some people earlier), and the police had him surrounded (there was no sound, but the scene was clearly visible from the air). By the time I finished my meal, it was starting to look like the cops were losing their patience.

    I bet this guy was thinking of the exact scenario that LC is describing. He was one man, armed and ready, facing down some jack-booted thugs who were coming to take his property. But the truth is, the only reason he was still alive is because the cops were doing their absolute best to arrest him without killing him.

    The TV then flashed briefly to the anti-Trump protests, showing scenes of people burning down their own neigbourhoods and beating up random bystanders in the name of, I don’t know, social justice or whatever. I doubt the situation would be improved by handing out guns at the scene.

    This scenario — brave armed patriots defending the country from tyranny — is a fantasy, for two reasons. Firstly, because if the cops were truly determined to kill you, you’d be dead. Not because of “tanks and drones”, but because you’d be going up against a team of well-armed, well-trained people, whose entire job consists of working together to bring you down.

    But more importantly, it’s a fantasy because there’s no such thing as “The Government”. That is to say, obviously the government does exist, but it’s not some sort of a faceless alien invasion force. It’s just a bunch of people who are hired to do their job, just like most of us; it just so happens that the management of their company is structured a little differently, and changes every 2..4 years. This may not be the case in places like North Korea, but it is the case here in the USA.

    We live in a democracy (more or less), and that means that when your guy doesn’t win, it’s not the end of the world. Getting outvoted is not the same as being repressed; it just means that the other side gets to try running the country their way for a while. Even if your favorite blogs tell you that the other guy is a godless Kenyan Muslim Communist, or a demonic racist pumpkin, the reality is that he’s just a politician who will be looking for another job in the next 4..8 years. We accomplish regime changes by voting, not by sniping at cops from the clock tower.

    1. By the way, thanks for reminding me about the gun ranges. I live in the bluest of blue states, so I have to drive for almost 45 minutes to get to the closest one. I keep meaning to do that again, haven’t been there yet this year, and the year is almost over…

      1. Funny how attitudes change. Back in the 80’s, when most guerrilla groups were leftist, the Left was ecstatic about the idea of the determined poor standing up to the evil might of first world hegemony. E.g., Ewoks vs the Empire.
        Ponder Vietnam, Colombia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations where the ill equipped are able to hold off mighty powers.
        Note- Americans are every bit as tough and resilient as any Vietnamese or Afghani.

    2. Do you remember the riots in L.A. after the Rodney King beating? People were looting stores left and right… except, by and large, for the Korean-owned stores, of which there were plenty in the neighborhood. Why were the Korean-owned stores spared? Because on the roofs of the stores were the owner, or his friends and family, openly carrying rifles pointed in the general direction of the street.

      Your line about “I doubt the situation would be improved by handing out guns at the scene” is misreading Larry’s post completely. Larry isn’t talking about giving guns to the people who are beating up innocent bystanders. He’s talking about giving guns to the innocent bystanders, so they can protect themselves against the thugs. And yes, that would improve the situation — the thugs would be forced to either back off, or die. Either way, they would be prevented from beating up innocent bystanders.

    3. First, the 2nd Amendment is part of the reason why your next-to-last paragraph is true.
      Second, LC addressed your first paragraph with the fat guy wannabes.
      Third, do you actually know any cops? I do, and the lack of firearms training they have would make your hair curl. Most cops who are actually proficient with their firearms are also gun nuts.

      1. “Third, do you actually know any cops? I do, and the lack of firearms training they have would make your hair curl. Most cops who are actually proficient with their firearms are also gun nuts.”

        There was a phenomenal, mic-dropping comment over at Eric Raymond’s blog in his thread on Dilemmatizing the NRA, which addressed this at the end: “Cities would do better to cut WAY back on their landscaping budgets and shift that money to police training.”

        It never ceases to amaze me how many on the Left think that all police officers are weapons experts (hell, even proficient) and should therefore be the only ones to have guns. Their heads would explode if they discovered that a majority of US military personnel are also not proficient with small arms.

        1. My twelve year old daughter shoots better than most cops I’ve seen–and the ones I’ve seen are the ones who actually spend at least some of their off duty time at the range, which is why I’ve seen them.

          1. Oh, and police quals are a piece of cake too. My 16 year old daughter could pass any regular police qual in the country.

            We used to get ahold of the courses of fire, and do them for fun after USPSA or IDPA matches. For anybody other than the complete newbs, no problem. I would describe most of them as boring.

      2. I know only two cops. One of them had superb firearms training (though he’d been retired for a while when I met him). The other one is a rookie, but also a former Marine, so I think his training is at least decent.

        That said, I’d fully expect cops to have a higher proportion of gun nuts among them than the general population; similarly, I’d expect software engineers to have a higher proportion of Lego nuts. People choose careers for a reason.

        1. It’s not the general population you should be comparing against, it’s the population of gun owners. Would cops include a higher proportion of gun enthusiasts than the general population? Probably. But that’s not what 60guilders is claiming. What he’s claiming — correct me if I’m wrong, 60guilders — is that the average level of firearm training found among cops is lower than the average level of firearm training found among the average gun owner.

          It only makes sense that a person who doesn’t own a gun would have little to no training — why would they ever seek out gun training unless they were planning to buy one? But I vaguely remember seeing hard data somewhere — can’t remember where or I’d post a link — showing that the average gun owner spent WAY more time at the range, firing WAY more rounds at practice targets, than the average police officer.

          1. Ok, I see what you’re saying, but I don’t think it makes sense to guess about statistics. Is there a way to quantify “firearms training” ? If so, there should probably exist some studies that we can use to compare the levels of training between cops and non-cop gun owners.

          2. You wouldn’t even be able to get a consistent baseline number for most cops, let alone tens of millions of regular people. Luckily, the question actually isn’t that complicated. You don’t actually need to be a rocket scientist to defend yourself.

          3. Yes there is. If the department only requires an easy qualification course of fire, and the officer is only required to shoot 50 rounds a year, there’s a good chance you’re not going to get good shooters.
            If a department requires a tough, timed qualification, and the officers are required to take multiple training classes per year, you will have better shooters on average.

          4. Keep in mind that even the tough qualifications are still easy by gun nut standards, because when you make them harder too many cops fail. And training classes are expensive, so it is one of the first things cut in the budget.

            The hardest qual I ever took was a fed qual for a particular agency (Air Marshall) and it was supposed to be really tough because of the accuracy and time requirements. The best thing I could say about it was that I couldn’t dick around and still pass it. I had to actually hurry a little. 🙂

          5. Essentially correct, yes. The supposedly “well-trained to take you down” elite who are going to crush anyone who dares stand in the way of the government’s tyrannical plans–aren’t as well-trained as the people they’re going to be taking down. And, to make matters worse, many of their best are going to know those people.
            Actually, forget that. They’re going to BE those people.

        2. You know two cops. I know several hundred.

          Their level of firearms proficiency varies greatly. It will depend on the level of training their department provides, which ranges from awful to okay. And if they are a gun nut on their own dime/time or not. Some of the best shooters I know are cops who are also gun nuts, because they are basically gun nuts with the added benefit of tax payer funded ammo once in a while. Some of the worst shooters I’ve ever known are cops, because they they think having a badge and a few hours of basic training makes them into a bad ass. And then there are the cops who show up to qual with their gun rusted into their holster, unable to draw it, because it has been sitting in there since the previous qual.

          Some departments have great programs. Others have shit programs. The level of training is usually proportionate to how liberal and gun hating the local government is, and also how many local ranges they’ve managed to drive off, depriving the cops of places to train.

          Some of the biggest departments in America get very little trigger time because they have so many officers, for so few available shooting bays, that if they run 24/7 nonstop, they couldn’t even hit their mandatory minimum qual numbers.

          Culture plays a part too. If your recruits are from the gun culture, they’ll shoot better. If they are from a culture that doesn’t like guns, then they probably won’t shoot as well. Though I’ve trained plenty of people like that who turned out to be great shooters because they didn’t have any preconceived notions. However the ones who found guns “icky” or “scary”. They are useless. Pray they aren’t the one responding to your 911 call.

          Get into a gun fight in a rural sheriff’s department, and end up against a guy who grew up on a farm, and joined the department after his two tours to Afghanistan, who goes to the range for fun every week, and has a subscription to Guns? (and who probably has an MHI patch on his gear bag!) You’re fucked. 🙂

          People choose careers for a reason. But 99.9% of what cops do isn’t actively shooting people. So check your preconceived notions at the door, my friend. Cops are human and variable, just like the rest of us.

          1. It’s the same with the military. People who don’t know any better (i.e. the people who think the military is some unstoppable fighting force) seem to think that everyone in the service is proficient with small arms. The number of veterans who have served four (or more) years and never fired a rifle or pistol with live ammo should shock and horrify the average citizen.

            The number who have only gone through familiarization fire (you learn the safety rules, learn how to load it, operate the safety, aim at a target and try to hit it a few times) is even higher. Some of them spend entire careers only having “fam fired” a few times. Yeah, keep gutting military budgets (ammo for training occupies a disturbingly high position on the things to get cut when the belt tightens) and expecting the military is unstoppable.

            Unless you’re in combat arms, or the Marines, you don’t qualify annually. Even Marine annual qualification is pretty basic compared to what your average “gun nut” does multiple times a year. And I’m speaking as a retired Marine with multiple awards rifle and pistol expert. I only consider myself proficient compared to your average “gun nut”. Really, only Marines in the combat arms MOSs receive an amount of training that’s comparable to what the average “gun nut” does.

            So this guy “knows a Marine” and automatically thinks his training is decent. This guy doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know.

        3. If you think people choose to be cops so they can shoot guns or because they like to shoot guns, then you suffer from more misconceptions than I thought.

    4. You could try reading the post again, since you seem to have missed a few key points.

      Larry already addressed your effort to dismiss the idea that citizens can overthrow our government. Perhaps you’re unaware, but recently, some citizens have shown that human beings, have the ability and “determination” to kill cops if they really want to. Did you assess how many resources the cops had to divert to deal with one guy with a gun? Did you see how the Tsarnaev brothers shut down a major American city?

      It only takes a handful more people acting in this capacity, spread out over a city, to overtax ANY sized municipality’s law enforcement. Now, imagine those rent-a-mobs that are currently lousing up our streets and making productive people late for work or lose time with their families…imagine them armed. This is only scratching the surface of the poorly considered idea that civil (or even martial) authority in the US is unstoppable. The only “fantasy” at play here is the idea that Leftist rent-a-mobs could get access to guns in these areas they’re protesting.

      Despite your problems with what you consider to be “fantastical” beliefs, you’ve already displayed at least one. Here’s the other: you clearly don’t understand the power dynamic in our modern bureaucracy. The so-called management structure may change (not really, but for argument’s sake, I’ll grant it), you fail to account for a couple of things: the ideological make-up of the bureaucracy (one guess as to the which way that swings), and the laws and undemocratic regulations which provide the continuity of that ideology.

      There’s a reason bureaucrats refer to politicians as “the seasonal help.” Politicians may change, but the laws and regulations which codify their ideology don’t go away with the next election. Please apply the basic civics understanding that I’m sure you have before telling well-informed people that their views are “fantasy.”

    5. Bugmaster, you (and any liberals) need to read this little article.

      https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/what-i-saw-at-the-coup/
      Disregard the scenario. Here’s the key graph:

      “Dennis had always assumed that the combined might of our armed federal agents and their SWAT Teams, reinforced with local police and, if necessary, the National Guard or even the Army, could crush any conceivable right-wing reaction to his plan. But social network analysis couldn’t find snipers who were not part of any network. That’s when we began to hear of “The Militia of One.” In the end there were too many rifles, and too many willing shooters. A number that was constantly heard was twenty million. That was the number of Americans who supposedly went deer hunting every year, against less than 200,000 armed federal agents.

    6. Yeah, no.

      Looks like everybody else already did a good job shooting this down, but having a suicide stand off with the SWAT team isn’t what the 2nd Amendment is about. In real life, most of that SWAT team is on my side. I’m not talking about a few guys and crime. I’m talking about actual, literal, armed insurrection. Which is a very different beast (and I’m pretty sure I made that clear in the half dozen or so paragraphs I talked about it, so now you’re just being willfully obtuse).

      Oh, and the bit about handing out guns to the protesters? That’s like the exact opposite of my entire essay.

      1. I think they imagine that insurrectionists will sit quietly by and wait for the SWAT team to get to them in their home. In a SHTF scenario, those SWAT guys, assuming they’re still taking orders, are holed up at FOB City Hall.

        1. In my home? Hell, if it gets to that point, I’m picking my least favorite senator and going to his house. 😀

          1. If it gets to that point, the SWAT team will find an empty house. Think “safehouse”, not “Alamo”.

          2. Yeah, that sounds like a great way to turn “come out with your hands up” to “all snipers, fire when ready” 🙂

          3. Another thing to consider is the political make up of the military. Having served 20 years I’ve learned that the majority of the military, especially those in combat arms, tend to the conservative side. If there were to be a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy uprising, many of our military members would defect from the Government to the uprising. Not all, by a long shot, but I’d wager 75% or more would at least be sympathizers.
            And as has been mentioned, guerilla style warfare is darned hard to fight. Over 300 million firearms in civilian hands. The Feds would start out outnumbered and it would probably only get worse.

      2. That was actually part of my point. It’s not enough to simply own a gun. If you want to participate in an armed insurrection, you have to build an army (or, at the very least, a guerilla force), or you’d lose — just like the guy on TV. And that involves a lifetime commitment. Simply getting together with your buddies is not enough, as countless events like e.g. Waco have shown. The bar for turning a “suicide standoff with SWAT” into “armed insurrection” is very, very high.

        This brings me to the second point I was making: we live in a democracy, not a tyranny, despite what hysterical medial outlets (on both sides of the political divide) would have you believe. We picked this system of government precisely because it makes armed insurrection unnecessary. So, we leave armed combat to the professionals who make a career of it, which leaves the rest of us free to pursue arguably less important things, like writing or software development.

        It feels good to imagine a brave band of brothers holding off jack-booted stormtroopers, like in Red Dawn. But, in real life, events like Waco are seen as tragedies (vs. the more recent standoff in Oregon, which is seen as partial success); and they are seen as such by virtually everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike. The reason suicidal standoffs exist at all is because SWAT is trying as hard as they possibly can to avoid killing anyone. I can assure that this isn’t the case in places like, say, China (or possibly even modern Russia). There, if you pull a gun and start shooting cops, you’re going to die. There won’t be a standoff.

        Thus, dreaming of “armed insurrection” is not only futile, but also counter-productive. When your candidate doesn’t win, it’s not tyranny, it’s politics; and the police are made up of ordinary citizens, not alien monsters or virtuous heroes.

        Another argument I’ve seen someone make is that “armed insurrection” isn’t the end goal; instead, everyone should be armed to the teeth in order to stop bad guys before the cops finally get to the scene. This is why I asked you to imagine the scene in Oakland if every protester had a gun, believed in the “armed insurrection” scenario, and was willing to enact it — just as you have advised. It’s not a pretty picture.

        1. First of all, here’s an example of an armed insurrection against an oppressive government, that did succeed — in the United States, in the 20th century:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5ut6yPrObw

          The video consists of clips from a movie (nobody was filming the actual events), but this was one movie “based on a true story” that was actually, well, based on a true story — and relatively faithful to the actual events. The real event has now become known as the Battle of Athens, TN.

          Now, let’s compare and contrast that one to the Oakland protest that you are focusing on. In Athens, the armed insurrection’s goal was to ensure that the ballots were counted openly, and that nobody had opportunity to cheat. And according to the Wikipedia article on the subject, only one of them was ever charged with a crime: the one who had shot a sheriff’s deputy in the back, which made it murder rather than self-defense. (Have you read Larry’s post on the legalities of shooting people, yet? If not, then you need to read it so you’re not arguing from ignorance.) So the armed insurrection succeeded, precisely because the non-corrupt cops agreed with their goals. Whereas the Oakland protesters were protesting… what? The valid results of an election they didn’t like*. Gee, if they had pulled out guns and started shooting into a crowd, do you think they would get away scot-free, or would they get charged with murder? (Those who survived the crowd shooting back, that is). And at this point, do you think we’re even remotely close to the “armed insurrection” scenario that Larry is talking about? Hint: No. No, we aren’t. Your final paragraph is arguing against a strawman, which you have erected not (I think) out of deliberate malice, but because your ignorance has led you to completely misunderstand the scenario that Larry is talking about. Watch the Battle of Athens video; THAT’s what Larry (and the rest of us) are talking about.

          * And if they were claiming cheating, well, let’s look at the history of the past decade or so with regard to voter ID laws (which would make cheating a lot harder). Which side has been arguing for tightening up voter ID requirements, and requiring ALL voters to vote in person unless they have a valid reason to vote by mail (like being away from home on Election Day)? And which side has been arguing AGAINST all the laws that would make it harder to commit vote fraud? (Answer: the right, and the left, respectively). So if the Oakland protesters are claiming vote fraud, my answer would be, “Oh, so now you’re willing to pass the anti-fraud laws our side has been arguing for for the past decade? Great! Let’s pass them right now, as a bipartisan bill!”

        2. Your bizarre assertion – that both sides of the political divide have even remotely equivalent media presences and hysterics – aside, this form of government was not chosen because it makes armed insurrection unnecessary. That’s a remarkable misunderstanding of history. You might be able to say that it makes armed insurrection less likely, but the nation was formed from an armed insurrection that our founders talked about the need for extensively. There’s a rather famous document which is obviously slipping your mind here.

          And no one is “dreaming” of armed insurrection. That’s highly disingenuous of you and an indicator that you’re arguing in bad faith. Please take the time to read more closely, because you’re missing some fundamental, and clearly presented points.

          1. I’m pretty sure I spent like 5 paragraphs explaining how everybody with a clue DOES NOT WANT armed insurrection, so disingenuous is putting it mildly.

    7. Guns are expensive. One of the traits common to rioters is a failure to invest in the future, much less insure against unlikely, even if high impact, events. Each gun is several weekends of clubbing. A trip to the range is a bar crawl.

      Also, twelve guys with box cutters shut down the entire country. A few guys with a couple of pressure cookers shut down Boston. If even 1% of the people who take a deer in season decide they don’t really need their representatives any more it’s a nightmare bloodbath beyond all imagining. No one sane wants to see it.

  31. I’m about as far left as a person can get and I love this. Although I may have been brainwashed by my conservative, gun loving neighbors.

  32. Another hit. I’ve forwarded this to my peeps , this (long-winded) preface:

    I really like Larry, and not just for his novels (I’m still stuck on his sophomore effort while I try to dig out of the perpetual mountain of news articles I’ve got tagged). I actually met him at a book signing here in Albuquerque, and he’s just a neat Sci-Fi geek who talked to the crowd for a good half hour about his plans for upcoming books. He’s also a former firearms instructor and gun store owner, and this season you can see him pop up on Midway USA’s Gun Stories as a commentator. He knows his shit. Wordsmith is a crappy blogging host though, and I’m constantly wrestling to keep myself signed in and receiving update email notifications, but that’s another story.

    I’m a little dismayed by the demonstrations/rioting, but not really surprised. It takes me back to the conservative riots of ’08 and ’12 after Obama won, where we burned down DF/W, Atlanta and Birmingham…oh, wait. The only good news is that sheep make really bad wolves, to strain Dave Grossman’s analogy. I’d be worried about cluing them in to gun culture if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve seen what happens when the ignorant come in to the fold, so to speak. They learn about the weapons themselves, but also about how to use them properly. They don’t have a lot of bad habits to unlearn, so in some ways they’re easier to teach. And they finally have a realistic grounding to counteract all of that false mythology crap they’ve been fed by other ignorant progressives via their Netflix queue (I’m pretty sure that their irrational fear of pistol grips can be traced to bingewatching Chuck Norris movies). As Thomas Burke said; “Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.” In other words, exposing them to the gun culture converts Democrats into Republicans just as surely as a mugging does, only with much less risk. I also like his digs at the LGBTWTFBBQ (I need to remember that one) and gun control “big government” crowds, in practical and not ad hominem terms. Maybe that’s because I just finished watching the Atlas Shrugged trilogy (admittedly from *my* Netflix queue). Who is John Galt?

    Hopefully after all the histrionics are over, some progressives will choose this productive path to overcome their hoplophobia. His introduction to the hardware portion reminded me of the old saw about aviation (“Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.” – Captain A. G. Lamplaugh, British Insurance Group). It applies at least as well to firearms. It also applies equally to conservatives as well as liberals. I’m a big fan of concealed carry too, but not without proper, preferably continuous, training. In the six years I’ve been carrying I’ve probably averaged about an hour a week with an instructor and my fellow students. Most of us spend more time than that in traffic every week. My hour at the range is a lot more productive. Get training.

  33. I elected not to vote, I find it only encourages the assholes., though in hind site ice cream may have been an option.

  34. Ah, the comments from Vile:

    “14) Could Correia be any more condescending? You’d figure writing about his favourite subject, guns, would make him sound more reasonable (hey, it works for Dave Freer), but no. Though he confirms that the ammosexual interpretation of the US second amendment is not about hunting and sport shooting (both of which are legitimate reasons for owning guns) nor about police/military, but about paranoia and the fantasy of shooting people they don’t like. Besides, while I’ve heard from a lot of people on the US left that they are scared, I haven’t seen anybody express the desire to buy a gun.
    He also makes the mistake typical of that ilk that a white man shooting a black teenager allegedly in self-defence and a black person shooting a white man allegedly in self-defence would be treated even remotely the same in court. He also hasn’t grasped that no matter how many guns an individual has, the government always has more.”

    This one’s our old pal Cora Buhlert, BTW.

    Then there’s Aaron Pound:

    “Aaron on November 14, 2016 at 9:14 pm said:
    14. Correia’s historical illiteracy continues. The Founding Father’s didn’t think people should have guns so they could fight tyrannical governments. They thought people should have guns so they could be in the militia and serve the government against foreign invaders. Up through the end of the War of 1812, American military thought was that the defense of the nation was to be built upon the idea of citizen-militias that could be called up in times of war.
    As to what the Founding Father’s thought about armed insurrection, the Whiskey Rebellion is an instructive example.”

    And finally:

    “Tenzil Kem on November 15, 2016 at 6:50 am said:
    Perhaps Correia shouldn’t snark that people on the left “sound like the Alex Jones crowd” or whatever the original quote was when Trump is a fan of and planning to continue appearing on Alex Jones. But of course thinking that hard would require decency and intelligence on his part. Idiot.”

    1. I’m just going to handle that last one.
      They did read the part where he said he didn’t vote for Trump, right?

      1. Probably not. I expect that “Trump-voter” will become the Left’s new all-purpose insult to throw at everyone they disapprove of.

        1. Last week I had progs assuming I was a Trump voter because I thought they were being stupid, and I had a Trump supporter tell me if I didn’t like the president, I should leave America. (I told her to make me, and best bring friends) 🙂

      1. But because I know Glyr-50-Hugos reads these comments, yo Mike, this post had 14,000 readers yesterday, and 15,000 so far this morning. How is your shitty traffic doing? 😀

    2. They project their own reasons for having a gun upon those they call “ammosexuals” with a sneer that’s noticeable over text.

      1. Let’ s see

        A woman desires to own a gun
        The desire to own a gun expresses a desire to have a bigger … male member.
        There fore, a woman desires to have a bigger male member.

        Which makes her transgender and questioning her desire to own a gun or shaming her for it becomes a hate crime.

        XD

    3. Well, which is it supposed to be?
      A: Trump is a fascist who will soon be in control of the most powerful surveillance and security apparatus known to man, along with a boat load of nukes. He’s going to round up people and put them in camps. Someone should stand against the tide of his madness!
      OR
      B: He’s not actually that bad and I’m mad enough about it to scream and yell, but really it’s not going to be so bad that I want to put my life or livelihood at risk.

      I’m going with…
      C: I’ve lived a remarkably comfortable life and am not able to accurately gauge threats and react disproportionately to all discomfort. For the same reason, I’m not prepared to take the risks associated with actually fighting for anything. The fact that it’ll probably be okay for four years or so really just lets me off the hook anyway.

    4. Sheesh, Aaron needs to learn about the law of the excluded middle. The Founders wanted both a citizen militia that could serve in times of war (they were against standing armies), and a safety valve so future generations could do what they did (rebel against an oppressive government) if necessary.

      1. Well, and that part where the courts have already defined “militia” as basically all of us. So there’s that. 🙂

    5. “Besides, while I’ve heard from a lot of people on the US left that they are scared, I haven’t seen anybody express the desire to buy a gun.”

      Maybe she should be pointed in the direction of Moshe Feder. 😀

      1. That was one of the most hilarious threads I’ve read in a long time.

        I’m a liberal who has called gun owners names for years but who is now scared of Trump Nazis. Here is a list I found on the internet about the top 10 assault rifles (unaware they are all banned from import). Which AR-15 should I buy? I live in BROOKLYN.

        New York… Where he is completely unaware that his team has already banned EVERYTHING.

        The greatest hits were gun nuts saying:
        An AR-15? You must be compensating for you tiny penis.

        Or Miguel, who told him that he should use the leftover Hugo Anuses as throwing stars. 😀

    6. And two more:

      “Vicki Rosenzweig on November 15, 2016 at 6:10 pm said:
      Owning a gun won’t get me health insurance, or an abortion if I need one.
      Owning a gun won’t slow climate change or protect the water supply.
      Owning a gun won’t protect someone from being fired for being LGBT, or denied an apartment for being Black.
      Owning a gun won’t prevent a nuclear war.
      Owning a gun won’t feed a starving family.
      [I could make a longer list, but this subset is stressful enough.]”

      I find this one hilarious.

      and from “Lee”:

      “14) A day late and a dollar short, as usual. Mr. Correia doesn’t realize that we’ve been preparing for him and his buddies for a long time. We just don’t brag about it, is all. ”

      Do tell.

      1. Oh, that Lee is scary (and totally believable!)…put him at the top of the target list, Chris. 🙂

        As for Vicki, if she owned a gun I suspect she could hold the abortion providers at gunpoint and force them to give her an abortion (why would she have to, don’t they do this by preference?), or force a grocery store to give her enough food to feed that starving family. You’d think she doesn’t understand how she might put that tool to work. Oh, wait…

      2. Owning a fire extinguisher doesn’t prevent nuclear war either, but it is nice when your house catches on fire.
        Wearing a seat belt doesn’t slow climate change, but it keeps me from flying out the window in a car crash.

        Wow… That post does really demonstrate why most of regular America thinks these people are lunatics.

        And Lee is just the silly liberal version of the trash talking internet tough guy. Me and my buddies don’t even know who he is, nor do we care. And if he is “prepared” that means he owns guns, so you are welcome. Yeah, me and my buddies tried to preserve that right for you while liberals tried to take it away.

      3. Owning a gun won’t feed a starving family.

        Obviously she has never visited that magical land called “The Outdoors” where greater and lesser meat-filled creatures known as “Squirrels” or “Rabbits” or “Deer” live in numbers that could feed a starving family for… well… ever.

        But only if one has the means to convert them from a fleeing creature to a stationary carcass.

      4. Rozenzweig doesn’t understand that her team has gone from “minorities should be able to rent apartments, go to school, serve in the military, vote…” to “minorities should be able to force people to make them a cake”.

        The notion of relative harm is completely lost on them. Keeping someone from going to school causes them great damage (or did, back when you could count on the schools teaching them something useful), and there were often few, if any, alternatives.

        The harm caused by a bakery not making you a cake is both much smaller and much more avoidable. There was no other bakery willing to make a gay wedding cake? In fucking PORTLAND? Yeah, sure. I TOTALLY believe that. Totally.

        It stopped being about mitigating discrimination and started being about forcing other people to do your bidding a long time ago. Along the way they lost a lot of people who might even have supported their (claimed) goal. For the record, I would not shop at that bakery myself. But I also understand that it was THEIR bakery, and that forcing them to serve customers they didn’t want is involuntary servitude. I dislike prejudice, but I dislike slavery even more.

        1. All of the ‘won’t bake a gay wedding cake’ incidents that I’ve heard of were that they specifically wouldn’t bake a cake for a gay wedding, not that they would not serve gay customers. Those same gay people could have ordered a birthday cake and they’d have happily served them. They’re not discriminating against people. They’re choosing not to take part in an event that goes against their religious beliefs.

    1. Forgot to add… stuck on Glocks only…how about a trade for a well kept, pampered, Ruger P94 with about 1500 rounds through it….

  35. I can not express the amount of joy this article brings me. You see I’m mid course in getting re-certified as a less than lethal instructor for the left cost and as a LEO level armed instructor for 3 states (WA OR CA). As I live vaguely near Seattle, and the wife is proud of me she told a few of her friends. My email has blown up from cats I have not talked to in years (sigh). Some days it is hard being a ethical capitalist

  36. Thanks Larry. I’m not quite sharing this article with my many liberal friends but I’m certainly sharing the sentiment. I’m a gun-owning lefty (the kind that wants municipal confederalism – not the kind that wants to nationalize your toothbrush) and while I’m not calling for armed insurrection, this is the scariest political climate I’ve seen in a while.

    I have many QUILTBAG friends back in “progressive” “blue” Mass and one of them just had “f*g” scrawled on his car in permanent marker. This might be an entry-level hate crime but it was targeted and that’s a little scary. I hope you and yours will not only *not* do stupid stuff like this but will also be ready to dissuade, condemn, and otherwise stop folks who might want to. I’m doing my best to help my friends distinguish between conservatives who couldn’t stomach Hillary and conservatives who like David Duke. In fact that’s why I’m wasting my time writing Internet comments right now.

    Speaking of David Duke, he thinks Steve Bannon is with him ideologically. That’s kinda scary. It looks like we’ll also get a climate change denier for EPA. And with Peter Thiel we get a gay venture capitalist Bilderburger bitcoin enthusiast (still not sure what to make of that).

    Anyhow, I’m going back to trying to turn my liberal friends against neoliberal globalism and in favor of 2A (and maybe also 10A?). I doubt the round-ups are coming but hey I doubted we’d get Trump in the White House so what do I know?

    Please continue outreach in good faith.

    1. Let’s hope we get a AGW skeptic in charge of the EPA! (You won’t convince anyone who hasn’t swallowed the AGW kool-aid by using terms such as “denier,” which we all know is intended to cast us normal folks as equivalent to those who pretend the Holocaust didn’t happen.) As for the rest, if you’re interested in radically down-sizing the federal government, welcome aboard.

      1. Welp I guess we’re not on the same page about AGW. That’s too bad cause we share an atmosphere. Didn’t mean to use scare words tho – just meant it to describe the man’s position.

        As for radically downsizing the federal government, how radical are we talking? I think it might be terminally disfunctional (and maybe nation states in general don’t work as well as they used to?). I could imagine a future where the constituent nations of the US break apart and keep the federal government as a kind of drastically pared-back coordinating body where the interstate commerce clause is interpreted way more narrowly. Maybe a full constitutional rewrite is in order given that it’s been almost 250 years. This time we could start with the Bill of Rights instead of adding it after the fact.

        1. If by “constituent nations” you mean the states, you’re on the right track, just imagining the extreme case. Break apart? No, but returning to the states the authority and responsibility the Constitution has always said is theirs? Definitely. A full constitutional rewrite? Again, nope. The Constitution looks like a pretty well-written document as it stands, needing only a few amendments to make sure the federal government and the leftists aren’t able to completely ignore it and run roughshod over it.

    1. Actually, really well, Von Clauswitz. Tanks aren’t perpetual motion machines. They require lots of fuel and maintenance. To run them requires a vulnerable logistical chain. Most US military bases are separated from the people you expect them to slaughter by nothing more than a chain link fence. Not to mention the people you expect the military to slaughter are their friends, family, and neighbors. Oh, and the majority of the military is politically aligned with the gun owners.

      You fuckers couldn’t even put RoEs into place that might damage a mosque made out of mud in Iraq, but you’re cool with carpet bombing Dallas. In Iraq a force of approximately 20,000 insurgents (at any given time) in an area roughly the size of Texas fought one of the most powerful military coalitions in history for a decade straight… But we’re supposed to believe that in a far larger area, fighting 100x that number of insurgents, with no front line, no safe areas, and a totally vulnerable infrastructure, it would be a piece of cake… Because tanks.

      Man, you guys are dumb. 😀

          1. I was remembering the old Bill Cosby album…about the red coats and the minute men and the ref calling the coin toss…

          2. If we lose the coin toss that’s the breaks. “Americans have won the coin toss they elect to be able wear whatever they want and his behind rocks, trees, anywhere. The British will have to wear red and march in a straight line. “

          3. It’s the only plan they can come up with, so… yeah. They do think that.

            But then they’re idiots so it’s not surprising their imaginations are… lacking.

          4. Nope. We’ll be shooting people like “Guest”. Easiest target available. He might want to scrape off that Obama sticker if he decides to declare war on us.

          5. Looking at one of the comments above, “Stand out in the open and line up like Red Coats” is exactly what they thing we’d do.

          6. Larry,have to disagree on one point. In many battles the Americans did line up just like the Brits. Most of the Rebel army was equipped with smoothbore muskets which they lined up and fired mano a mano against the redcoats. Of course we also lost a quite a few of those battles. We did use guerrilla tactics as well, but those are effective denying terrain, not taking and holding it. Washington was not doctrinaire about it though. He used whatever tactics/strategy needed to win.

      1. I’d blame video games, but then I play Civ and know a real insurrection isn’t quelled by simply moving a military unit into a rioting city so it might be our mystery guest suffers from general stupidity and presumption that firepower decides everything.

    2. You show yourself to know nothing about military operations. As Larry said, you don’t shoot at a tank with a rifle, you use the rifle to ensure that the tanks can’t be maintained and resupplied.

        1. Does the tone change depending on where on the armor your round hits?
          .
          Because I see a market for the next level in avant garde music

          1. But it’s not just the tone, you have to fire in a specific tempo and rhythm to get the desired effect. And if the target’s moving, you have to factor in time to target. It’s not a trivial exercise. 😀

      1. A tank without supporting infantry is just a big target.
        One of the best war time memoirs was written by paratrooper Don Burgett in his book “Seven Roads to Hell”, which covered his stint fighting in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. Note that lightly armed and poorly equipped paratroopers were able to hold out against German armor. How? You ride out the initial attack by the tanks, then attack the supporting infantry. Without infantry, the tanks will get scared and leave.

    3. Who’s going to shoot at a tank? No reason to do it.

      You could look at some numbers. I live in Texas, so let’s do that.
      Texas sold 1.2 million hunting licenses last year. I’m assuming this represents a group of able bodies people with some marksmanship and ready access to weapons. This is a fraction of the gun owning public. Let’s assume 1% of those people decide they’d like to term limit their representative, giving us 12,000 insurgents. To be brutally distasteful about it, this totals up to about 6 guys with rifles for each Congressman, Senator, State Senator and Mayor in the State.
      This is enough chaos to collapse civil order.

      Now, where are you going to send the tank, among a population of 30 million, to sabot these 12,000 guys? How many people did you turn against your cause when you put a tank farm at the local high school? Did I mention that the State of Texas offers something called the Super-Combo Type 510 hunting and fishing license? No? The guy driving that tank can tell you about it.

      This is a horrific situation. No one wants this. Even the nutjobs that think it sounds great aren’t going to like it. No one knows what’s on the other side other than piles of bodies and burning buildings.

      1. And here’s another factor to consider. The typical Democratic party administration isn’t exactly conducive to building up the necessary numbers of men and equipment needed to fight in a country with the size and population of the USA. A Hillary Clinton administration would find itself trying to fight the Second Civil War with two dozen tanks (half of which need repair), one F-35 that will be combat ready “any day now”, and soldiers who have spent so much time attending mandatory sensitivity training that they have never actually had time to learn how to use their weapons.

        1. I think you might be underestimating the hypothetical opponent, Joe in PNG. You may have heard the saying “bad money drives out good”. The same is true of organizations of all stripes, including PD and Armed Forces. The kind of officer that joins a department constantly subjected to creeping tyranny is very different than the kind we are generally used to. Same for armies.

          Mandate the right regulations, and you can drive all the “good money” home. You don’t have to go looking for stormtroopers at that point. They’re all that signs up.

          1. Money, good or bad, is one thing that the military under a Hillary administration would not be getting.

          2. And all the “good troops”, officers and NCO’s who had enough and left? They’re now among the “military veterans” on the civilian side. They don’t just vanish.

          3. Thugs and psychos don’t often good soldiers make, and aren’t really all that reliable or loyal.

          4. I’m just trying to point out that the same thing that happened to the universities, charitable foundations, Hollywood and numerous other institutions could happen to the armed forces and police.

          5. Different skill and mindset. The skills and mindset that make one a good professor, foundation board member or actor does not convert into a good doorkicking faceshooter.

          6. Skills and mindset aren’t in question. In fact, I assume those with the most desirable mindset and best skills will be the ones who leave quickest.

            An example is in order.

            BLM and associated trends, combined with the imposition of onerous rules, created a morale problem for many urban PD’s. The word “exodus” is commonly used. Those that leave tend toward being the most disturbed by the trend, and the most able to resell their skills. Those that stay, are less likely to fall into this group.
            The officers that leave will be replaced. Those who hire on will, almost by definition, be more tolerant of the situation than those that quit.
            What sort of PD is in place after twenty years of this pattern?

            PD and military aren’t immune to getting fed up with bad leadership. My experience is that they are highly sensitive to it. They have/will stick it out, often for the sake of comrades, but time is not on their side. The only way to protect those institutions is to roll back the policies that drive out the traits we desire. Simply halting the addition of policies isn’t enough.

            If you think veterans have special immunity, go to the local Bureau of BS office and count the vets. I know more than one vet working at such a place, locked in until they get their 20. They hate the job, but they stay, and they follow the rules, and the same crappy job gets done.

          7. Andrew, I think we’re pretty much on the same page on this. That good troops have been forced out, and bad troops are replacing the good (especially in PD’s) is pretty evident. Miami in the 80’s saw this happen.

            Now, the question is would a theoretical Hillary administration have the equipment and trained personnel necessary to fight and win a second civil war, should it be inclined to institute one party rule via force. Probably not. The current level of equipment is too low, so she would have to commit to a massive build up- a thing that is anathema to her supporters.

            Likewise, in regards to trained personnel, the Left drives out the people with the needed skills and mindset, because they’re aggressive and assertive and scary. You’re not likely to be left with soldiers and cops able to do the job.

          8. A Hillary administration would have to occur within the next few years, and while I don’t thin she’d do such a thing, that kind of power play wouldn’t work. The ground work for it hasn’t been laid and the population of the security services is predisposed to dislike her personally. If the reasoning wasn’t good enough to prevent an insurgency with popular support, the security services wouldn’t cooperate.
            It would be messy and brutal, but it wouldn’t work.

            However, I wouldn’t underestimate the future. The threshold is generally the point at which “a good enough reason” will put a wedge between the security arms and the popular support of the insurgency. That’s the earliest point a takeover has of working. If the “good enough reason” moves that wedge between the popular support and the insurrection itself, then the insurrection is just a bunch of nutjobs getting rounded up.

            Also, the left is perfectly capable of fielding impressive military and policing forces. There’s an entire alphabet of totalitarian leftist forces from MfS to NKDV. Those agencies did the job just fine, for certain values of fine. I wouldn’t want to live there, but it’s hard to argue that the Stasi didn’t generally keep things under control.

            I’m doing a bit of jeremiad here, but people on my side of the coin generally assume the security arms of the government will come down on their side if things go south. I don’t consider it a justifiable assumption.

          9. Andrew,

            There’s one factor you’re forgetting in your pessimistic analysis:

            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?… 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!

            You need to keep in mind that even if a hypothetical American dictator manages to put together a well-trained Stasi-like force, most liberty-minded Americans have read that Solzhenitsyn quote and have thought about it. The first few hundred individuals getting arrested by that hypothetical neo-Stasi force would get killed in the process of resisting arrest, yes — because Bugmaster has at least one thing right. If it’s just you against a full dozen people in a gunfight, you’re probably not going to survive, even if you manage to kill two or three of them before they get you. BUT… by the time a few hundred patriots have been arrested by the neo-Stasis, the rest of them aren’t going to sit there and wait to be next. They’ll be calling up the veterans they know, and the active-duty police officers who understand their duty to the Constitution, and making plans.

            So yes, throughout history the left has shown itself perfectly capable of putting together forces that can intimidate and suppress an unarmed population. But Solzhenitsyn understood perfectly well what would happen if they tried that in a population where at least one-third of the adults either own a gun or live with someone who does (source — and that’s just the people who are still willing to admit to owning guns. I don’t think that the gun ownership percentages have really dropped since 1994, I think that people have just stopped telling the truth to pollsters).

          10. No, that’s about how I think it would go. I just don’t think anyone tries to be a hard dictator until the security services will side with them. To me, it’s a prerequisite for an intentional tyrant.

          11. Agreed- to be a dictator you need a lot of people with guns willing to listen to what you say. As an aside, if the Secret Service begins acquiring armored divisions and fighter wings, we’re honestly in for a world of hurt.
            The Democrats aren’t exactly winning the hearts and minds of the people with guns. The children of Leftist aren’t really beating down the doors of the recruiting stations or police academies.
            One historical rule of thumb is that if a class or group in power refuses to serve in the armed forces, that group will not hold power for too long.

    4. The Hungarians gave the Soviets fits, and the Soviets were external invaders.

      For an civil war, they get a bit more vulnerable. Especially supply-wise.

      Assuming you can get soldiers to obey orders to fire upon their fellow citizens. “Illegal orders” have a meaning, you might wish to look it up.

      1. For “a” civil war.

        Figures. The edit option lasts 5 minutes and I don’t turn back to here until about 6 minutes after I posted.

      2. During the initial stages of the Hungarian uprising, the Soviet troops weren’t all that effective, and in some cases sided with the Hungarians. In one case, a tank commander retargeted his main gun on the local AVH offices. And fired it.

        Things didn’t really turn around until the Soviets brought in troops from out of the area, who didn’t have any social ties with the locals.

    5. Oh, you’re clearly new to the internet. Please familiarize yourself with the 37,000 other times this argument has been shot down.

      1. Kinda hard to put down a civil war when your supply of munitions, fuel, and lefty supporters are getting shot up. And most of the folks making those three items are not on your side.

        I can just imagine SJWs trying to run a refinery or ammo factory, while getting sniped at on the way to work.

        1. And all those people out in the boondocks maintaining pipelines, transmission lines, generating stations… what happens when some of them decide this particular switch or that particular valve should not be in the position it’s in any more? Not a shot fired, as such, but poof goes the supply chain.

    6. You’re just adorable. What is the government going to do with that tank? Run it through downtown Des Moines, leveling houses left and right because their are some insurgents in the city? The government didn’t have the will to do that in Falujah et all, you think they’re going to do it in CONUS?

      Do you have any idea how much support keeping a tank running and fighting takes? Where are those supplies going to come from? How secure are your supply lines from (in) CONUS when the fighting is in CONUS?

      Where do your tank crews sleep? Where do their maintenance personnel sleep? What do they eat? Where does the food come from? Water? How secure are those supplies against contamination/poisoning? You think if it comes down to an insurgency that the insurgents will play nice?

      Armed citizens in the US outnumber the military on the very close order of 70 to one. For that matter, military veterans, with the same training the military itself has, outnumbers active duty military about eight to one. Oh, and for comparison, armed citizens in the US outnumber the combined numbers of all the world’s military and government paramilitary forces by about three to one. That’s leaving aside that military personnel are not mindless Myrmidons who simply follow orders but trained professionals, many if not most of whom would remember that their oath is to the Constitution, not to the President or the government in general. Many of them would be on the side of the insurgents.

      Funny how the same people who claim that the US military cannot defeat lightly armed irregulars in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam are the same ones who say that lightly armed irregulars in far greater numbers cannot defeat the US military.

      It seems folk like you are wedded to a “Gettysburg” idea of what a new civil war in the US would look like–with the military forted up on the hill and the rebels charging into the teeth of their fire until the rebels are all dead or fled.

      Nothing could be further from the truth. Think instead Beirut or Northern Ireland only about a hundred times worse. Fourth Generation Warfare to the max unless we invent whole new generations.

      It will be ugly and brutal and vicious. And if you think the outcome is preordained, you’re delusional.

      This is why I have long argued against any such action except as an absolute last ditch “no other choice” option:

      http://thewriterinblack.blogspot.com/2014/06/second-american-revolution-i-hope-not.html

    7. Some terms/concepts, the definitions of which you might find useful: 1) non conventional warfare, 2) asymmetric warfare, and 3) 4th generation warfare. I also offer the following questions for your consideration.
      1) What is the likelihood a significant number of military people (both former and current active duty) are politically aligned with gun owners?
      2) What is the likelihood a number of those who are so aligned have training and real world experience in concepts 1-3, as well as training and building insurgencies?
      3) What is the likelihood a significant number of LEOs are politically aligned with gun owners?
      4) How likely do you find it that law enforcement officers and military personnel are going to be willing to fire on their friends and families?
      5) Do you find that if you change your assumptions, you see the possibility of different outcomes?

        1. Nor in Tennessee. But here, the reason is summed up with this well-known southern saying: “Hey y’all, watch this!”

          1. Whereas the Obama administration has gutshot counter-proliferation, whereas it should now be possible to research cheaper ways to manufacture nuclear devices, maybe state governments could make their own?

  37. There is a lot of good advice here. It was hard to read past the anger in your post, but I’m glad I did it. Now having done so, I’ll apply the good sense and good advice you shared. It would be great to learn more from you, especially in a more collegial atmosphere. Thank you.

          1. Pff, where would the manatee be without it’s native understanding of small arms and excellent insurance coverage!

    1. Hardly anger. Just irritation with the benighted idiocy of so many on the left, and their smugness in proclaiming and demonstrating that idiocy as if it put them on some high ground or other. It’s sort of like the old joke about playing chess with a pigeon: it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.

        1. Ah, OK! Yes there are a few of us out there. I’ll be the Sabrina in the spacesuit, then. Just wanted to be clear who was who….since I have posted here before and there might be, you know, *confusion*.

          1. Isn’t it terrific when clones meet IRL? 😛 Spokeo thinks there’s 91 of you in your vat group. 😀
            (It also thinks there’s over 200 in mine, and I know better!)

  38. Hilarious!!! Sent an email link last night to a friend of mine who’s also on the left side of the political spectrum and she also thought it was one of the funniest things she’d read in a long time.

  39. We should also add… That if a minority/LGBT/women, whatever, kills or injures a racist shitbag in self defense, and some idiot charges you with a crime, we recommend you screen for NRA members for the jury. We understand the meaning of self defense. We also have balls and have no problem voting not guilty if we are on a jury with 11 members of nazi party and they are threatening us.

    I am jewish . These racist shitbags hate me too. I would likely jury nullify any trial I was on if someone killed a nazi or kkk member for just about any reason. Gets them out of the gene pool. Now I wouldnt say I was doing that because it would get me re,oved from the jury.

    You gotta stop living in fear. These racist shitbags thrive on intimidation. Remind them that those hoods aint bullet proof and those robes burn easy. Would be a shame if you bumped a klukie into a burning cross and he lit up like a Roman candle…. That would video would trend like a motherfucker on youtube. Get some targets with kkk heads on it and put their names under them. Put the target practice on the internet.

    1. Hi. I’m a leftist-ish person. I’m both trying to radicalize my liberal friends and find dialog with you conservative folks. More of this kind of rhetoric please. A lot of people are scared because these fascists seem to think this is their moment. A (gay) friend’s friend had his car vandalized with the word “F*G” after the election (probably just a jackass but a little scary nevertheless). Knowing that the other side will stand against fascism and for us (whatever our differences) could go a long way to finding some solidarity.

      Of course that’s assuming the frigging liberals can be convinced that bullets are a better fascism deterrent than safety pins.

    2. I once asked a cop friend of mine what was the hardest assignment he’d ever been on — given that this is the guy who loves to tell tales of the days of his youth, when he was exchanging gunfire with gangbangers on the run, and trying to bean-bag hulked out druggies on PCP.

      He told me that the hardest thing he ever had to do was protect KKK members during one of their marches. They were surrounded by angry protesters on all sides, trying to bash the Klansmen’s hooded faces in, and it was this cop’s job to protect them. He says that he was incredibly tempted to join in the bashing, or at least turn a blind eye and let them get clobbered. But he did neither, and the KKK completed their march with only minor injuries.

      When I asked him why, he said that he kept reminding himself, every minute, that he was not there to protect the KKK. He was there to protect the U.S. Constitution, which gives everyone the right to express themselves freely, to hold whatever religious or political beliefs they see fit — even the racist scumbags. And the Constitution, as well as the principles behind it, is what makes our country a place that is worth living in, and robs racist scumbags of any credibility they could’ve had.

      I think this is a principle that, in times of political turmoil, too many people tend to forget.

      1. Yep. Be sure to share that message with your liberal friends, but I don’t think you’re going to get a lot of disagreement here.

        1. Sure thing, but, as far as I can tell, the sentiment “remind them that those hoods aint bullet proof and those robes burn easy” is pretty much the opposite of that…

  40. I am pretty strongly Libertarian, *very* strongly pro-2nd Amendment, and Larry Correia is one of my favorite authors. With that said, I think that insulting your target audience is not a good way to establish/maintain an effective dialog. It is apparently a great way to get accolades from the people who already agree with you though, which makes me question if this was really targeted at liberals.

    1. And I could have written this nice, and boring, and kissed plenty of liberal ass, and told you that your people have been wise and intelligent all along, and your gun laws have been awesome, and doggone it people like you! And then a dozen people would have read it instead of the 35k I’ve had so far. So I think I’ll just stick with doing my thing my way. 😀

    2. Oh yeah, and if they are offended, I truly don’t care. Because if they are actually afraid like they’re proclaiming they are, then they can either suck it up, be grown ups, and do the smart thing (which I outline, however rudely, here) or they can go back to licking the hand of the state.

      So again, fresh out of pity.

    3. In so far as leftists have no senses of humor, it probably wasn’t targeted at them. But sometimes you just have to be blunt with some folks to get their attention. Ever hear of a clue-by-4? And some folks can’t be talked to at all without insulting them. 🙂

      1. Would you consider it as a part time position? You know, every other Wednesday you go and eliminate a cabinet depart or nominate a strict constitutionalist judge or whatever else needs doing, but other than that, you just keep writing about Owen and crew while leaving the rest of America to go about their business as they see fit.

        1. I like it! Our nearly-absentee President comes galloping into town at the head of the Wild Hunt, leaving destroyed bureaucracies in his wake, and thunders off to his mountainous western lair, only to return when the people he’s sworn to protect and serve are again endangered by the faceless minions of administrivia…

  41. One nit to pick. It is legal to shoot someone who poses a threat of bodily injury or death to someone other than yourself, say, your wife, child, mother in law. Ok, that last was a stretch.

  42. So, I live in California, and our gun laws suck and are getting suckier. I’m looking into getting a “featureless” AR. Do you have an opinion on the ARES SCR Generation 2? That’s the gun I’m thinking about getting at the moment.

    1. Wait until Kommiefornia actually settles on how sucky they make our lives. There may be another “bullet button” option rather than going featureless. We won’t know until Kamala Harris does her job before running off to Washington DC to replace Barbara “Botox” Boxer

      1. Good answer. I spent last weekend at the CalGuns.net Super Secret Zombie Shoot 7.5 along with 2 to 3 hundred other gun owners. But CalGuns like everybody else is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  43. Damn. I’m both a combat vet and a liberal Democrat, and reading this just made me about pee on myself from laughing so hard; equal parts condescension and truth tends to make me stand up and cheer. HL Menken would be proud. Here’s my take on your piece:

    I truly doubt liberals are thinking of arming themselves based on the election results; it’s just not how they solve issues like this, and frankly, I don’t want them to: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told them of my background in the service, and when the discussion turns to past violent acts, they act like it’s like catching Ebola–something that happens to other people, preferably from far away. Or they have the urge to say something about a movie they once saw. They can’t relate, ever. This is why I don’t encourage them to become armed: ultimately–as you well know–there’s a huge diffference in becoming proficient on a range, and being useful under fire, and truthfully, regardless of ones political leanings, I just don’t see many people with the ability to be useful when it counts. Having a license for a weapon should mean competence under fire, and not for posing like John Wayne when you and your buddies get together for a cold beer: “Did you hear about that shooting up in Jackson? Man, if I was there, I would have taken that sumbitch out like that!” Sure they would have.

    My dad, he of the military and state police backgrounds, used to say that guns are like Corvettes: any fool can buy one, but it takes a lot of work to learn how to use one properly. Not everyone can drive a sports car quickly and smoothly, and not everyone can return fire with their head on straight: don’t encourage those folks.

    I’m a fan. Keep up the good work.

    1. I doubt that liberals are considering arming themselves either,

      On the other hand it is pleasing to have them in a headspace where they might finally finally understand why we have a Second Amendment and why conservatives and gun-owners object to all of the Leftist attempts to disarm the country.

      Something about “Nothing like an existential threat to focus one’s attention” even if the existential threat is made out of brain phantoms and is, quite frankly, self-inflicted.

      I have given the link to this article to a bunch of my liberal family, and offered to go shooting with them. I expect, due to that, that they will be saying a bunch of uncomplimentary things about me at the next couple of holidays.

  44. I think it may be prudent to point out that there is a question on form 4473 that some of the more hardcore lefties may have a problem with, especially after the latest election: Have you ever renounced your US citizenship?

  45. I’m not a combat vet (I had a brainfart and ended up volunteering for submarine duty), never had any law-enforcement training, and have only been able to afford the basic classes and far-too-far-apart trips to the range to get my CHL and keep my groups within the target I’m aiming at. I never claimed to be an instructor, but after the Pulse shooting, I volunteered with Blazing Sword. I can get someone to the point where they’ll not shoot their own foot off and can poke holes in a target at a distance, and will be bluntly honest with them on this point. Also, as a Christian (grew up Southern Baptist….have moved in another direction due to differences with the church), I’ve had people try to call me out about teaching LGBTWTFBBQ’s how to defend themselves. Until I point out that its not my place to judge lifestyles, its my place to love my neighbor. So if you’re in the Fort Worth area, hit me up (before they carpetbomb Dallas, that’ll be sure to send .22lr through the roof again). We’ll go poke some holes at the range.

    1. … it’s not my place to judge lifestyles, it’s my place to love my neighbor.

      Bingo. A gay man living a homosexual lifestyle is not any more of a sinner than, say, Newt Gingrich, who divorced his wife. In fact, I’d argue that Gingrich is far more of a sinner, because the gay man (assuming he’s not a Christian) does not believe the Bible has any authority over him, and so he’s not disobeying his conscience. Whereas Gingrich, who does profess to be a Christian*, knew that divorce is wrong** and that he was breaking the vows he had sworn to his wife when they got married.

      * I’ve been unable to determine if he professed to be a Christian at the time he divorced his wife. If he didn’t, then my argument doesn’t apply to Gingrich — but there are plenty of men, and women, who profess to be Christians but divorce their spouses for no good reason.

      ** If your spouse cheated on you, that’s one thing. But what Gingrich did had NO justification.

  46. Well said! You seemed to be channeling Judge Kozinski from the 9th Circuit.

    “The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed — where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.
    KOZINSKI, JUDGE ALEX, Silviera v. Lockyer, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, 2003
    Kleinfeld’s dissenting opinion was also quite good.

  47. It may surprise some of you , but some of us in tribe liberal understand the second amendment perfectly. That the gun, a well armed populace, is the last defence againat tyranny.
    Personally I think liberals not having a gun are stupid. I think we should let people know that we have them, not to use against our fellow citizens, but we have them just in case.
    I think too many on the right think liberals are wimpy cry babies. We are not the loudest among us, we have our own silent majority. And we have guns.

    Peace out

    1. Then you gun liberals need to get your crap together and get your voices heard, because your party has steam rolled you. And every time there is a massacre your vultures swoop in and propose more gun control.

      And yes, many Americans think liberals are wimpy cry babies. Your image sucks. You should work on that. I’d suggest you start by calming down your college students who throwing temper tantrums and blocking traffic.

      1. Since the election, I’ve been looking into Democrats to see if there was anyone I like. As an independent, I can’t stand either party. I like Rand Paul, but he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting beyond Senator. But on the Dem side, Tulsi Gabbard seems to be a good choice. She’s a combat vet, tough on terrorism, and, if nothing else, Huffington Post dislikes her for not sponsoring any gun control bills. The only thing I could find is she sponsored a bill to prevent people on the “No Fly List” from buying guns. It would allow appeals if they are American citizens though. So anyone wanted to vote Democrat, I think she’s a good pick for one who’ll defend the Second Amendment.

        1. How does one get on the “No-Fly List”?
          For US Citizens, if it doesn’t involve “by being convicted by a jury of one’s peers” then it shouldn’t affect one’s ability to purchase a gun.

          How does one find out that one is on the “No-Fly List”?
          For US Citizens, if it doesn’t involve “Being immediately informed via registered mail from The Department of Home;and Security, which includes instruction on how to appeal one’s inclusion.” then if shouldn’t affect one’s ability to buy guns.

          How does one get off the “No-Fly list”?
          For US Citizens, if it doesn’t involve an immediate and profuse apology from whoever put you on the list without giving you your due process, it shouldn’t affect your ability to purchase a gun.

          1. I agree with everything you said here. I was just trying to find some pro-gun Dems. She’s the closest thing they have. And seriously, anyone whose stance on guns pisses off Huffington Post is on the right track.

          2. “No-fly/No-Buy” is a twofer: Using a violation of the 5th Amendment (“Nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law”) to violate the Second.

            So what you’re saying is there are no Dems, at least at the national level, who support the 2nd Amendment.

  48. This is a step in the right direction, but if you accept that we liberals have been fed a lot of false information, then why not take the opportunity to reach out with good info in a tone of encouragement? When what you write is so laced with jabs, most liberals will read it as a not-so-thinly-veiled insult and move on. Maybe that’s what you’re going for, but it doesn’t seem so. I’ve piqued the interest in guns of quite a few leftist/gay/otherwise very liberal friends of mine who are now changing their tone about guns. I agree with everything you say about guns, but this style of rhetoric isn’t going to work. Win them over without insults, if winning them over is (and it seems like it is) your goal. And a good goal it is! A 2nd amendment that has widespread support on both sides of the political fence is no doubt stronger. Right now there’s an “us against them” mentality which ensures misguided gun control arguments will persist for the foreseeable future. So.. maybe a little more sincere encouragement and less antagonism? Shooting sports are fun. That’s where I start, and so far 100% of my gun-naive liberal friends have agreed.

    1. No.

      Let me put it this way. There are a hundred other articles out there making the same point, but in an approved “nice” way. Only nobody is reading those, and you are commenting on this one because it got shared a lot because it is interesting and funny.

      Oh, but I forgot, only liberals are allowed to be provocative.

      And as for being rude. Oh well. For decades caring liberals have blamed me and my people for every mass murder we had nothing to do with, while every debate on guns turned into smug liberals saying we must only want guns to compensate for our tiny penises, while you’ve disarmed everybody so that they can be defenseless while they get raped to death… you are lucky rude is all you get.

      If fair was fair, I would grant you the exact same amount of respect and consideration your side would have given me if Hillary had won.

      1. Tiny penises? What if guns are accessories for giant penises? What if they are traditional Chinese medicine and the mere proximity to firearms is responsible for our muy huge penises? Do they ever think of that?

        1. What’s really funny is that the average gun toter tends towards tiny guns- Kel-Tec P32’s, S&W Sheilds, Glock 43’s and like.

  49. Now Moshe Feder is giving people advice on what kind of gun to buy on Facebook.

    Of course, the “advice” he’s dispensing would likely get him and his advisees arrested, given that most of them live in areas where Mere Peons aren’t allowed to own those guns.

    Someone has already linked this post over there, and yes, Gersh Kuntzman’s “PTSD” has already been mentioned. 🙂

  50. So I was sitting at work wondering: should I read the comments? What are the chances that some liberal crybaby literally loses their sh!t and has e-diarrhea all over the place? Do I have the self-control to prevent maniacal laughter from bursting out and confusing everyone at the office as to why the boss has gone from grim and somber to lunatic?

    I read the comments before everyone else got here. It was totally worth it.

    Mr. C – for your next bit are you going to write a post about trigger warnings and going hot: a guide to good range etiquette?

  51. How incredibly condescending.

    This smug shit is just like what liberals do about everything, but instead of it being about speech, it’s about guns.

      1. Larry, condescension (the voluntary descent from one’s rank or dignity in relations with an inferior, for the purposes of communication) is the only way we can talk to these folks at all.

    1. I’m the token liberal here, and I believe that free speech the most important thing there is — which makes it more important than guns (by definition of the word “most”). Make of this what you will.

      1. except this is not a zero sum game where I have to prioritize my rights to meet your expectations of what’s THE MOST IMPORTANT, esp. if I’d rather shoot than talk (thank you Mr. Eastwood)

      2. The 2nd guarantees the 1st. To paraphrase a t-shirt (that I sadly did not buy):
        “I’ll gladly give up my 1st amendment rights for the 2nd.”

        “Then I’ll use my guns to take back the 1st!”

      3. And I think they are like building blocks. Pull out too many blocks and the wall falls down. Those amendments are all there for a reason.

        1. Sure, but I think that a country where everyone has a gun but no one is allowed to speak freely, would be less preferable to a country where everyone can speak freely but no one has guns. This way, people can talk to each other and work out whether they want guns or not.

          (BTW, I’m not trying to set up a false dichotomy, I’m just trying to illustrate the two extreme ends of the spectrum.)

          1. But the real questions in your posed situations are, in the first one, if everyone has a gun how could they be kept from speaking freely if they desired, and in the second one, how long do you think they’d be free to speak their minds if only the authorities have guns? Yes, I know you said no one has guns, but just substitute any other method of enforcing their edicts for guns. The authorities will always have some way to do so.

            Anyway, a country where everyone can speak freely and defend themselves and others from attack is the best of both worlds.

          2. I used to know a couple from Argentina. I don’t recall what brought the subject up but they told me the government asked the people go give up their guns to help stop an insurgency. They complied. A few years later people started disappearing in the night.

      4. I think that the rights are all co-occuring. (Not *dependent*, exactly, but evident.) The 2nd stands as a testament to an *existing* truth… that we’re citizens rather than subjects. We’re contributors to the safety and stability of our society and nation rather than threats. We are trustworthy. The 1st stands as a testament to an *existing* truth… that citizens can be expected *themselves* to judge the speech of others and can be trusted with freedom, trusted with information, and trusted with ideas.

        Any attack on any area of freedom, to carry weapons, to speak, to worship, to vote, to be in charge of the character education of our children, to be given the keys of society… infringement of those things require that we no longer *believe* ourselves citizens, but believe ourselves, for our own safety… to be subjects.

        And at that point it’s over.

  52. I notice you didn’t mention zombies, so I have to say I think that’s a bit of a copout. I can’t stand your fiddly gun laws. Lucky for me I don’t live in the USA. Enjoy your mess.

    “Go ahead. Load up n shoot.” Clint Eastwood.

    Amen.

    1. Well, since I make my living by writing a series of bestselling novels about monsters, I’m probably the last guy you can lecture about copping out on zombies. 🙂

  53. I’m a bleeding-heart liberal for most causes, and have always been pro-gun. I don’t see why the two are mutually exclusive and believe it’s a false dichotomy. What I do hate is how many people don’t understand gun SAFETY. I’ve taken multiple NRA gun safety classes. Could there be some kind of mandatory (everyone in high school?) basic gun safety classes without infringing on the 2nd amendment or other people’s rights? Even if you don’t own a gun, shouldn’t you know how they work and how to not accidentally shoot someone? How to keep them out of the hands of children? How to not end up as a Darwinian statistic? Honestly, I don’t care if you blow your own head off, but I do want proactive programs in place so your kid doesn’t shoot mine with the gun you left lying around carelessly in your underwear drawer or glove compartment. The question (IMO) isn’t limiting gun ownership, but educating people so all shootings are purposeful. Then the law can take over and decided whether or not it was a legal shooting. Yes, I understand you can’t fix stupid, but wouldn’t it help to arm them with knowledge as well as actual firearms?

    1. Sadly, as a liberal, the problems you list there are on you to fix, not me. My side is cool with people having guns. Your side has done everything possible to eradicate the gun culture wherever it can, to the point that a kid had better not use his finger and say bang, or chew a Pop Tart into the wrong shape. If you want people to be safe, first they need to be familiar. But it is liberals who have tried to keep people as unfamiliar and uneducated as possible. And if you want the greatest single hilarious example ever, plug ASK KUNTZMAN into this blog’s search engine. 🙂

      1. FWIW, I am absolutely opposed to prohibiting kids form chewing their pop-tarts into the wrong shape (oh, how I wish this wasn’t a real news item), or saying “bang”. But my reasons for doing so are different from yours (maybe): it’s not because I love guns and want other people to love them too; but rather, because I believe that freedom of expression is the most important freedom that there is. If a kid wanted to chew hos pop-tart into a swastica, I’d defend his right to do it exactly as strongly as I would’ve defended his right to wear an American flag T-shirt, or quote the Bible, or post snarky atheist memes on Internet forums.

        1. You do realize that so-called “love of guns” and respecting freedom of expression aren’t mutually exclusive, right?

    2. Those classes did exist in high schools (at least in rural PA where I grew up) as part of the PE and health program. Your lot got them eliminated.

      1. My high school had a pistol range in the basement, which when built was shared between the high school for certain classes and the local PD.

    3. Personally, I’d like to see guns treated the same way as cars.

      If you want to operate a gun, you have to take a mandatory training course, followed by both written and practical exams (with the emphasis on safety, not just hitting targets). You have to pass a background check (*), and you have to get re-certified every few years, to make sure that you are still mentally and physically capable of operating a gun safely.

      All of the above grants you a license to own and operate a basic everyday gun — e.g. a pistol. If you want to use something more advanced, like a sniper rifle, then you’d need a lot more training (and more stringent registration). If you want to use something mass-destructive, like a shoulder-mounted missile launcher, then pretty much your only option is to enter a military career.

      If you are caught wielding your gun in an unsafe fashion, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, your license can get taken away. You probably won’t get it back.

      (*) Admittedly, this requirement is more severe than the one for owning a car, but I feel it’s justified, given that cars are methods of transport and guns are weapons.

      1. Personally, I’d like to see guns treated the same way as cars.

        Sure, lets regulate guns just like cars.

        After all, you don’t need a background check to own a car. You don’t need a license or registration to own a car if you don’t drive it on public roads. You don’t need to be an adult to buy a car. If you do have a license and registration, you can drive your car in public in any state in the union.

        So that would mean I don’t need a license to own a gun, just to carry one in public, and once I get that license I can carry it anywhere I want, in any state I want. I could buy one if I was 16, I could buy one if I were a felon, and I wouldn’t even need a background check.

        *reads rest of post*

        Oh, wait, you didn’t actually mean that, did you? You meant, lets regulated gun ownership, a constitutional right, FAR MORE STRICTLY than cars.

        Also, before you try and go about crafting gun regulations, maybe you should actually learn a bit about the subject first. A sniper rifle is just a rifle used by a sniper. During the Vietnam war, they were basically gussied up hunting rifles – commercial off-the-rack Winchester Model 70s, tuned up a bit by a gunsmith. Most modern day deer rifles are more accurate than most sniper rifles were until maybe 30-40 years ago. Hell, the Remington Model 700, one of the most popular deer rifles around, is the basis for the M40 sniper rifle used by the Marines. Because when it comes down to it, deer and people are about the same size and take the same amount of killing, and if you want to do it quickly and humanely you need something that looks an awful lot like a sniper rifle.

        1. See my reply to TheWriterInBlack, below.

          Regarding deer/sniper rifles specifically, this brings up a question: what do you want to do with your gun ? If you want to prevent an armed attacker from entering your house, then you don’t need a weapon that can accurately hit a target a kilometer away. If you want to hunt deer, then you need to apply for a more specialized license (by analogy, class C driver license vs. class B), and this will require more specialized training. If you want to assassinate President Trump, then maybe you shouldn’t have that gun, after all.

          1. You know Indiana is quite restrictive in what can be used to hunt deer. Shotgun loaded with slugs or “pistol caliber rifles”, where the rounds fall within certain size limits (.44 Magnum is popular) or handgun (again, with certain size limits). Oh, and 5.56 NATO (AR15) is not considered powerful enough for deer. Too wimpy to be a reliable, and humane stopper.

            For squirrel, however, you can use anything, anything at all. .50 BMG? Perfectly legal. .577 Tyrannosaur? Yep. 22 mm Lahti? So long as you have the BATF license for the “destructive device” go for it.

            Mind you, everybody either uses shotgun or .22 LR, but they could use any of those others (if your interest was more in “vaporizing” the squirrel than meat for the table).

          2. Right, when I said, “if you want to hunt deer, then you need to apply for a more specialized license…”, I meant, “this is an illustration of my proposal”, not “this is how I believe the system functions now”. Hence my next statement about class B vs. class C driver licenses. Sorry for the confusion — although, it seems like Indiana’s regulations are already close to something like this; so, do you believe that Indiana’s laws are too restrictive ?

          3. Didn’t you one time make an argument about getting a state ID card in order to vote was like this huge, epic, probably racist, anti-freedom thing, and that voter ID was bad? But now you’re talking about class Bs and Cs and mandatory training classes and hoop jumping in order to exercise a different constitutional right, and that’s cool?

          4. And now you’re going with the “need” requirement that further undermines your BS “license guns like cars” for which, surprise surprise, there is no need requirement. If I want to buy a Semi-Tractor and use it for my commute to work (provided I get the appropriate license for that size vehicle–not a CDL because I’m not proposing commercial driving) that would be my business, not yours. If I wanted to drive it around my back forty (if I had a back forty? Hey Larry, could I drive it around Yard Moose Mountain?) that would be my business.

            “Need” requirements are absolutely unacceptable because we’ve seen where they go–the bar goes up and up and up until they become an effective ban.

          5. And need requirements mean that inevitably the state will find a reason you don’t need it.

            In states that have a need requirement for CCW, the only way to satisfy it seems to be that you need to carry a gun in order to still make massive campaign donations to the political party in charge of the issuance.

          6. You really don’t know much about guns, do you? Because this is starting to sound ten year old boys explaining where babies come from.

          7. No.

            I’m in Australia. Those limits already apply. Folks here might think that’s ‘sensible’ but we also aren’t allowed to use firearms for self defense as a reason for purchasing a weapon. In fact, even citing it ever will likely disqualify you nationwide for it. So no, the ‘reason-based need’ is bullshit.

            I am told that it is POSSIBLE to get a conceal carry for self defense permit here, but YOU have to prove to SOMEONE ELSE’S satisfaction that YES YOU NEED IT.

            Someone else who isn’t in your situation. Someone else who isn’t likely to be there with you when the chips are down, and the shit hits the fan.

            And as for the belief that ‘guns make robberies easier’ – this is not necessarily the case. There’ve been a number of stories here that show attempted armed-with-gun robbers get beaten up with anything handy – including the cash register hurled at the head of the robber.

            There are also stories of someone who has broken into a house, confronted by an owner who happened to be cleaning his firearm after coming back from the range. (Empty) gun is pointed at them to make them stop, sit the fuck down; the home invader is arrested, and the freaking OWNER OF THE HOUSE AND THE GUN gets slapped with a fucking case because he used the damn gun as a threat against the invader. The case is often filed by the home invader. It takes a while for that lawful owner to be cleared (if they are) and that’s for doing the right goddamn thing.

            So no, take your ‘reasonable’ limits and ‘needs’ and shove it. Someone else’s ‘reasonable’ isn’t more often than not.

      2. Ah, the old “License guns like cars” canard. I’ll take that over the current situation right. this. instant. It would be an unqualified win for gun owners.
        License only required for operating (shooting) gun on public streets.
        No license required for ownership purchase.
        No license required for transporting/carrying on the public streets.
        No background check for purchase.
        No Federal license required to be in the business of selling or manufacture.
        Licenses available at 16, “Use with supervision” training licenses available even younger in some states”.
        Licenses recognized in all States and most foreign nations.
        No license required for use on private property.
        Genuine emergency a positive defense for unlicensed use even in those cases where a license is required.

        This is where you go “but, but, guns are different!”
        Which means your “like cars” comparison goes right out the window.

        http://thewriterinblack.blogspot.com/2015/02/license-guns-like-cars.html

        1. FWIW, I explicitly added the background check provision in my original post, and explicitly mentioned that, yes, this would be more restrictive than car regulations. I would also argue that the “license required for shooting only on public streets” doesn’t make much sense: when I fire a bullet from my front porch, it could hit your house all the way across the street. Presumably, you wouldn’t want that to happen.

          I’m also not sure about gun licenses being available at 16, but that’s because I’m not sure that car licenses should be available at 16, either.

          As far as I know, some form of federal approval is required for the manufacture of cars; e.g., every car must have working brake lights, turn signals, steering, etc. Also note that different regulations exist for cars vs. motorcycles vs. 18-wheelers, etc.

          I find the rest of your points are more or less acceptable. We could certainly quibble over the details; but for now, I’d like to know why you think that it’s a bad idea to require background checks for the purchase of a device whose primary purpose is to kill people.

          1. “and explicitly mentioned that, yes, this would be more restrictive than car regulations” IOW, that you knew the comparison was bogus from the start. When you made the “license guns like cars” comparison you didn’t mean it.

            “when I fire a bullet from my front porch, it could hit your house all the way across the street.” And if you’re driving a car on private property you could cross into a public sidewalk and mow down a troop of girl scouts. In both cases we already have laws against reckless endangerment and negligence. So, again, you didn’t mean it with “license guns like cars.”

            “As far as I know, some form of federal approval is required for the manufacture of cars” You’re wrong. Only for use on public streets.

            “every car must have working brake lights, turn signals, steering, etc.” only for use on the public streets.

            “Also note that different regulations exist for cars vs. motorcycles vs. 18-wheelers, etc.” only for use on the public streets.

            Look, I used to compete in autocross. Lots of cars, many of them of much higher performance than any cars you’ll see on your local highway that aren’t in any way licensed for the street. And these cars were transported (carried) to the event without being licensed. And it was entirely legal. Not one law broken. It’s only operating these cars on the public streets that would have been illegal.

            Pretty much anything competitive in other than a “stock” category is not going to be legal for the street, but is perfectly fine on private property (like, say, the competition venues).

            “I’d like to know why you think that it’s a bad idea to require background checks for the purchase of a device whose primary purpose is to kill people.” Leaving aside the “whose primary purpose is to kill people” loaded language BS, waste of time and waste of resources that doesn’t accomplish anything positive. It’s just another in an endless series of laws intended to get people used to the idea of restrictions. At least so far they’ve limited the restriction to folk who’ve lost their right under due process (well, except for the false positives with which the system is rife), but they’re working hard on taking that away now. When something, predictably and predicted, cannot fulfill it’s stated goal one has to look at what unstated goal it is fulfilling. In this case compromising away one more piece of cake:

            http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-compromise-illustrated-guide-to-gun-control/

          2. I always find the “primary purpose” argument to be a bit ignorant. Are people killed by devices whose “primary purpose” is not to kill things somehow less dead?

            “Oh gosh, someone hit by a truck and killed! At least it wasn’t by someone using a gun! That would be SO much worse since a gun’s ‘primary purpose’ is to kill someone!”

            It’s also emotive in nature. It implies that it is never good to kill someone. Sorry, but a would-be rapist or mugger or a murderer killed before they can complete their crime sounds like a net good to me.

          3. Bugmasters argument about relative dangers of guns versus cars would have been a lot more compelling before Muslim terrorists discovered how easy it was to drive a truck through a crowd.

          4. I’m not sure that car licenses should be available at 16, either.

            This will go off topic, probably, but…

            The safe operation of a car is primarily dependent on learned reflexes, not on the age of the driver (pace insurance actuaries).

            If a person starts driving a car at 15, then that gives them three more years of experience at driving a car than someone who starts driving a car at age 18.

            For the sake of argument, let us assume that both teenage drivers exhibit care and caution in their driving.

            The 18 year old with 3 years’ experience will be a better, safer, more reliable driver than the 18 year old newb, because after three years of practice, the actions of driving have become automatic and no longer require thought, freeing the driver’s attention from the action of driving, and thereby allowing them to pay attention to road hazards.

            Furthermore, for those three years, the teenage driver is under the care and guidance of his parents, who can monitor or limit where and when he practices his driving, thus giving the driver a safety net and in-house mentor that the legal adult can’t count on having.

      3. My experience has been that most people who suggest treating guns and gun owners the way we treat cars and drivers is not really a serious proposal. At some point, every such person I’ve talked to who has suggested such a thing has defaulted to a “but guns are different so I don’t really mean it” position. Here’s why:

        – Registration, licensing and insurance requirements are regulated by each state, not the federal government.
        – Licenses are granted based upon meeting very minimal requirements on a “shall issue” basis.
        – There is no requirement to demonstrate “need”.
        – A licensed driver and/or a properly documented car from one state are recognized by all other states a driver chooses to visit.
        – Renewal of a license requires simply paying a fee to the state. There is no requirement to demonstrate ongoing competence.
        – Moving from one state to another requires simply paying the licensing fee to get a license in the new state of residence.
        – Licensing requirements typically apply only to operating the vehicle on public roads, not private property.
        – A person may own as many cars as he or she can afford, can buy as many within any given time period as can be afforded, can own manual or automatic transmission vehicles with small or very large fuel capacity. The engine can be as large as the owner desires. The car can produce as much torque and horsepower as the owner desires and can run on a variety of fuels. The vehicle may have the capacity to carry two passengers or 60.

        1. *grin* thanks very much for that handy list. I’ll send it to my hubby; he gets into a lot of these discussions, and we’re in Australia. Though, some of the things might not hold true here, but I’m sure he can adapt it.

      4. You know that is a discredited bullshit idea that liberals often bring up, regulate guns like cars, but after my people go through the details (as I see several already have) you guys usually back off.

        Because I am totally cool with allowing 16 year olds to carry machine guns in public after they get through with their public school provided infantry training class. 😀

        1. Just calling an idea “discredited bullshit” isn’t very persuasive to one’s ideological opponents; I think you’ll need a little more than that to convince me 🙂

          Also, I would like to point out once again that I explicitly specified background checks as an additional restriction that I’d like to place on guns vs. cars. As I said above, I think this is a reasonable precaution to take when dealing with the purchase of a device whose primary purpose is to kill people.

          That said, I’m not sure what the situation is like in Israel now; but back in the day, military service in that country was mandatory. So, you would often see young soldiers coming back from base to visit their families (Israel is a very small country), carrying all kinds of weapons (though I’m not sure about machine guns, presumably they might be a bit too heavy to lug to your grandma’s house). I think this is a reasonable policy (especially in Israel at the time, when you were in very real danger of coming under attack at any moment), but note that soldiers undergo a lot more training that, say, teenagers who are learning how to drive.

          1. I explicitly specified background checks as an additional restriction that I’d like to place on guns vs. cars.

            Thereby invalidating the whole comparison and showing you didn’t really mean it. IOW, exactly what Larry just said.

            but note that soldiers undergo a lot more training that, say, teenagers who are learning how to drive.

            That turns out not to be the case:

            Air force training back around 1981:
            “Dry fire” a one day classroom session where we learned how to field strip and reassemble an M-16. Learned about sight picture. Had some discussion of the terminal ballistics of the 5.56 NATO round. Learned a bit about the M-16 direct impingement cycle. Practiced loading and unloading with dummy rounds. Oh, and learned the procedure to try, once, to clear a jam with the explanation that if it jammed again, well, it’s a battle. There will be casualties. Pick up one of theirs to continue the fight. (I think this was meant to impress on us the seriousness of combat more than anything else.)

            “Wet fire” one day at the range using M-16’s that had been converted to fire .22 LR. A brief round of fire for famiarization. Three rounds to “zero”. Then about a hundred rounds going through various shooting positions (prone, sitting, kneeling, standing, across a barricade, and offhand across a barricade). Total time on the firing line, less than an hour.

            That was it.

            Drivers’ Ed in High school: 15 weeks, three hours a week, of classroom instruction. Then 4 weeks, three hours a week (but split between three student drivers, so one hour a week each) of driving instruction.

          2. I’m less familiar with American military training, but in Israel, you’d better be able to un-jam your weapon. It’s not just your life that’s on the line; it’s the life of everyone in your family — who, by the way, are only about a dozen kilometers behind you. Their training is a bit more hands-on.

            That said, military training is not just about clearing jams and hitting targets. It also mentally prepares you for combat, so that you neither freeze up nor start shooting erratically. It trains you to fight as part of a team, to follow orders, and it trains you to know exactly when and how you should attempt to kill someone. It’s not just a crash course on a shooting range; but rather, an entire discipline. That’s a bit more than a driver’s ed course.

            If every gun owner in America underwent such training (and if those who washed out, could not own guns), I’d be perfectly ok with that situation.

          3. So in Israel they don’t consider the possibility that your personal weapon may be screwed up beyond a quick “field clear” and cover contingencies for that case? Poor planning if you ask me. SNAFU is SNAFU because AFU is always SN.

            The training was “here’s how you clear a jam. If that fails, here’s what you do instead of spending more time fumbling with a malfunctioning weapon, time in which you are out of the fight and nothing more than a target.”

            “military training is not just about” So, basically, you want to put in a lot of requirements that have nothing to do with actually carrying a personal weapon simply to make it harder for someone to do so.

            It isn’t about safety or anything like that. It’s about restricting guns for its own sake.

            Thank you for that concession.

          4. The “mandatory training” argument always comes down to that. Someone else’s personal comfort zone. And the comfort zone is usually defined by somebody who doesn’t know dick about the subject.

          5. Gee, the “mandatory training” I got also included butt-strokes and bayonet drill. Think they’d be comfortable with that?

          6. I am a big fan of training. I am, however, utterly opposed to mandatory training. Simple fact is, mandating it accomplishes nothing. Some states have mandatory training requirements before permitting people to carry. Others don’t. No significant* difference in either accident rates or “bad shoots” between those that do and those that don’t.

            The subset of people who won’t get training unless it’s mandated are also the subset of people who will forget it as soon as they pass whatever test you have at the end. Mandating training is nothing more than an attempt to add barriers to entry to make it harder for people to exercise their rights.

            *significant in this case means “statistically significant” which means enough difference to be able to tell with 95% confidence that there is any effect at all.

          7. I don’t remember the states or the hours in question now, but many years ago I had to look up a bunch of stats because I was on tap to testify in front of the legislature in favor of permitless carry (that particularbill fell apart, so never did). But I recall one big take away. Comparing the states with more mandatory hours of training, to those with less, to those with none, it didn’t make a lick of difference.

          8. No. Even if we all went through that training, liberals would find another way to not be okay with it.

            Also, as professional trainer? Bullshit. 🙂

            The thing about mandatory training vs. voluntary training, the mando training people pay however much attention they need to in order to pass the test, and then they forget about it. People who want to be there retain it. Just like some people are good drivers and some people are shitty drivers, and the mando drivers ed makes no difference.

            Clearing jams? Snort. Piece of cake. It isn’t rocket science.

            We talked about cops earlier? Same thing. Mando training. The ones who care will do good afterwards, the ones who don’t give a shit will suck. And no amount of mandatory training piled on top of that will change it.

            Military? Same thing. Only the ones who give a shit about that will end up in the units that do that sort of thing, because it is their job, and they have NCOs and officers who will yell at them if they don’t. It is funny how much better you are when you have to be. But everywhere else that it isn’t part of your job? Mando training checkbox checked, forget what doesn’t matter, go on with life.

            It’s the same reason college general ed requirements are stupid. I got an accounting degree. I had to take bullshit classes ranging from liberal arts to calculus. I learned enough to pass the tests, laughed at the liberal arts as I got an A, managed to get a B in calculus, quite literally forgot everything the day after the final, and have not thought about calculus for 20 years. But by golly, the university still took my tuition.

            Mandatory training is bullshit. It is none of the state’s business.

          9. Oh, that’s where you are mistaken. I have zero delusions of ever swaying my opponent. Internet arguing is a spectator sport. You argue in order to convince the undecided and give ammo to your side. Very rarely does your opponent argue in good faith, so if you are arguing to sway them, you are probably wasting your time.

            And discredited bullshit remains discredited bullshit, regardless of your feelings.

            The thing about the additional restriction just goes to show what I said before, the whole license guns like cars is a smoke screen argument. It is old, tired, and always falls apart once the gun nut gleefully says okay, let’s do it.

            Primary purpose is irrelevant. Gun or cars can both kill you. Both can be used as weapons and both can kill on accident. And don’t even try the thing about guns being easier, because several recent events prove conclusively that you can be extremely lethal driving a truck through a crowded place.

            Your thing about the weight of machineguns shows your ignorance again. If we use the US legal definition, then it would be any weapon capable of multiple shots off the same trigger pull, so any Uzi, Galil, or M-4 you saw somebody sling in Israel is a “machinegun”. If you mean a GPMG or SAW, you probably didn’t see anybody lugging around a Negev, but still, no big deal. The M249 is a handy little piece.

            And no, it isn’t safe to assume soldiers undergo a lot more small arms training than a teenager learning how to drive. Because if their MOS is combat arms, then yeah, that’s their job, so they spend more time on the guns. But for something like I believe 80% of the military, shooting and direct combat ain’t their job, so if they get some brief training and then the rest of their training is on stuff like keep the wings from falling off this airplane or how to fix a tank.

            See why it is easier to just say discredited bullshit is discredited? If I had to write an essay about everything a liberal gets wrong, I’d have no time left to write books. 😀

          10. It’s worse than that, Larry. Unless the MOS is some form of infantry, even those in combat arms don’t really get much small arms training. I was artillery, and I knew some tankers too. None of us did more than yearly quals with the M-16 after Basic and AIT. And none of us even touched M-60s or M-79s after that (showing my age, I suspect).

          11. Huh. this was interesting. Where I live we have:

            machine pistols (usually 9mm)
            machine rifles (5.56 or 7.62) and
            machine guns (half-inch and above)

            I was just assuming that the US had similar distinctions so every time people were talking about machine guns I’ve pictured someone lugging a Ma Deuce around. Thanks for the clarification.

          12. Yeah, US legal definitions have nothing to do with military definitions. Our laws make zero sense.

          13. How in the world can you even compare guns to cars? Cars are not ‘designed to kill people’ yet they kill a metric ass load of folks every year. I have lost far more family members to cars than firearms, and most of our men go into the military.

            Cars are far more dangerous to operate. I’ve seen dozens of accidents with cars some fatal. I’ve seen a few malfunctions of firearms none of them caused a single injury much less death. I’ve been shot at more than once. I want nationwide concealed or open carry.

          14. ***Looks up and down the thread to see copious amounts of rebuttals and ignorance-killing knowledge.***

            ***Remembers the 73 other similar threads that everyone else also remembers.***

            So you’ve done the “skim until offended” trope here.

            ***Returns to not taking Bugmaster seriously***

        2. Infantry training? Nah, the two day “dry fire” (spend a day in class learning about the M-16 and how to field strip it and put it back together) and “wet fire” (spend a day at the range where, after all the “hurry up and wait” you shoot a hundred rounds or so of .22LR through an M-16 with a conversion kit, not even a dedicated upper) and get maybe 75% of them into a man-sized target at, I think it was 50 yards that we did back in AF basic would be a more appropriate comparison. (Second time in my life that I’d picked up a rifle. Four points shy of shooting expert. Four damn points.)

          1. Yeah, I know, but I didn’t want to complicate it for Bugmaster. Remember that I taught CCW for free to anybody in the military. I had plenty of times where my basic shooting instruction was the most training they’d ever had. If they aren’t combat arms, they probably don’t get to shoot much. Not always, but that’s the case.

            And the single most incompetent student I ever had claimed to have been a Ranger. My ass he was. 😀

      5. Not only no but hell no. Last I checked I have a Constitutional right to own a gun. I have never seen one about driving a car. You are comparing apples and oranges here. What you are essentially saying is that I have to ask the government’s permission in order to have the ability to exercise the right to remove said government.

    4. In general, the kids of people with legal firearms are far less likely to shoot another kid with a gun they found lying around than kids who don’t come from gun owning families. The gun nuts’ kids have seen firearms in action and know these are dangerous; the other kids have only seen them on TV where, whether because of dramatic licence or ignorance, guns are usually portrayed as far less deadly than they actually are (see the X-Files episode where Scully shoots a crazed Mulder, and Mulder is perfectly fine in the next scene except for a bandage on his shoulder).

      I remember reading about a study done in a preschool where the authors hid a replica gun and wanted to see what the kids would do when they found it (this was at least 10 years ago, and no I don’t have a link, so take it with the proverbial grain of salt). The kids of gun owners all went and told the teacher about the gun, while the kids of non-gun owners were inclined to pick it up and play with it.

          1. One time I was talking to somebody about gun control. I was with my (at the time) 8 year old daughter. The guys said “You can’t honestly expect everyone to remember these four rules of gun safety!”
            I looked at daughter. “Correia 2.2 (not actually her real name) what are the four rules of gun safety!”
            Immediate response “Assume all guns are loaded. Finger off trigger until ready to shoot. Never point it at anything you don’t want to shoot. Be aware of target and what’s behind it.”
            I look at the guy… Smugly. 🙂

          2. I used to work with this guy from Oklahoma (and formerly Miami Dolphin linebacker) who said this about gun control that I still quote to this day: gun control is about how to hold your gun.

      1. What I used to tell my classes was the kids who got hurt were the ones where the gun was kept in Dad’s Forbidden Closet of Mystery. (from the Simpsons). And then I’d ask, who in here had a parent with the Forbidden Closet of Mystery. Hands go up. Now who in here, as soon as Dad was gone, looked to see what was inside the Forbidden Closet of Mystery. All the hands go up. See? There you go.

        When you teach your kids about guns, you remove the mystery. It’s simple.

        1. I’ve seen it demonstrated, back in 1989; Indoc aboard the USS John F. Kennedy. A Marine LT gave a talk about what the MARDET aboard does, how to work with them, etc. He brought a 92 from his cargo pocket, handed it to a sailor in the front row, told him to look at it & pass it on. I was close to the front, & when it got to me, I checked & saw a casing in the breech. I didn’t know much, but I knew enough to check a weapon.
          I figured the LT knew his gig, & said nothing. MAJOR FAILURE on my part, but I wasn’t as smart then. I passed it on. A little while later, I heard a loud noise behind me (a 9mm blank is LOUD in a steel compartment): sure enough, some idiot had to trip the trigger. I wasn’t 4-rule trained, but I had also been taught not to finger the trigger.
          I’ll never forget the look of contempt on the face of that large, black, professional LT of Marines. He probably expected it from the 1st or 2nd row, we being sailors.
          I’d bet money that the sailor who fired the blank had never handled a firearm before, or had only done so a couple of times.

  54. Ya know I pretty much said this on the post where you mentioned the relief of the election being over. I also mentioned it on twitter on the #iamstillher but my account got suspended. Thems the breaks. Grant it my twitter post was “To you #Iamstillwithher pansies that afraid of government tyranny now, guess what the second amendment was for? Retards”.

  55. As if I needed another reason to be a devoted fan….great oration. I started to conceal carry when I came home from mid-tour from Afghanistan. It became the first weapon I ever personally owned. I felt naked having been in a situation where I virtually slept with a weapon to nothing was intolerable. My wife and two sons have gone through a basic course and we go to the range as a family event. PLEASE keep up your thoughtful comments. They gave me hope (and a smile) after a very trying week of reading absurdity on facebook.

  56. Oh, God. Now Frau Buhlert (whinny!) is lecturing about how civilized and non-violent the German police are.

    A person with any class would probably wait until the victims of the Gestapo and Stasi had passed from living memory before doing that.

    Your country murdered millions of its own citizens, dear Cora. Millions. Half of your country was a Communist slave state until 1990.

    Getting a lecture from a German about the proper organization of police is like getting a lecture from a Frenchman about how to set up a republic. They’re so much better at it, you see, given that they’re on their fifth republic while we’re still on our first.

    1. Also, side note. I’ve talked with people who’ve had run-ins with German cops.
      Long story short, Buhlert’s got no clue what she’s talking about. As per usual.

    2. Ha! 😀

      It seems like Germans swing wildly between Unicorns & Sunshine back Jackboots & Cattle Cars.

      But don’t worry. I’d bet good money that whoever is in power, Frau Butthurt would be the first person to rat out a neighbor to the Stasi.

  57. If I weren’t a homophobic, islamaphobic, transgender reverse racist deplorable gun crazed fascist I’d kiss you! But, since I’m all those things and a bag of crazy Christian cookies to boot, I’ll just stand back and applaud. May God bless and keep you.

  58. I’m a leftist, far left, anarchist.

    I did however love this article, specially because I live in California. I still have an AK and a sidearm but of course there is no chance in hell I’ll have the ability to get a CCW anytime soon.

    Anyway we can agree on two things, government should be as small as possible and liberals are the worst.

  59. A nice article but pretty much lost on your target audience. Most liberals need the government to tell them when to use the bathroom or they’d crap in their knickers. Trying to get them to assume responsibility for their own safety is pretty frikken hopeless.

    1. Yeah, I do kind of cover that in brief in this essay, and then in a ton of depth in the provided link. Thanks though. 🙂

  60. From the article: “Almost everything I’ve ever seen from a liberal publication concerning self-defense laws is incorrect. . . . My reality is the one that the jury instructions will be issued from.”

    Just wait until your jury is made up of Generation Snowflake.

    1. Luckily where I live, I’ve got more “millennials” who belong to Generation Kill than Generation Snowflake.

  61. Larry, I will give it a try and distribute your guide to certain suffering “Progressives” here but I will choose the recipients very carefully.

    At every past occasion I engaged in discussions about gun control liberalization I heard people claiming excitedly that it would lead to shootouts over grocery store parking lot spaces. Other violent outcomes were also mentioned but this parking lot carnage was brought up most frequently. I found it very puzzling and I started wondering who those individuals were.

    At first I discounted it as a rhetorical excess but later I learned to respect the deep wisdom behind their fears. These people know themselves much better than I will ever know them and they are mortified by the dark and violent emotions that animate them. Some of them only screamed during those discussions but a few came close to physically attacking me. They know how uncontrollably angry they get in everyday situations and they know why they should not own guns.

    It wouldn’t be prudent to suggest to them otherwise.

      1. *shrug* I could say the same about e.g. anti-abortion arguments. But IMO psychoanalyzing your opponents makes for a very poor debating strategy (not to mention, a poor epistemology).

        1. Since you brought up abortion, let’s talk about that. I usually find that the best way to start is to establish common ground first, then figure out where we disagree. So, to establish common ground: personally, I am against the deliberate killing of innocent human beings. How about you?

        2. Both are white supremacist. The focus on ‘affordability’ and urban clinics suggest targeting of poor minorities. Gun control gives (potentially majority controlled) police the opportunity to make persons vulnerable to proxies. We know in the past that these proxies have been used to murder minorities to intimidate them, keeping them from upsetting the political applecart. In a white majority society divided along racial lines, it becomes objectively white supremacist. To someone skeptical of left theories on policing and crime, the careful maintenance of the criminal gangs makes the gangs look like proxies sustaining a vote-getting psychological state.

        3. No doubt you “could say the same”, Bugmaster, but it wouldn’t make any sense. More importantly, understanding your opponent’s motivation is the key to finding the best debating strategy. *)

          Now, I could be wrong, of course, but what better explanation do you have for their irrational obsession with parking lot shootouts?

          —————
          *) I stopped looking for a better “debating strategy” with the “parking lot shootout” subset once I became convinced what’s behind it. These people are nuts with violent fantasies, driven by emotion and impervious to reason. It’s better to stay away and be thankful they don’t have guns. I don’t have the professional training to help them, anyway.

        4. Your concern for proper debating strategy and epistemology might appear more genuine if you didn’t lead off with a red herring.

          Please give one or more examples of a gun control argument which isn’t based off of fear.

        5. Yeah, but I”m better at debate than you are. So opinion noted and then immediately disregarded. (hey, just like state mandatory training!) 😀

      2. Well, of course. Absent fear and projection, there’s no real incentive to argue for gun control. If I’m not filled with fear and if I believe the majority of my fellow citizens are reasonable and reasonably responsible law abiding people, what logical basis do I have for gun control? None, of course. But, if I’m afraid of you, or that guy over there, or “those people” who are so different than me, ah, now I have an argument for gun control. If my emotions are close to being out of control or if they are so powerful they scare me (especially anger and fear) and I project them onto you (to protect myself psychologically because I know I shouldn’t be so afraid or so close to being out of control), then I have another reason to support gun control. In neither case, of course, can I admit my underlying drive.

      3. You know, I really don’t get it, and I never have. If you’re afraid of your fellow man, generally, wouldn’t you want as much force available personally as possible?

        So, I don’t think it’s about fear, at least not alone. Something else has to be going on that says, “I’m afraid of my fellow man, and I want someone else to do something about it.”

  62. I tell liberals, “hey, you want a fighting chance of winning the Civil Wah you’re starting, don’t you?” Mockingly, of course. I find they are toofa king stupid to even get my point.

  63. I doubt “liberals” (and by that I mean of course “tax-happy, coercion-addicted, power-tripping government sniffers and State humpers”) have enough common sense to listen to your advice. But your article reminds me of something William F. Buckley Jr. wrote during the Nixon Administration, when “liberals” were predicting a Fourth Reich. Buckley said, if that were the case, “surely we should be encouraging rather than discouraging the traffic in firearms. I for one want to have a well-stocked armory when the storm trooper comes knocking on my door.”

    1. Ammo’s in stock.
      Guns are on the wall.
      MRE’s not on back order.
      Gas at all the stations.
      Gold is down.
      Oil is flat.

      Everyone afraid of President Elect Hitler is saying how much they hate him…on their personal Facebook pages.

      I’m pretty well convinced no one is really all that scared.

        1. Nah, it’s just an evolution of the “See how compassionate I am” and “I’m the biggest victim” contests.

  64. I am liberal and I’ll get off my high horse and buy a fucking gun… but as you noted years of being complacent have help make Cali the biggest gun hating state in the US so I will probably have wait a few months to buy a 10 round BB gun……………… Assuming I don’t get flagged in a background check trying to buy the BB’s… Oh well we will see.

    1. CalGuns is an online community devoted to helping people in California obtain and use firearms without running afoul of the various laws that the state (and cities/counties) has passed to make gun ownership difficult. If you’re a California resident, and interested in getting your first gun, you should check the group out.

      http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/index.php

      1. Thanks I’ll check it out. My brother and I were exposed to a variety of guns when we were young at my grandfathers property in Oklahoma.

        I just never wanted to purchase a gun until I had time to go through some formal training, figure out what I actually need, and get proper storage for it in a safe of my liking.

        A decent sized investment when your starting from scratch.

  65. Good coverage of the basics, some of it damn humorous. Can’t say I disagree with a single thing you said.

    Sadly the people that need it won’t get past the intro. I’m from a very blue city (Seattle,) so I actually am forced to get along with Liberals and I’ve made a discovery that will shock you. Most of them are decent human beings. People on both sides of the aisle tend to fall for a principle that I call ‘scum floats.’ Rational, intelligent and flexible people don’t make good news, so we don’t tend to hear about the fact that most of the folks on the other side are just folks, not wild-eyed mouth-breathing morons. If approached with respect they will respond by listening and thinking about what you have to say, and may even- *gasp*- change their minds.

    As a result of being forced to associate civilly with Liberals I’ve engaged in a lot of discussions on the topic of gun control, gun ownership and self defense, and a hell of a lot of them change their minds when respectfully confronted with facts, figures, the writings of the Founding Fathers and a history lesson or two. Works much better than derision and contempt. Funny that…

    Yeah, I’ve encountered that vanishingly small percentage of them that roll their eyes, spin their heads around and begin speaking in tongues as soon as they find out I’m a conservative, and I write them off about as quickly as I write off the whack-jobs from our side of the fence. Your shots are on target- but it’s the wrong target; I’d venture to say that any liberal that regularly reads your blog is already at least open-minded about guns, if not already actively pro-gun, pro 2nd amendment. Such folks tend to keep quiet around the internet because they are tired of Conservatives flaming them.

    That being said if Trumps election drives more liberals into our camp at least it will have done some good. As for ‘marginalized’ people being hysterical about fearing the assholes of America will be emboldened by Trump’s election its not all media hype and hysteria. Four people that I know personally have been harassed or sexually assaulted by self-proclaimed Trump supporters since the election. The fact that these people are a small minority of Trump’s supporters doesn’t mean that they aren’t a legitimate threat.

    On a personal note- I love the Monster Hunter series! Keep up the good work, please.

  66. Too bad. I was actually looking for concrete advice, not a condescending lecture. A lot “liberals” who support gun laws are not as ignorant or stupid as you believe. And you know what else? Although I don’t live in a blue state where it will be exceptionally hard for me to get armed, if I did, I wouldn’t whine about it. I’d deal with it. So, that’s all. Thanks, I guess, for this, but it isn’t exactly chock full of practical advice.

    1. Go find somebody wearing a safety pin and get a hug. There’s plenty of good advice in there. It just wasn’t written in a way that kisses your ass like you are used to.

      Of course it was condescending. I’ve been involved in gun rights for 20 years. Most of your side’s idea of debate during that has been dick jokes and emotion. Your side has been stupid. So suck it up.

      You don’t need to put liberal in quotes. Gun control is a liberal dogma. Because even though there are gun owning liberals (I said so in the article), they have been run roughshod over by the rest of your side. They’ve been so quiet and useless in this debate that they might as well be nonexistent. I’d love to see them be heard.

      You wouldn’t whine? Then that makes you special. You really want to see some whining check all the angry liberals on my facebook feed this week. 😀

      But if you lived in New York City and decided that you’d really like to be able to carry a gun to defend yourself, I’d love to hear how you would “deal with it”. (either you’re really freaking rich and connected, or you don’t mind committing felonies!)

      1. Facebook comment sections are like every where else. You will either make a comment and get lots of back pats or you will be eviscerated verbally by an angry mob disagreeing and making death threats. I swear you could be arguing with Buddhist monks and they would still make death threats. Social media has always been such a healthy place for discussion and thought exchange…………..

    2. Sorry dear, but if you support the gun laws you seem to be supporting here, you are as ignorant and stupid as we believe.

      1. To be fair there are reasons other than “ignorant and stupid” to support those gun laws. Mind you presuming “ignorant and stupid” is giving the benefit of the doubt (opposed to “deliberate deception and intent to control”), but it isn’t the only reason.

          1. They might’ve just been raised white supremacist, and simply haven’t the brains to learn better.

    3. If we don’t want to universally be berated for being stupid on the left by gun owners we have to willing to admit at least some of our gun laws are ridiculous.

      Its hard to read a a California gun law and not see how insane most of them are. But states like California are famous for having a crazy set of laws on all fronts.

      I am really loving our new 10 cent bullet proof plastic bags they are making us buy…. On the plus side I don’t think my eggs will ever rip through a bag again.

    4. Michelle, (if Michelle comes back), I’ll hold your hand if you want to. If, by any chance at all you did come seriously looking for concrete advice… it comes down to this…

      Go to your local range (if you’ve got one, see above) and sign up for a class. Rent a few different guns to try. Decide what you want to accomplish. Do you want to shoot for the fun of it. Do you want a gun for self defense at home. Do you want a gun for self defense outside of your home (if that’s a possibility where you live, see above.) If you’re a member of the LGBT community, look up Blazing Sword (see above) to find someone to show you the ropes in person.

      My advice… if you’ve never shot a gun before start with a .22 because it will go bang but not “kick”. But recoil isn’t actually that bad once you’re used to the idea of holding something in your hand that goes bang. Don’t be afraid of it.

      /concrete advice ends.

      1. You say “see above” several times.

        I can’t tell if that’s humor or not. I’ll admit I’m having trouble with that lately.

      2. To tag on to your advice:

        I’m 4’7″, female, with teeny little hands and slender wrists. The Glock I tried firing was too ‘fat’ to hold comfortably, but the recoil was not horrible. C’mon it’s 9mm. I found the Smith and Wesson somewhat more comfortable, but it was so badly maintained it had what I could best describe as a ‘sandy-feeling trigger.’ I showed the target I shot to some of my American friends online and they said that as miserable as I described the guns to be, I did a fantastic grouping (as someone put it, if that had been center mass, the target’s liver would be gone.)

        That was the FIRST time I ever shot a pistol. (I’ve fired rifles before though.)

        For small handed females, I’ve handled CZ-75 and the Israeli Jericho variant; and they fit in my teeny lil mittens. They were not uncomfortably heavy to hold either. Y’all are in the US, and you’ll be allowed to handle the gun to see if it fits in your hand comfortably, unloaded.

        It annoys me that people like to pretend that every gun or rifle’s recoil will be on par of a Desert Eagle thus OMG SO SCARY WAH BANG BANG WILL LOSE CONTROL OF SCARY GUN. It’s not. I’m more scared about driving (because lives other than my own are at risk; and drivers here where I am … gah) than I am shooting; but everybody drives so it’s not ‘scary’. And I imagine it’ll get less intimidating with practice.

        1. I’ll chime in with my personal recoil experiences.

          I’m abou 5’6″ laid out, but get around in a wheelchair or crutches. I’ve got solid upper body and hand strength and weigh north of 200. Recoil isn’t an issue for me aside from enjoyment of shooting.
          I don’t like the 9mm round because it feels “poppy” to me. I feel it in my wrists more, particularly with Glocks. I can shoot my wife’s 9mm all day, but it’s not what I find most enjoyable. Everyone outside my house loves their Glock 26.
          The .45 isn’t normally the go to for people who didn’t like the feel of the 9mm, but I think it’s great. It feels more like a shove than a pop to me, and while it’s definitely a bigger bang and I can tell it’s more force, the way that recoil is delivered makes a big difference. I carry an XD .45, and use the extension mag because my mitts are pretty big, and I don’t like the feel of my fingers going off the end of the grip.

          The real point is to try out a few. Many ranges will have an intro class that has a sampler portion. I’ve never been to a commercial range that won’t rent a gun and take the time to show you it’s ropes.

          1. Might be true in the mainland; I did my ‘try shooting a pistol’ thing in Guam. They were so badly taken care of my hubby then boyfriend wanted to take the guns apart and clean them. After having shot the ammo we paid for, we left and he said if he’d been told to inspect those firearms, he’d have listed them as unsafe to use.

        2. Yeah, recoil isn’t anything to be afraid of in a sort of “nothing to fear but fear itself” sort of way. It’s the expectation of the kick that gets you. For anyone who wants to shoot but is a little timid because they never have, just getting used to the whole process with a .22 , well, maybe that will help get past the first confidence curve due to holding an exploding thing in your hands. But I don’t say so because recoil is horrible (and no, don’t let someone hand you a desert eagle, that’s just not funny) because it’s not. And yes, a .45 sometimes feels nicer than a 9mm or a .40 or something smaller. There’s physics reasons for that.

          1. I agree with all of what you said; .45; or 9mm, or another caliber, or different gun model/brand/type, it’s really up to the preference of the shooter. I just used myself + 9mm pistol as an example of ‘if tiny little me can shoot one of those okay the first time ever, then someone bigger than me is more than physically capable of handling a gun.’
            It’s all a matter of finding a comfortable grip, methinks.

            I will admit that I was a bit tense for the bang on the first shot, but after that, having experienced it, it was no longer something to flinch about.

          2. This is how I wound up with a 1911 rather than the smaller pistol I expected to like. (Though Unlike Shadowdancer, I have rather large mits, but it’s mostly in finger length. My husband’s 45 is too ‘fat’ for me to feel comfortable with though my fingers’ll hold around it. His palms are bigger.)

    5. Hi Michelle! Not sure why you weren’t directed here by any I think you might have been looking more for this post:
      monsterhunternation.com/2007/09/20/carbine-vs-shotgun-vs-pistol-for-home-defense/
      (fellow lefty, has no idea if you are getting comment reply notifications but just in case)
      It’s purely practical, very worthwhile despite the age. If anyone else follows this though just make sure to check your state’s limits on magazine capacity etc–I live in Cali but we’re probably not the only state with limitations (which are about to get worse in a year or so thanks to this really, really problematic proposition we voted in just now)

  67. It seems like it may be time again to consider having a short stint of military service and training be mandatory for all young people. Some of the craziness on the left vs right schism just stems from being severely out of touch with each other.

    I mean you look at your average ex college student like me and we are just capable of living on a make believe planet where guns are never necessary, or inherently lead to unsafe conditions.

    If my family hadn’t had a few prolific gun owners in it I easily could have been raised having never touched a weapon.

    Probably wont happen I guess…

    1. Tell you what… Send your kids to conscript mine into your proposed slave army, and we’ll see which one of us ends up crying over a flag draped casket.

    2. I won’t support any such mandatory “service” under any conditions. I have so many problems with it that listing them all would be tedious. So I’ll just pick a few.
      1. Unless you yourself already served, as a volunteer (Full disclosure: I did, proudly, six years before being injured and unable to function in my primary job), can you see how distasteful it seems to have someone suggesting mandating an activity they, themselves did not partake of ? When it comes from anyone not a vet, it really gets me spun up.
      2. Our all-volunteer force is, and has been for quite a while, the best military force on earth. I served with some great people, and from what I’ve seen, the current crop has been even better. If you ARE a vet, would you ever want to be in combat with someone who was FORCED to be in the military to begin with ? How well motivated do you think they would be.
      3. Another distinct advantage to the AVF is that most if not all of those volunteers are willing to set aside most of their “I’m SPECIAL” attitude in favor of “WE’RE special.” They subsume a **part** of their ego for the good of the unit. “My mission, my men, myself” is the doctrine, and it only works well if everyone embraces it.
      4. A “mandatory” stint in the military would not actually do much to help people. Much of people’s attitudes are shaped long before they sign up, it’s their BEHAVIORS that the military can and often does change. If one is an asocial “go your own way” person, or a person who succumbs to even modest pressure before signing up (and I’ve seen a few), they don’t suddenly change when they put on a uniform. I realize that Hollywood movies like to FANTASIZE that happens, but in real life they either wash out or become significant disciplinary problems to be dealt with. Doesn’t make them “bad people” per se, but success in a military unit requires particular personality traits. About the only one that I’ve seen the military “change” is confidence — if a recruit is willing to go the distance, they might find that distance much greater than they’d believed possible.

    3. Nope.
      Nobody in the military wants a draft.
      Do the math. We can’t afford that. It is economically silly.
      And it isn’t the government’s job to teach “character”.

  68. Thank you, that was awesome! As a gay man and a proud gun owner, I am going to send this to all my friends and family who think that I am nuts because I choose to carry a weapon. I think that after this election they may start to reevaluate their anti-gun stance, and your guide is just what they need. By the way, I am still ROFL at ” LGBTWTFBBQ community”.

    1. yeah, I truly meant no offense with that, but seriously every time I see that acronym being used it is four letters longer. 😀

      1. Last time I looked, they had it as LGBTIA – the last two being ‘Intersex’ and ‘Asexual.’

        I know an asexual gets rather grumpy about being dragged into the list. “Why are asexuals being dragged into a group whose main purpose is to trumpet their sexual identity, when we’re not interested in that shite?”

  69. What about the fact that owning a guy significantly increases the chances of getting killed by a gun? Gee, you’d think it would take more than one sentence to destroy that long-ass rant.

    1. What about the fact that owning a guy significantly increases the chances of getting killed by a gun?

      You mean that complete and utter lie told by Kellerman? Sorry, but it takes more than repeating a lie as though its the truth to make your case.

      1. Now, now, he could have picked another bogus study, or, you know, blindly regurgitated something that heard “totally like demolishes those gun nut’s dreams” and never bothered to look it up.

    2. Well, yeah, if you’re a slaver, then you probably are more likely to be shot than somebody who doesn’t own guys.

      In other news, proofreading is your friend.

    3. “Gee, you’d think it would take more than one sentence to destroy that long-ass rant.”

      You do realize that the topic wasn’t “Likelihood of Death by Firearm,” right? Focus, sweetie.

      1. Ya know, even if your one sentence was the sick burn you think it is- it isn’t- immediately patting yourself on the back kind of sucks the life out of it.
        Ooo- sick burn on you, dude!

    4. That would be great, if it were actually a fact.
      Plus, I don’t think you understand what the word “destroy” means.

      Seriously, motherfucker, I argued this shit for a living. Get good, scrub. You’re boring me. 😀

    5. Gee, you’d think it would take more than one sentence to destroy that long-ass rant.

      Not if the “one sentence” is a completely unsupported assertion, genius. The typo only makes it mildly comedic.

      *pats SeaVik on the head*
      There, there. I’m sure you tried SO hard.

      1. SeaVik is a strong Warrior for Social Justice. His mom told him so, and who’s going to argue with a shelf full of participation trophies?

  70. Thumbs up, sir. Well-done…and this is from a “gun-totin’ liberal PoC. As my dad would say…sometimes whether you like it or not, “shit is just true and you have to deal with it whether you like it or not.”

    This is definitely one of those situations. Not that I have ever been against private ownership of firearms. I just hate that I enlisted in the time period where they stopped allowing you to take your weapons home after your term of service. I totally miss Jasmine (my M-16/203)…that was a hell of a girl!

      1. From what I can tell, preventing everyone else from owning guns, having a…let’s call it a state monopoly, is sorta the prelude to their end game.

    1. So you’re railing against a generalization that wasn’t made with a shittier generalization.

      Might wanna refrain from judging intellect, Chief.

      1. Remember, leftists love double standards. They also think they’re the only ones allowed to use ’em. Anyone else using such against them IS UNFAIR AND MUST BE VERBOTEN!111

        1. How could I forget? One-sentence-wonders like Scotty here serve as a constant reminder that Leftists find intellectual consistency to be exhausting.

    2. Naw, the funny thing is I flat out said in the article you are commenting upon that many liberals already do.

      Man, you suck at this. Liberals, all wrong, always smug about it. 😀

  71. Someone very important to me strongly resembles your target audience, though she’s not anti-2nd Amendment. Some of her best people are LGBTetc… AND live in Portland. Sent her links to this article and Operation Blazing Sword. I believe she remembers our response to the past two elections. Despite not exactly getting what we wanted, we did not move elsewhere. We did not riot. We may have whined a bit. 🙂 But we carried on. I wonder how many people would understand my using a safety pin to hold the straw on my shirt?

  72. Forgot to mention that we didn’t exactly get what we wanted this election, either. SSDD. I think I’m going to go load some rounds for my pretty “new” 1903 Springfield sporter.

  73. This whole war between the candidates, and Trump ending up as the winner, reminds me about Vincenzo Natali’s Cube, where the one everybody would least expect should be the last one standing actually did just that.

      1. I’ve been on Ace a bunch of times before. The biggest hit you get is an Instalanche. Glen beats being on Fox News for traffic bumps.

  74. Liberals should not own guns. They cause enough trouble with bricks, fire, and parking their useless bodies in the freeway. Leftys and liberals are overly emotional, vicious, vacuous babies with no respect for liberty and justice. The ‘protests’ and temper tantrums are bad enough now. What would they be like if the rioters were armed?

    1. Wow. Starting from there, I do not think there is any common ground between yourself and my moronic misgivings. Sure is nice that we all fit into nice little, easily labeled boxes for you.

      1. If you can’t at least acknowledge even a slight validity in his/her point, then I’d say you don’t have any common ground. Look to the riots from 1990 to 2016 understand that, while greatly overgeneralized, since 1990 at least there were far more vacuous babies on the left demonstrating, rioting, and raising hell than on the left. How many riots have there been over the video-taped beating of the Trump supporter in California ? The burning of the Republican HQ ? Shooting of police officers in deliberate ambushes ? The election and re-election of the most stunningly incompetent president in a century or more, aided and abetted by the complicit media ?

        Two truths: A. Most “liberals” are not riotous troublemakers. B. Far more “liberals” are riotous troublemakers than are “conservatives.”. I can deal with the first fact. Can you deal with the second ?

  75. Many of them voted against Bernie Sanders because they thought he was too gun friendly.

    A D-Minus from the NRA is not ok with them. A D-minus made him “An NRA Puppet”

    They are as nuts as people who try to outlaw abortion to save the life of the mother.

  76. What a load of bullshit, from beginning to end. The argument that guns are essential so that we can have “armed resistance against tyranny” just doesn’t hold up. Look at those middle east countries where every male over the age of about 9 years old has a rifle? Did that protect them against tyranny? I think not. But anyway, it’s pointless of me to try to argue for gun control here – not likely to convince anyone, am I? The pro-gun side won this election, so your side gets to make the rules. Guess maybe I’ll have to get one myself, since that is the kind of country we seem to be living in.

    What really pisses me off about this article is the attitude that liberals somehow don’t understand guns. What’s to understand? As the article points out, they are tools that fire a projectile at high speed, which can hit a target, bring down game, or kill or injure another human. Just what is it you think we don’t understand?

    The other thing that pisses me off about this article is the attitude that this election was just a disagreement about policy. No, it was more than that. Trump is a racist, misogynistic, bully. In other words, an asshole. I was confident that, no matter what my republican friends thought about economics or immigration or whatever, they would never support someone who bragged about assaulting women and getting away with it. (Would you leave your teenage daughter in a room with this guy?) If you support somone like that, then you are complicit.

    1. I give this comment a 1/10.
      Stale, hackneyed, makes no new arguments, and adds no new life to the old ones.
      Would not read again.

      1. Meh. Didn’t wanna look for it. Don’t really care anyway.
        The post is like one of those vegan friendly hot dogs. Bland and lacking any real texture or taste.

    2. If you want people to vote on personality, don’t nominate someone whose personality is just as nasty as her opponent’s. That’s not a difficult concept.
      Oh, and if Trump tried to assault one of of Correia’s daughters, Mike Pence would be President–and LC wouldn’t have to lift a finger.

    3. That was some weak ass shit. 😀

      Here we go!

      First paragraph, apples to oranges comparison, about a topic you obviously know nothing about. Typical liberal, always wrong, and always smug about it.

      Second paragraph, conflates simple definition of the tool, with an ability to effectively use the tool. The same way you understand the principles of what a parachute does, but you’d turn yourself into pizza using it incorrectly.

      What don’t you understand? Scroll up. Big article. How to buy one, how to use one, how to obey the law, how to use one legally in self defense… Duh.

      Third paragraph, a liberal doubles down on the winning strategy that anyone who disagrees must be an idiot racist. Misses the part that Hillary was also an unlikable asshole. I’m not a fan of the grab them by the pussy comments either (did you miss the part where I repeatedly said I didn’t vote for him?) But I’m not too worried about my daughters, because they will be carrying guns. 🙂

      The last little bit about if you support someone like that, then you are complicit… But you miss the part where the other candidate also sucked and did a bunch of stupid crap, which by your logic, if you voted for her, then you are complicit… Oh, but wait. I forgot. It never works that way with you guys. Your shit don’t stink.

      Carry on, noble prog!

  77. Thank You , after reading your article I feel a lot better. Much like after a large fart , I just left the bad feelings go.

  78. But Correia! You’re not a marginalized Mexican transsexual Muslim! What do you know!? WOW, what a racist P>O>S!!!

    1. If I’m a racist, I sure am doing it wrong, what with encouraging and empowering all those people I must want to victimize. 🙂

  79. Just another moron here. Wondering if everyone is in agreement that a US citizen who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia with intent to do harm to himself and others should be allowed to purchase AR15 assault rifle with expanded capacity magazine? Still OK if he lives next door to your child’s school – It’s all good, right? Would you feel safe and secure if teachers at that school had guns as well? Granted, after just a few shots the teachers might be out of ammo. But maybe if we gave teachers AR15 rifles as well… ? Look, most morons respect that having a gun is a right, and damn near all Americans are very responsible gun owners. What they want are a few laws changed so that the crazies/US enemies out there cannot keep killing innocents. I realize there is a balancing point – you don’t want buying a gun to take 3 months and require more paperwork than buying a house, but you also do not want it to stay as it is now, with anyone being able to go to a gun show or an online site and buy as many guns/ammo as their heart desires. I HATE that every time we even try to discuss this, the NRA frames it as the morons are trying to TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS. No. That is not what we morons want. We want responsible laws.

    1. Well, that was a lot of horse shit.
      But here goes, because I’m going to be generous and assume that you aren’t arguing in bad faith.

      1. If somebody is adjudicated as being a danger to themselves and others, then they are added to the prohibited persons list on NICS. They can also already be legally disarmed by the state. However, this requires due process (as is the right of all US citizens) and it requires the US mental health system to do its job.

      2. See that link in the above article where I talk about gun control laws? The stuff about armed teachers is in there. After a few shots their guns are empty? Why did liberals in that state mandate that they could only carry derringers?

      3. I also go into AR-15s and expanded capacity magazines, and why your hyperbolic nonsense is tired and old. Go read that so I don’t have to waste my time repeating myself.

      4. You guys always talk about sensible gun control, and just a few more little things you want to change, but then you immediately demonstrate that you know fuck all about what the existing laws actually already do, or what the repercussions of your regularly proposed laws would be. Seriously, go read that link. I spend 10k words going over all your “sensible” gun control in depth.

      5. As for the thing about how nobody wants to take our guns away, nonsense. That just shows you haven’t been paying attention. Because we’ve collected plenty of examples of liberal politicans and thinkers saying they’d do exactly that if they could get away with it. And we’ve got the example of the rest of the world under progressive governments where they’ve done exactly that. And you know jack shit about what the NRA actually says. You know Salon’s interpretation of what the NRA says.

      6. You don’t want responsible laws. You want a unicorn to fly down a rainbow and fart glittering utopia all over you. You want bad people to quit doing bad things. Good luck with that.

      1. Horseshit. It’s amazing what that stuff can do.

        1) Are you working equally hard to increase education and funding to our mental health facilities to help the system do its job to prevent mass shootings?

        2) “No. Hear me out. The single best way to respond to a mass shooter is with an immediate, violent response.” That very well may be correct. But that is reactionary – the shooter already has his guns/ammo and is actively killing. Would not a better approach to be finding ways to stop him before the shooting starts? I find it borderline insane that you think the solution to mass shootings is arming everybody. Imagine a world where all US citizens carried. Is the average US citizens smart and responsible (and remember, they are smarter than half the people out there)? I think we would agree the answer to that is “Not so much” (hell, look who they voted into the white house – not exactly a pillar of knowledge). There would be thousands of shootings DAILY in this country if we all carried guns. Each american (of which I am one) thinks they are
        1) The most important person in the world
        2) Entitled
        3) Correct

        And those are the sane americans. It is outright laughable that some think more guns is the solution to preventing other shootings. Sure, if a mass shooting happened, then yep, I bet a fully armed populace would “take em down” and we could cheer. However the price we would pay would be ‘yuuuuge’ increase in accidental deaths, crimes of passion, and full on gun-based idiocy. That is not a tradeoff I think gets us anywhere, in fact it would feel like the situation has gotten worse and/or more out of control. I’m sure

        Your responses #3-#6 were all rooted in anger, huh? “waste my time”….”you know fuck all”… “And you know jack shit”…. You seem to know all about me, what I am, and how I think But, is it possible that the conclusions you have come to are not 100% correct? Or perhaps rooted in opinion rather than science? Confidence is great, but none of us have all the answers, and the people who close their mind and stop listening to the needs of others should not be involved in the discussion anymore. Clearly, you are not hearing the needs of all americans, but just focusing on your own personal story and ego.

        So just to be clear, any attempt to change any gun law will be met with your opposition? It does not matter what that change might be, because any change from existing gun laws is wrong and would/could impede your second amendment rights. If there is zero room for discussions/opposing viewpoints, then why even post this article? So sheeple with like-minded views can nod in agreement?

        This is a damn big country, and we need to have gun laws that accommodate inner city as well as rural america. Maybe leaving it up to the states is the best approach. I do not know what those changes in laws might be – open minded people need to come up with novel solutions – but the system as it is flawed and needs change. The tragedies are too much for reasonable americans to live with.

        Look, you sound to me like an incredibly responsible, very competent person who, imho, has every right to own and fire guns. I would hate to infringe upon those rights, because, honestly, I agree with most of them. US Citizens should always be allowed to carry firearms. But it also sounds to me like you completely closed your mind off to any possible discussion of how we can address any kind of change.

        You started with “Horseshit” and ended with I want “a unicorn to fly down a rainbow and fart glittering utopia all over you”. If you call me enough names, it does help to disregard my opinion. After all, who care what some horseshit spewing fuck off thinks, right?

        1. Oh, here we go now. Progs, always wrong, and always smug about it. 🙂

          1) Are you working equally hard to increase education and funding to our mental health facilities to help the system do its job to prevent mass shootings?

          No. Not my area of expertise. I’ll stick with the arming and training of responsible law abiding citizens, because I’m an expert there and I’m good at it. If you are so worried about it, you go do that.

          All your stuff under #2 is bullshit. Sorry if that word offends your tender brain, but it is what it is. You don’t get a trophy here for having a stupid opinion. Sorry. No matter how many times you toss out the word science, that doesn’t make you scientific. And no many how many times I laugh at your appeals to emotion, that doesn’t make you a philosopher. I’m confident because I know my stuff works, and I know your stuff is silly. History, reality, stats, and human nature are on my side. Feelings are on yours.

          Reactionary? Yes. Just like fire extinguishers and seat belts are reactionary.

          None of your preventive measures work in real life. We’ve been through all of them. You are pitting your wishful thinking against evil, and as long as evil people exist, they will continue to not give a fuck what you think.

          The bits about the huge increase in accidental deaths and crazy wild west shoot outs with an increase in gun ownership? Nope. Again, that’s your projection and wishful thinking. Because in most of the US we’ve got guns everywhere. If I walk into a big room in my home state statistically there are a bunch of people carrying guns… Yet, those high gun ownership states have lower crimes rates and fewer shootings.

          So me saying that you know fuck all about the topic isn’t anger, it is just the truth. Lady, this ain’t angry. This is me being weary, because I’m having the same argument with a toddler for the 1000th time. You are too ignorant to rate anger my anger. At most you get annoyed pity.

          “Clearly, you are not hearing the needs of all americans, but just focusing on your own personal story and ego.” Lady, I taught this shit for ten years to thousands of regular people, was involved, looked at the evidence, got trained, worked with law enforcement, worked with lawyers, and basically did this for a living. You read an article on HuffPo, so you think you have a clue. You are a walking example of the Dunning Kruger effect. 😀

          “So just to be clear, any attempt to change any gun law will be met with your opposition?” As long as they remain pointless infringements upon the rights of innocent citizens, and accomplish nothing-or even the opposite of their goal, then yep. Damned right.

          The thing is, any suggested law, I can go through line by line and explain to you the repercussions in the real world. While you can bleat like a sheep and say don’t let bad people have scary guns!

          “This is a damn big country, and we need to have gun laws that accommodate inner city as well as rural america.” – In other words you are a racist, and that’s code for you don’t want scary minorities to have guns because it frightens you.

          “Maybe leaving it up to the states is the best approach.” – Which is why all the pro gun states are shocked and appalled by your idiotic gun laws, and don’t like the fed trying to shove them down our throats.

          “I do not know what those changes in laws might be” – Then maybe you are full of shit, and we’re all tired of your needless virtue signalling. Come back when you have an actual suggestion.

          ” If there is zero room for discussions/opposing viewpoints, then why even post this article?”
          Commandments of internet debate
          1. Never expect to sway the willfully ignorant.
          2. Argue to sway the undecided.
          3. Argue to give ammo to your side.

          “open minded people need to come up with novel solutions” – You are so open minded your brains fell out.

          “but the system as it is flawed and needs change” – Yep. Clueless fuckers who know jack about gun laws should go get educated before they spout off about laws they don’t understand, or they should shut up and quit annoying us. Because the system is flawed, we’ve got too many pointless gun laws. And we got them based not on reality, but on liberal feelings.

          “The tragedies are too much for reasonable americans to live with.” – The fact that you’re saying this to somebody who spent years teaching school employees for free how to respond to school shooters is ironic.

          “Look, you sound to me like an incredibly responsible, very competent person who, imho, has every right to own and fire guns.” – Yep. WAY COMPETENT. You sound like a clueless dilettante with very little actual knowledge, but extremely strong feelings.

          You are upset that I don’t automatically respect your ignorant opinions? And suspect that I am closed off from discussion? Tell you what. As soon as you bring an actual legal proposal to the table, I’d love to discuss it. But you want me to molly coddle your feelings, and respect your demands that we do some nebulous SOMETHING? Bite me. That isn’t discussion or debate. That’s listening to a liberal lecture me about you care harder than I do (while in reality, you do nothing but virtue signal, and I spend my own time and money helping people).

          We’ve been having that “debate” for decades, and frankly, my side is bored. Your only “point” was something that is already law, and we were all like duh. History has shown us that the debate on this topic consists of emotional liberals posturing, and then cramming through pointless, ass backwards laws. And since you always propose the same debunked nonsense, why should I provide you a platform to weep on? Nope. You can fuck right off.

          “After all, who care what some horseshit spewing fuck off thinks, right?” – Pretty much. I’m glad you finally caught up.

          Now quit wasting my time.

          1. I believe you are about as hard line as they come, so i’ll take your advice and try talking with people who can listen without lobbying personal attacks or telling me to fuck off if/when I do not agree. However, since we are playing ‘put each other in a box’, let me take a shot? You are male. Grew up rural, and have been around guns since you were a child. You are possibly ex-military with a high school education. You did well enough in school – middle of the pack – lots of kids smarter than you, but you never cared too much about education anyways – it was a waste of time. You voted for Trump. You think cops never do wrong. You think all liberals are self righteous, stupid, but most importantly, weak. Which is why you assume that I am a woman cuz you called me ‘Lady’ so many times – typical misogynistic brute. Above all else, you believe might makes right. How’d I do? Probably not very well.

            Well, I am a red blooded american MALE – been here all 50 years of my life. I’m married with kids. I love this country, and will fight for it and what I believe. I won’t leave this country or back down because backwards thinking mouth breathers such as yourself can scream louder than others. Hey, this name calling sure does FEEL good, I see why you do it so much. But in all honesty, I hate name calling (sorry for the mouth breather comment). Once someone starts lobbing insults, the ears turn off. Which is what mine are going to do now.

          2. You are sort of close, but again prove that you’re a dolt. I said in the very beginning of the essay that you are bitching about that I didn’t vote for Trump. I did grow up dirt poor and rural, yes (I assume you guessed that because I’m not a whiner and I am content not to meddle in other peoples’ business?)

            BUT then you really flub it. I got good grades. Though I did think school was bullshit, as does pretty much anybody who is an independent thinker who doesn’t like wasting their time on busy work. Then I worked my way through college, got a degree, learned more in 6 months as an auditor than in 4 years of college, was successful in the corporate world, ran my own business, sold my own business, did really good in the corporate world, and now I’m self-employed and independently wealthy.

            If you don’t want me to think that liberals are full of shit, then maybe you should present a coherent argument beyond emotional freak outs and virtue signalling. Note, scroll through these comments and you will see other liberals that I treated with respect, instead of scorn. That’s because they didn’t come off as complete dopes.

            I called you lady, because I thought you were one. Forgive me if the never ending parade of bleating progressives commenting on my blog begin to run together after a while. I don’t even bother to remember your names because you morons all sound the same since you all make the same tired emotional arguments.

            If I’m a misogynist, I must be really terrible at it, the way I keep encouraging women to get armed, trained, and empowered to defend themselves. 😀

            I must believe might makes right? Not at all. Everything I’ve written demonstrates that I’m in favor of the rule of law, I spent eight paragraphs of the essay you’re commenting on talking about empowering the people more than the government. And I believe in the God given unalienable right for the individual to use force in order to protect their life, liberty, and property from unlawful force initiated by someone else. So you’d have to be a complete fucking imbecile to come up with that theory.

            But you know, imbeciles gotta imbecile.

            But might decides who is left, because evil people look at you like you are food, and if you can’t protect yourself, then you only exist at their mercy.

            You turned off your ears when you feel insulted? Not surprising. You obviously turned off your brain a long time ago.

            But you feel insulted because I call you names? Good. That’s sort of the point of me calling you names. You have the right to free speech, and I have the right to make fun of your silly nonsense. If you want to be taken seriously, then present a serious argument. You failed to do that, and thus, you deserve nothing but scorn and mockery.

            Basically, you strolled up, skimmed an article until you found something to get offended about, then shit on a stranger’s rug. We listened to you blather self-righteously long enough to understand you don’t have a clue, and then we dismissed you. Now you’re acting butt hurt that we won’t give you a participation trophy.

            No. You get nothing. Fuck off.

            Go find somebody with a safety pin and get a hug, you big diaper baby.

          3. And just to add… “Middle of the pack”. Heh heh heh. Dumb ass.

            Reminds me of when I was undergoing a psych eval for a police job. The smug and extremely liberal Berkeley educated shrink was looking at my college transcripts, noted my grades (hey, when you’re working 40 hours a week and going to school full time, you take what you can get), and tried to provoke me over my 3.4 GPA. I just smiled and told him that was because I had a real major like Accounting, rather than a pussy major like Psychology. 😀

            But please do regale us more with your vast knowledge of guns, laws, and self-defense, noble Prog! We await your vast wisdom!

          4. To be fair, Larry, his line “probably not very well” indicates that he was trying to be bad at his guesses. Trying to “prove” something about stereotyping and generalizations.

            What undercuts that thesis is that his every post here demonstrates that you nailed him.

          5. Uhm…when you do that fighting for the country you love…are you planning on using harsh language?

            The .32 Denunciation has really bad stopping power against active shooters.

    2. ust another moron here. Wondering if everyone is in agreement that a US citizen who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia with intent to do harm to himself and others should be allowed to purchase AR15 assault rifle with expanded capacity magazine? Still OK if he lives next door to your child’s school – It’s all good, right?

      “Nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Which word didn’t you understand? Per the Constitution a person can be deprived of liberty, including exercise of RKBA, with due process of law.

      So get that court order, where a person has the right to representation, to see the evidence, to question witnesses and challenge the evidence and, yes, you can prohibit RKBA for an individual.

      As for teachers, are you saying that teachers are violent individuals likely to harm students? Because here’s the thing: if a teacher is a threat to my daughter while armed with a firearm, he or she is also a threat to my daughter when not armed with a firearm. If they can’t be trusted with guns, they can’t be trusted with my daughter. Period.

      As for the claim that it’s some conspiracy to take our guns, well:

      http://thewriterinblack.blogspot.com/2014/09/nobody-wants-to-take-your-guns.html

      1. Apologies for not being clear on that. I was trying to say we would be entering an arms race, so to speak. If killers might have knives, give the teachers guns. If killers might have guns, give the teaches assault rifles. If killers might have assault rifles, then give the teaches armor piercing rounds and a bigger gun…. It is a ridiculous escalation.

        1. No. That’s just stupid and ridiculous. And I say that as somebody who lobbied for armed teachers in my state, and we’ve had concealed carry in schools for a decade with no problem.

          Concealed carry is usually limited to pistols, because that is what you can hide on your person all day. If a bad guy gets shot by a little 9mm or a big .308, the important thing was the immediate violent response, not the size of the gun. Go read my big article which is linked above because I talk about this in depth. That way you will quit embarrassing yourself.

          1. If killers might have knives, give the teachers guns. If killers might have guns, give the teaches assault rifles.

            Wow. That’s just…wow.

            You think having a bigger gun makes an assailant bulletproof? The fact that I’m armed with a firearmat all provided the deterrent effect I want. An assailant can get killed just as dead by my little .380 as he can by a giant AKR-1457 with a million shot magazine filled with exploding, heat-seeking, bad smelling, cis-het, cyanide rounds.

            There are reasons why one might want one of those “evil black rifles” for home defense which I outline in my own post on that subject ( http://thewriterinblack.blogspot.com/2015/02/home-defense-firearms.html ) but “to have a bigger gun than the other guy”) is not one of them.

            All you have demonstrated is that you have absolutely no clue about the subject of armed self defense. None, whatsoever.

          2. I know right? That bit about the teacher arms race was shockingly dumb. This mope sounds like one of the moon landing deniers arguing with astronauts, yet he still can’t figure out why we won’t take him seriously.

        2. “Arms race” does not apply in this civil-arms context, or in any context of civil arms. No one au courant with the matter of private armaments has used the term for maybe twenty-five years. Fretting over “escalation” is a nonstarter too — it’s already a murderous situation, and you need to control the damage. When the killers die, the situation is de-escalated.

    3. You’re not making an intellectual argument here or downthread. You’re emoting. This is why you’re getting the reaction you get.

      Unsolicited Advice: Read the OP slowly, and completely. Make a fact-based argument. Use reason and statistics. Stop impugning character by appropriating who is supposedly “reasonable.” What you’re using is not reason, by any objective standard..

  80. I have all the MHI books on audio (and print (I’m a fanboy, blow me)). Did anyone else read this and hear Earl Harbinger’s voice?

  81. Thank you for such a good response to all of the chicken littles who somehow feel that by losing the election our country will morph into something akin to Nazi Germany overnight.I guess their fantasy world has suddenly turned into a nightmare…doesn’t make it any less real though. Still just figments of their imaginations. As an aside I do believe the fact Trump was elected means that the checks and balances our founding fathers put in place will function better than they have since Nixon because I doubt the republicans will just vote party lines if Trump steps out of line. The same couldn’t be said for the dems if Hillary had been elected.

    Anyway, I am finally committed to getting my CCW which I’ve been interested in for years. Big divide between interest and commitment. I served in the army for 5 years but since have not kept up with guns and such. I’m hoping you would be willing to point me towards some reliable and comprehensive sources for info on good handguns to consider, caliber, holsters, training tactics (don’t want to do this without the proper training regimen), reloading and anything else I should be considering in this. I’ve read many of your posts on the topics and want to learn more before I go talk to dealers. Keep up the good fight.

  82. Awesome. I shared it on fakebook and twitter, on the off chance that some of my leftist loved ones haven’t blocked me yet. Trading books for Glocks? I liked to think that you only carried tricked out 2011s, either custom built by badass monster hunter chicks, or built and magically Enhanced by John Moses Browning himself. What a shame.

      1. Glad to see my instincts are correct. One day I’ll have the funds for one of STI’s masterpieces. Does “one of everything” include Heckler und Koch?

  83. Sir, I was originally introduced to your Monster Hunter novels. And while I enjoyed them, I believe it is possible that you missed part of your truer calling.
    This blog entry is, in a word, Outstanding.
    Thank you.
    Jim W
    EOC(SCW), USN, Ret.

  84. Wow this great and was relinked to the VCDL in VA. I am going to post to FB and see how many of my demmarxists friends read it. (yes I have many)

    1. Really? Because I only said that in the article you’re commenting on. Now you just need to make yourselves heard, because your party acts like you aren’t even there.

      1. I think it’s because these liberals who own guns feel safe to admit that only to non-liberals that their party behaves as if they don’t exist.

        In function, they don’t, as far as their party is concerned.

  85. Mr. Correia, I was introduced to your work by what you did for Privateer Press and a friend recently introduced me to this a short time ago. I just want to say that I loved your books and this post has solidified me as a fan. I wish you the best.

  86. I’m a few weeks late on commenting on this post, but I’d like to offer a few words that will probably be shouted down in the echo chamber that is this comment section.

    Whatever happened to civility? People are often jerks while expressing their opinions. I don’t think the appropriate response is to be a jerk right back. I’m a liberal. I live in one of the bluest of blue states. I don’t appreciate the tone and tactics of the modern progressive movement. Likewise, I don’t appreciate the condescension and insults in Larry’s post. I also haven’t had anyone threaten me with arson-rape-murder for my opinions, so my dogmatic belief in taking the highroad hasn’t been as thoroughly tested.

    It would be my preference for intelligent people to disagree civilly and be able to defend their viewpoints with facts. Based on the content of the things that Larry writes, he is 100% capable of doing just this but seems to have been bated into perpetual mud slinging. And yes, I say the same thing to people with viewpoints that I agree with who are being rude assholes. Conversation gets further than shouting.

    Speaking to the actual subject matter of the post, I do think that guns are very misunderstood. Most people that I know that don’t like guns have never shot one. I like to take them to range and show them that shooting is quite a bit of fun (even in Maryland I can be at 2 indoor ranges and 4 skeet / trap ranges inside of 15 minutes). A couple rounds of skeet with a Beretta A300 is wonderful therapy.

    I am a firm believer in second amendment rights and I think that everyone should learn to shoot. I think that people offering opinions about guns when they don’t understand them is stupid. I think people offering opinions about same sex marriage then they don’t understand it is equally as stupid. I’m a big believer in socratic wisdom and real tolerance.

    1. First off. You come in slinging insults about echo chambers, while simultaneously demanding civility. Mote, meet beam.

      Notice that in the 600+ comments to this thread, many have come from disagreeing liberals, but the only ones met with immediate hostility are the ones which started out hostile. So basically, your allegation is bunk. But we’re all used to that. Also, unlike like my liberal novelist equivalents’ blogs, I don’t massage, delete, or manipulate the comments, and I don’t block people for disagreeing.

      And no, you personally haven’t been threatened. I have. A lot. I ran out of civility years ago. Probably after about the 20th time a “Caring Liberal” threatened to murder me. I notice that it is super easy to lecture others about the value of Nice when you are an utterly sheltered tool allied with the bossy team. So get back to me as soon as you weather your first angry lynch mob of conservatives trying to destroy your career for going against accepted group think.

      As for the wisdom, tolerance, and Larry was rude and hurt my feelings blah blah blah, like I’ve said repeatedly, there were a hundred other articles written that week making the exact same point, and they were “polite”, only nobody read those. They read this one. Because it was interesting and funny, so tens of thousands of people shared it.

      But uh oh. I forgot! Only liberals are allowed to be provocative! Whoops!

      I’ve been doing this shit for years, Mr. Polite. So buzz off with your Marquis of Queensbury rules. I got sick of people like you a decade ago when I discovered that your constant demands for civility only ever ran one hypocritical direction.

      1. I probably shouldn’t have lead with the echo chamber comment and if that touched a nerve, you have my apology. As for being “an utterly sheltered tool” and your belief that I’m obviously a hypocrit and wouldnt say he same thing to someone being a jerk in blue shirt, it’s probably not worth my breath to attempt dismantling the straw man you’ve constructed.

        I buy your books because I think you’re a talented writer. I appreciate that you have a work ethic and treat writing as a job and not some mystical art that requires 5 years before you can even hint at the realease date of your next book.

        I will stick to commenting on the books.

        1. “Touched a nerve” is an interesting choice of phrase. When you could have just said you came out the gate as a douche. Scroll up. See all the many unedited comments? Take your echo chamber and shove it up your ass.

          As for the hypocrite comment, not a straw man. Rather a guess, based upon our many prior Civility Police. Because we never see you assholes warning everybody to be nice in the comments of lefty novelists blogs… Oh but wait… Maybe you do, and those just get deleted, kittened, or disemvoweled. You know, like an actual echo chamber.

          Thank you for purchasing my books. I will continue to produce the finest entertainment product possible. And in my free time I will continue saying whatever the fuck I want, however I feel like, because I live in America. 🙂

    2. What on earth does SSM have to do with anything? Since you can’t seem to fathom the reason for Larry’s tone, despite his multiple and clear explanations, you might refrain from bizarre analogous reasoning to the majority here who didn’t miss the point.

      No one here wants to use this sort of tone, but this tone is a reaction.Take your deep and abiding concern for civility to the “progressive” forums which have abandoned it. Rules for Radicals wasn’t written by a Right Winger. Indeed none of the volumes of civility subverting literature comes from the Right.

  87. My son, certified firearms instructor, ex-Marine, ex-police officer who led an anti-drug squad, Libertarian, and a person who makes his living working with firearms, and who has to suffer with me, his lefty, pinko commie, Jew father (actually I’m really only his lefty, atheist father) sent me to this URL to read this article because I said in passing that now that I expected to be rounded up soon and shipped to a camp, maybe I ought to get a gun.

    Not that I haven’t used firearms. I enlisted in the army and served 5 years, but that was a long time ago.

    Anyway, I decided that I’ll be dead before the roundups actually start — I’m almost 80 now. And as far as having to protect myself from the baddies, I’ve got through 80 years without ever having to, so I figure that I’ll make it another couple of years without a gun.

    So why am I bothering to write? Just seems to me that if you really wanted to write “A Handy Guide For Liberals Who Are Suddenly Interested In Gun Ownership” you could have left out all the tired our side/your side digs and just presented the important information for the audience implied in the post’s title. But, thinking about it, I guess you did need to pander to your regular audience to stay in character.

    1. As to this tired cliched bullshit right here “So why am I bothering to write? Just seems to me that if you really wanted to write “A Handy Guide For Liberals Who Are Suddenly Interested In Gun Ownership” you could have left out all the tired our side/your side digs and just presented the important information for the audience implied in the post’s title.”

      – As I’ve said to half a dozen other concern trolls who have showed up here, nope. Because there were a hundred other articles written this same week, making the same exact points, only those were “nice”… And nobody read them. But you are all here reading this one, because I made it interesting, so it got shared a lot, and people actually read it. But uh oh… I forgot that only liberals are allowed to be provocative.

      Spare me the whole us/them sanctimony, because I read all the lib/prog sites more than most liberals (I like to know your stupid talking points better than you do), and I NEVER see liberal concern trolls telling provocative liberal authors that more people would listen if only they were “nice”.

      So nope. I’ll keep on doing what I want to do, how I feel like doing it. And you can fuck right off. 🙂

    2. Notice how most concern trolls aren’t exactly models of generous civility in the comments they make here?

  88. Not a good idea. Yeah – let’s talk a bunch of liberals who hate gun owners into buying guns. Haven’t any of you been listening to what they are saying? Jesus.

    It’s not just the guns they hate. It is us and everything we believe in.

    Yeah – that’s the ticket. Talk them into arming up. Then they could kill two birds with one rifle. The newly elected prez and us – the hated racist, misogynist, xenophobic, white christian male. Then the bolsheviks can force their commie utopia on us. Please – don’t give them any ideas since they are all mentally unhinged.

    1. Here’s the thing, like with other rights, either you believe in RKBA or you don’t. If you do, then it must also apply to people you disagree with otherwise see “or you don’t.”

      But here’s the thing, once people start questioning the gun-control (“guns are only for police and military. Wanting guns for self protection is bad. Wanting guns against government tyranny is bad”) narrative they are quite likely to start questioning other narratives. Guns, specifically guns for use against government tyranny, can well be the “gateway right” to a whole passel of others and the realization that we small-government types have been right all along.

      1. Indeed. I’m especially heartened by the upsurge in black interest in (legal) gun ownership. The more that community quits looking to the government for something (in this case, protection), the more inclined they’ll be to quit reflexively looking to the government for everything.

  89. As a left wing, Bernie voting, tree hugging, godless hippie social democrat, I’d like to say: almost every word of this article could have come out of my mouth, down to the ridicule of the identity snowflake politics that no doubt helped lose the democrats the election. Although being from the rural south I’ve always been more open to the idea of gun ownership than your average Chomsky reader, I too have been guilty of finding the right’s obsession with black rifles and tyranny silly and the idea of having to resist state violence a relic of history nullified by the steady march of human progress. But for the last year or so, I’ve begun to see the logic of arming up. Now that a significant minority of the country has elected to hand over the power of the state to a preening quasi fascist kleptocrat (not that I was personally thrilled with the neoliberal globalist alternative) I’ve been sold on the utility of the 2nd amendment as a necessary last resort to defend what the state will not. Hopefully some of you who have sent this article to liberal friends will have helped to convince them, as I have tried with many of my more tender comrades, that in such a divided society, it’s maybe not best to be the side with no guns. The idea of state repression is all so abstract until it’s your beliefs that are suddenly under threat. Like you said, shoe on the other foot. I’ll continue to fight you on civil rights, economic policy and so on, but on the second amendment, consider me converted.

    1. Oh look, another Lefty who doesn’t know what the word “fascist” means. Thank God that’s not a drinking game.

      History and basic civic understanding aside, the irony of a far leftist donning the mantle of Lord High Protector of Civil Rights is always a good for a laugh. No one’s “threatening” your beliefs, Buttercup. No one is coming for you or anyone else to put anyone in camps.

      That’s all your side, Sport.

      But kudos to you for grasping the point of the article…unlike a few other of your less pseudo-intellectual kin upthread.

  90. I want to say what a excellent class it was. Very well put together and interesting. I took alot out of the class. Thank you! I highly recommend you to anyone that wants to take the class.

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